Robert Menasse: Ten minutes

A speech at the European Parliament on the occasion of the celebration,
`The Treaties of Rome at 60`

21 March 2017 in Brussels

Ladies and Gentleman,

I have, as has been made abundantly clear to me, ten minutes’ speaking time. That’s very short, when measured against everything that must be said – but, on the other hand, ten minutes are also very long if you consider that i tis five minutes to midnight. For the European project, when looked at objectively, finds itself teetering on the brink. The clock, however, seems to have stopped, for I have been reading in the newspapers for years now that i tis five minutes before midnight. So even if I were to dramatically exceed my allotted time, at ten past midnight, say, it would still be `business as usual` simply because throughout all historical ruptures there has always been business, for business is, after all, what is `usual`. The only question is whether the `business` after a collapse of the European unification project can still guarantee peace based on democracy, fair distribution and national security or whether friends become enemies again and sovereign citizens turn into authoritarian collectives, enmeshed in fights over distribution that go as far as civil wars and mired in national wars over resources, capital, market access and spheres of influence.

Unlikely? If we are honest, we have to admit that much of what we see has to be described as bleak.

But can we and do we want to allow ourselves gloomy thoughts and anxieties about the future today,  as justified as these might be? Here and now we are celebrating an anniversary, the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome. Jubilees demand jubilation, in celebrations proud self-satisfaction is the order of the day, no war of words but rather a deployment of peace-keeping troops of elaborate platitudes. The more I understand this, and there are indeed many good reasons for celebratory pride, the more clearly I can see a problém here, too: for those paying tribute to the achievement of the founding generation of the EU, their insights and intentions, i tis those who consequently are the most radical critics of the present state of the EU. For reflecting back on the Treaties of Rome shows all too painfully what the generation who are today responsible for European politics have forgotten or never understood. In other words, those praising the founders submit the inheritors to a devastating critique.

Try the following: ask the heads of state and government ort he ministers of the European member states who make decision today in council what the ideas and intentions were of that political generation who negotiated and signed the Treaties of Rome.

You will discover that they do not know. And if you tell them, they will answer: Oh, come on, what are you talking ybour – that`s all cloud cuckoo land, a crazy utopia! Yes, that`s what the men and women say who are politically responsible today, who for that reason see themselves as pragmatists because, not having any vision of the future, they deal only with crises which they themselves have so pragmatically created. The founding generation, basing their ideas on the experiences of history, thought far ahead into the future, but today all that is attempted is the prolonging of a bad present that has forgotten its history and is blind to the future. That is the true crisis. And that alone is why i this five minutes before midnight.

What is it then about the Treaties of Rome that make of that project a cloud cuckoo land, a crazy utopia? I only have ten minutes, now only eight, and in these I want to say what it all bolls down to, even if this might not sound so festive. I need two minutes first to recall to memory what the European Union, whose birth certificate is the Treaty of Rome, should be.

In the first half of the twentieth century European nationalism led to two cataclysmic world wars and to the greatest crimes against humanity, culminating in Auschwitz. European civilization was in ruins. From these experiences a lesson had to be learnt: we must make it impossible for this ever to happen again. That phrase alone, „Never again“ was a promise to eternity. The question was how to reconcile successfully and long-term the warring nations and overcome nationalism so as to make possible a lasting, peaceful and free co-habitation on this continent devastated by history.

The founding fathers of the United Europe had experienced first-hand that peace treaties and alliances made between nation states do not prevent wars. From this they developer the idea to mesh the economies of the nation states together in such a way that a system of mutual dependency and finally a partnership based on common interests would arise, which would make it impossible for nations to embark on separate paths, which had proved historically to be homicidal dead-ends. Good – thus far the history is familiar. But that i salso the reason why the political elite and probably the majority of citizens in the European member states see the E as basically just an improved economic community, essentially, in fact, a common market – something which they mistakenly take merely for an advantage when it comes to balancing the books in the national economy and trade. But political union, this they look at mistrustfully, seeing it as a systém of disenfranchisement and heteronomy, as a threat to so-called national sovereignty, which is why national interests in the common market, which is actually what is wanted, are defended in the form, for example, of the defence of the national job market; as a result of this, citizens and their political representatives find themselves once more caught in the trap of nationalism, the very thing that was meant to be overcome.

