The results of the 'Euro-elections', the elections to the European parliament, unfortunately show how out of touch with the needs of the modern world Europe is at present - they paint a picture of a continent digging its own grave and increasingly marginalising itself in the modern world.
What are the great economic challenges facing Europe? Almost a century ago Europe was overtaken by the US as the latter created the world's first continental sized economy. Europe is now being overtaken by the 'second continental economy' - China. Rapidly developing is the 'third continental economy' - India.
The major challenges for Europe's faced with such a development are clear. To raise its rate of investment to match the new high growth continental sized economies of China and India. To link itself to these rapidly growing new Asian economies. To integrate Europe's economy in order to help achieve the same all round rate of productivity as the US - European manufacturing matches US productivity but its service sector lags behind.
Instead what issues increasingly dominated these elections? Increasingly the alleged 'threat' from immigrants and narrow national particularism.
Italy's economy, for example, is in decline because its investment rate, which during the post-World War II period used to be one of the highest in Europe, which in turn fuelled major economic growth, has declined. Italy's economy has become progressively less competitive. But, to judge by the rhetoric of the Italian election campaign, the real problem facing the country is Romanians and other foreigners - who hold absolutely no power. According to prime minister Berlusconi 'Kicking back clandestines to their countries is working' - as if that would solve any major problem facing Italy even if true.When visiting Prato Berlusconi loudly declared 'there are too many Chinese here'.
Britain, which in London has one of the world's most important international financial centres, desperately needs to strengthen its links with China and India. It has already hampered itself by refusing to join the common European Schengen visa system which allows entry to 25 other countries. The result is, for example, that more than 400,000 Chinese tourists visit France and only just over 100,000 visit Britain. New proposals being loudly promoted in the media in Britain, for example, are that as it is legally impossible to stop immigration from within the European Union all non-EU immigrants should be banned - a measure which will, again, sabotage Britain's relations with India and China.
A smaller, symptomatic, example of such idiocy is the activity of the new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, Johnson has scrapped 'for financial reasons' such events as the annual Chinese lanterns in London's Oxford Circus to mark the Chinese New Year, which used to generate widespread publicity for London in China, and the 'Russian Winter Festival' in London's Trafalgar Square. Instead he has launched a cultural programme with a centre piece of the celebration of the coronation of Henry VIII (which occurred in 1509 for those unfamiliar with the finer points of English history). Doubtless Indian software companies, or Chinese banks, assessing whether to develop their activity in London will be greatly inspired by this new evaluation of England's Tudor monarch.
Generously, regarding Europe at present, one is rather reminded in all this irrelevance by the accounts of the Roman aristocrats who, as the Roman Empire collapsed around them, didn't bother to address contemporary reality but spent their time writing tracts evaluating the rhetoric and etiquette of the Roman Republic and its early Empire. Or, to take another analogy of the same historical epoch, Europe is simply fiddling as Rome burns.
There is a more precise parallel from within the continent's history itself of the pre-occupations of much of Europe revealed at these elections. Countries which rose to peaks of power within Europe were then typically bypassed by others and fell into long periods, typically centuries, of decline.
Northern Italian cities such as Venice, which had powered the early period of Europe's modern economic development, were from the 16th century onwards marginalised and Italy itself remained disunited until 1861. Spain, the 16th century's greatest European power, passed into three centuries of economic marginality. Holland declined from its domination of the early 17th century. Britain, the greatest European power of the 19th century, was overtaken economically not only by the United States but then by France and Germany,
That peaks of power are followed by decline and decay is a common pattern in history. It is therefore scarcely surprising if the entire continent of Europe, which from the 15th to the 19th centuries was the most powerful in the world, passed into decline and increasing marginality. Not only is its current widespread mood of racism and xenophobia distasteful and damaging in itself but If Europe continues with the trend and pre-occupations shown at these election, an obsession with immigrants and narrow national concerns, its decline as a continent is inevitable.
good article and i share your concerns on the rise of nationalism across the European Union, but is the rise of nationalism also a growing trend in China where the state has arguably swapped marxism for nationalism? whilst i admire the economic development of China and its pursuit of social justice, i do however believe that the rise of nationalism is also a growing phenomenon in economic powers such as China and Russia and not merely confined to the continent of Europe.
Posted by: Martin Potter | 20 June 2009 at 23:02