The rebirth of Europe revisited

Twenty years in the past, on 31 Might 2003, Jürgen Habermas, supported by Jacques Derrida and accompanied by different main intellectuals, launched an bold initiative for the creation of a European public sphere. This, they argued, would precipitate a radical renewal of the EU and the emergence of a typical European identification. In German the enterprise bore the title Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas – “After the battle: The rebirth of Europe”.

The impetus for Habermas’s attraction, which was revealed in each the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Libération, was a particular historic constellation: in spring 2003, enormous crowds had gathered in European capitals to protest towards the US-led assault on Iraq, an invasion in violation of worldwide regulation. These have been the most important public demonstrations for the reason that finish of World Conflict II. On the identical time, the Iraq battle had made Europeans painfully conscious of their very own failure to kind a typical overseas coverage and had sparked a dispute in regards to the future world order.

On this state of affairs, famous Habermas, Europe was predestined to exert its affect in shaping a ‘coming international home coverage’. The previous continent’s historic expertise obliged it to indicate ‘that in a posh world society, it isn’t simply divisions that depend, but in addition the smooth energy of negotiating agendas, relations, and financial benefits. On this world, the discount of politics to the silly and dear various of battle or peace merely would not pay.’

At present, it has grow to be agonizingly clear that the imaginative and prescient of Europe conceived by Habermas was by no means realized. However maybe one thing could be discovered from his try. Its failure had a number of causes. Most significantly, the entire initiative suffered from a hypostatization of ‘core Europe’, ensuing within the virtually full omission of the angle of the brand new EU members within the east – as if 1989 had by no means occurred. In Might 2003, the enlargement was already lengthy determined and in lower than a yr after the publication of Habermas’s article, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the three Baltic states all joined the Union. In Habermas’s attraction, nevertheless, they have been all conspicuous by their absence.

This main blind spot resulted in additional misreadings of the state of affairs. For instance, the presumption that democracy may do with out laborious energy, which – as has grow to be clear as we speak – allowed Russia to pursue its imperial ambitions unhindered. Or the assumption that the principle impediment to an inexpensive world order was the ‘hegemonic unilateralism’ of the US, and {that a} European identification needed to be formulated in stark opposition to America.

Habermas was satisfied that we, a minimum of we Europeans, lived in post-bellum occasions – ‘After the battle’, because the title of the manifesto learn. Even when, twenty years later in April 2022, he revealed his first reflections on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Habermas began by noting that the assault had occurred ‘after 77 years with out battle’. That phrase was later modified within the internet model of the article, however the preliminary omission of the Yugoslav wars of the Nineties, the Russo-Georgian battle in 2008 or, certainly, the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian battle in Crimea and Donbas in 2014, spoke volumes.

For Habermas, Europe is a post-bellum mission. For him – as for many western Europeans, not least the Germans – financial interdependence would inevitably forestall main navy battle, now and sooner or later. Ever deeper financial and political integration on the within, and Wandel durch Handel, change by commerce, on the skin was the way in which ahead.

Twenty years on, we’re confronted with a battle that brutally demonstrates the bounds of Europe’s smooth energy. Russian aggression poses a minimum of as nice a menace to a peaceable world order because the Iraq battle did again then. Russia’s battle on and in Ukraine not solely violates worldwide regulation however can be immediately aimed towards Europe and the West as a neighborhood of values.

On the identical time Europe, regardless of all its inside tensions and fault traces, has reacted to Russia’s aggression with astonishing solidarity, starting from refugee coverage and financial sanctions to arms deliveries. And on this stance it has been unreservedly supported by the US. Europe and the remainder of the West stand united – a minimum of for now.

Excessive time for one more try at renewal

As an alternative of interdependence, vitality independence has grow to be an outspoken aim. As an alternative of ever nearer integration of some “core” European international locations, additional EU enlargement is again on the agenda – not solely as an financial and social goal, however as a safety measure, in order to realize long-term stability in an more and more unstable geopolitical state of affairs. The western Balkans are in focus once more, along with Ukraine and Moldova. That is unquestionably shifting the centre of gravity to the east, not solely geographically but in addition with regards to whose perspective is related and whose just isn’t.

How ought to Europe cope with this radically metamorphosed constellation? It appears excessive time for one more try at renewal.

With this sequence, we need to contribute to Europeans’ self-understanding within the face of their biggest problem since World Conflict II. Now we have requested main public intellectuals in each western and japanese Europe, together with Ukraine, to tackle this problem and replicate on the opportunity of a ‘Rebirth of Europe’. Habermas’s and Derrida’s article from 2003 is on this context above all a degree of departure and under no circumstances circumscribes the mental method or the problems to be addressed.

A imaginative and prescient of the way forward for Europe won’t emerge from skinny air however, as Habermas wrote in 2003, ‘solely from the disquieting notion of perplexity’. The disorientation and vulnerability felt as we speak are completely different than twenty years in the past. The teachings to be discovered from the continuing battle generally appear to level within the precise other way. In any case, the necessity to develop a imaginative and prescient of what Europe is, and what it may and will grow to be, is larger than ever.

Vienna and Björkö, July 2023

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