The founding fathers, however, had the radical vision that nationalism must be eradicated, root and branch, that is, finally, by the step-by-step dismantling of the nation states. This thought is very important and is what we must call to mind again today: the `EU Peace Project` is in essence a project for the overcoming of the nation states. Simply saying `Peace Project` sound nice – and boring for some even. But it is currently of extreme interest once more and enables us also understand straight away the contradictions that we experience today as crises if we think: at the beginning there was this clear utopia, the declared intention to establish lasting peace through the dissolution of the nation states!

Six minutes left.

The Treaties of Rome are the birth certificates of the European Union. And this Union should be a project for the dissolution of the nation states – this cannot be overstated, for it is precisely this thath the political elites of Eutope today have forgotten or, out og cowardice, have swept under the carpet. In this sense the Treaties of Rome also mark the birth of the Eutopean Parliament. At first the European Parliament hardly had any rights and `teeth` and yet the hour of its birth was a political recolution: the emergence of the first, directly elected, supranational Parliament if not this: to supersede the national parliaments.

In this memoirs, Jean Monnet wrote in that chapter in which he recalled the negotiations that led to the Treaties of Rome: `There was a whole range of national objections. But in the end there was also ths experience: the nations and their political institutions had proved beyond doubt that they were unable in the long term to satisfy the demands of pease and legality. From this everything proceed: immediately, what was do-able politically, and gradually, what was politically do-able only in the future.`

And Walter Hallstein, one of the spiritual fathers of the Treaties of Rome, said in his Rome address: `Whatever it is that we try to decide and carry through, the aim is and remains the organization of a post-national Europe.`

The dimension of the present crisis, which is a backlash, can be measuder by asking the question: Can you imagine any single leading German politician today who would dare to say what the German Walter Hallstein said then? Can you imagine any European head of state or government who would agree with what he said? Exactly. The will all say: that`s crazy, that`s cloud cuckoo land.

The political elite who today carry the responsibility for European politics have clearly forgotten or never grasped the European idea. For why would they otherwise not say what it is all about? Why again and again in Sunday addresses is Europe only invoked but never explained? Why should `European values` and the `European Peace Project` be defended today by the curtailment of citizens` right, by state of emergency and by participation in the wars of others? Why do we turn European values into a phrase, a caricature in effect, instead of living those values, which would mean developing a post-national mind-set, furher developing post-national democracy towards then a European Republic? Why exactly, in shock after terror attacks in European cities, do we wrap ourselves in national flags and sing national hymns and thereby see ourselves as solidly united Eutopeans? Why is it sai again and again with sanctiomonious regret that Europe is unfortunately so hard to explain because it has no `narrative`, instead of loudly declaring that we don`t need to devise a narrative: we have one – men like Jean Monnet, Walter Hallstein, Jacques Delors conceived one but, in the daily business of politics, again and again we have forgotten to say that the reigning idea of the European Project is the overcoming of nationalism, and finally the overcoming of the nation states! What is there that is so complicated and hard to understand about saying loud and clear that it is all about the sovereignty of European citizens, not about the sovereignty of nations. Why can`t that be confidently expressed? Why do we look on helplessly as nationalists gain ground? Why do we grant them concessions instead of confronting them with better arguments?

Our historical experience of nationalism is that it reduced this continent to rubble and ruins, bringing immeasurable suffering to countless millions of people. Nationalism is far from being a beautiful utopia, let alone in accord with human rights, but is rather a crime of history. But the post-national development of the European project, insofar as it has managed to proceed to date taking small steps, has given this continent peace and happiness over a long period – up until now, when it has all been brought to a grinding halt by this reveral, namely that member states have begun again to defend national sovereignty rights over and against the post-national development of Europe. All the current crises in Europe are a product of this reversal. Nationalism is not the solution but rather the problem!

Stefan Zweig warned in 1913 that we either bring nationalism crashing down or European civilisation collapses! We know how this conflict turned out back then. The founders of the European project drew their conclusions from the experiences of the second Thirty-Year War (1914-1945). And should it not be possible to explain this to people? Do the experiences of history justify the present-day compromises with the nationalists in the member states? Of course not. Quite the contrary.

We have competent officials working in the European Commission, we have committed delegates in the European Parliament  - we must establish fot them a public arena to support them in their struggle against the renationalisation of Europe. The gosts will bring a long, painful and lingering illness. The solution would bet he reconstruciton of the European utopia. This is now sixty years old and has already come far in idea, it reaches forward further than anything passing today for political pragmatism.

I now have three minutes. I know that even in this honourable House there are delegates sitting who see themselves not as Europeans but rather as representatives of their nations. They can delay the further development of European democracy but they cannot stop it. And I also know of course that many people in Europe yearn for the restoration of sovereign national states. The Europeans amongst you should not be fooled into thinking otherwise. There are such an incredible number of problems in the world, crises, threats – phenomena not experienced before and still not understood. And many people believe that the nation state is a little like a house in which they are the lords and masters, and that is what they want to be: lords and masters in their own house. And even if they live in the cellar or in the servants` quarters, the demand more and more furiously and with ever greater resentiment that it it the standpoint of the `master of your house` that must be championed by their political representatives. And unfortunately they really believe they are then masters of their fate and not again victims of history. Whoever encourages these members of the electorate and goes about gathering up their votes deceives them all the more. For this post-national proces is happening whether they like it or not and is no longer bothered with national house rules. The sovereignty of the nation states is objectively disintegrating, the political scope of national governments is shrinking, national borders are disappearing, even if some national governments are trying to restore them. The idea of the nation as a community of solidarity has in practice become what it alway was theoretically: pure fiction.

All those things which affect or beleaguer our lives today have in fact been transnational for a long time: the supply chain, the food chain, money supply, ecological problems, the flow of refugees and migrants, the internet and its socio-political ramifications, the surveillance of and therefore the threats to citizen`s rights – whatever i tis that we have to get to grips with today doesn`t come to a halt at national frontiers and is not politically ordered and regulated within those same national frontiers. And everything that enriches ou lives, makes them worth living – art, culture, science, the Exchange of ideas and innovations – these are anathema to national frontiers for national frontiers do not protect culture and the mind but rather suffocate them. This is what you must explain to the doubters, the sceptics, to all those defecting to the nationalists. Post-national development can be briefly stopped in its tracks only through force but is here in the world to say. Ask the electorate point-blank: Do we want to prevent this development and so pay the price of the misery of the masses? Or do we want to put up with it half-heartedly with lazy compromises and be in constant crisis mode? Or do we want to shape it ourselves in a rational way?

Everyone in their right mind, of course, wants to determine the conditions of their lives rather than put up with them. And clearly, only transnational and community policies can engage constructively in transnational processes: European policies in the spirito f the founding fathers of the European Union.

The European Parliament has already over the last sixty years achieved notable victories in the struggle for an evolved, European formo f parliamentarianism in a European democracy. Yes, ve can and we want to celebrate that. But there is plenty of time for celebrations – not, though, for wallowing in complacency. After sixty years I was allowed only ten minutes for this address. I tis only right now for me to call out to you that, as things stand, you also do not have much time left to prevent what we are celebrating today from soon collapsing. In the last minute I have, one minute before midnight so to speak, allow me to quickly summarise what I hope for and what I fear.

Much of what the founding fathers saw as necessary and which they wanted in due course to set out in the documentation was not immediately possible at that time: fiscal union, the harmonising of social security benefits, a common policy as regards migration and asylum-seekers, the development of a defence community and so on. All of this remained something to be desired, recorded in secondary correspondence, and more urgent today than ever. And, dear lady and gentleman delegates, i tis up to you not to forget this, this wider picture, in your daily grind, but rather to carry it through finally with all the political thrust that you can muster. And above al lit is up to you, members of the European Parliament, to overcome the political-democratic shortcomings of our Union, to remove these intolerable contradictions from which the Union`s capacity to act and also its image suffer: the ruling concept is of a post-national European parliament but you can vote only on the basis of national lists. With the Commission we have a supranational institution safeguarding the interests of European citizens and deeping the post-national community – but its heads are sent out by the national governments. We are European citizens, should be and want to be such, but according to which member state we were born in, we do not have the same rights and life opportunities, and even our votes in elections carry varying weight. And, as European citizens, we still have national passports. If the British had already had European passports, then just the English government could have left Europe, but citizens not returning their passports would remain Europeans – which in fact they are.

These are all hardly tolerable discrepancies, producing unproductive crises that rob people of confidence in the rationale of the Union and put the unification project in danger. To resolve these discrepancies and take the evolution of the Union a step further is a trifle when set against the achievement of those who brought about the Treaties of Rome in the teeth of the zeitgeist of those days: the mistrust of the victors towards those defeated and the need for revenge on the part of the latter`s victims. The following must be evident to you: as difficult as your tasks are, they are easier than what was achieved sicty years ago. But your task is not just easier in comparison, i tis now of even greater urgency as well, for the last survivors of the European catastrophe are now dying, the last of those who, with their biographies, can testify to the absolute necessity for the struggle against nationalism. If we now fail to renew the promise made sixty years ago, fail to further develop the European Peace Project, then that `Never again!` stands in danger of becoming an empty phrase, the promise of its eternal validity would be broken and already after sixty years `eternity` would thus come to an end and with it the future of our epoch, which was stamped with an historical lesson that should have no sell-by date.

Those were my ten minutes, but, viewed historically, much less than a thousandth of a second – in recognition of sixty years. I am therefore going to allow myself to run over my allotted time by a few seconds for my last words, words concerning my fears. I am fearful that in the near future this so-called political concept behind the European project. I am fearful that you, for example, will play along by betraying the Scottish people in their effort to remain Europeans and instead come to an accommodation with the nationalists in London – something which will only strengthen the centrifugal powers that endanger the European unification proces. That is just one example of my misgivings, of my concern that the idea of the founding fathers that the nations must and will die has been forgotten, namely that the network of free regions based on a general, enlightened legal systém in a post-national Europe must form the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous future. In order now to put this celarly in its historical context, I will close with a quotation from Walter Hallstein, taken from his Rome address: `We should not limit ourselves to lifting the frontiers we have inherited and to establishing the free movement of people, produce and capital. We must rather accept the traditional imbalances between the regions, not to mention those imbalances that have arisen more recently. Otherwise we would find ourselves working at cross purposes with the goals of the Treaties of Rome, which are that the economic gap between the different regions be reduced along with simultaneous protection of their cultural characteristics.

The responsibility of the communities as regards regional politics applies not just to those areas in which there is an apparent danger of overdevelopment but also to zones whose economies have developer more weakly. When, therefore, we pursue policies, economic or social, there must always be an element of regional policy in our dealings. Regional policy must, as it were, inform all these policies. But the reverse also applies: whenever we devise regional policies, then the European economic and social politics in their totality are also involved.` A peaceful Union is not guaranteed by it appearing currently unthinkable that the European nations would attack each other militarly. A peaceful Union only deserves that name when social peace, too, is secured in a democratic systém that guarantees freedom, equal rights before the law and equal opportunities for political participation for all European citizens, regardless of the national passports they currently hold.

That in essence is the task for the development of a European Republic. And that is your fascinating task, ladies and gentleman! Turn Europe into the avant garde of world politics! You would like to celebrate? Ler us then celebrate the fact of being ready to move on in this spirit. And in ten years’ time on the 70^th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome let us be celebrating the great strides forward that we will have again made. What have I missed out? A great deal. What can I add? One solemn phrase:

Long live the European Republic!

Translated by David Bryer