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received from the Zeist group,
Steven Matthijsen <[email protected]>,
"Egmond, N.D. van (Klaas)" <[email protected]>,
Wim Bekkers <[email protected]>
ult. October 2016
o.
Memorandum Europe for Citizens, short version
Resume
The European Union has entered an existential crisis and is threatening to fall apart.
The cause of this lies in the lack of a more or less shared value pattern. Jacques Delors,
former French president of the European Commission indeed has made streneous efforts to
give Europe a "soul", a driving force, but did not succeed in the situation of emerging neoliberal forces. As a result, Europe is unilaterally dominated by economic interests, wrongly
presented as a value-free and a-moral (outside morality).
A new European renaissance can only be based on a shared set of values and thereto
deriving morality. The inviting prospect is that this shared value system is already inherent in
European culture and therefore can be derived.
To make Europe a community of values, just needs rethinking of its cultural roots. On that
basis, specific recommendations are made to give Europe new impetus.
The initial aim and the current crisis
Immediately after World War II, the English statesman Churchill called in 1946 for a United
States of Europe. This way he wanted to lay the fundament for peace in Europe and for the
security of the Western European democracy and market economy against the Soviet Union.
With the support of the USA this has led to the creation of the Council of Europe (1949). In
1951, the European Coal and Steel Community was formed. From this (known as the
European Union as of 1993), the European Economic Community in 1958 emerged.
In the first decades after the war, the emphasis was rightly on reconstruction and economic
development. Knowing that (to some extent) common economic interests are too narrow a
basis for European cooperation, the then-President Jacques Delors in the '90s sought
Europe's “heart and soul". But that was not successful, because the pressure of the
economic interests in the emerging neo-liberalism only increased, inter alia expressed in the
increasing number of lobbyists in Brussels (15,000 to 20,000).
At the same time problems arose between the participating countries about the transfer of
powers from national sovereignty to the new organization. Because of the one-sided focus
on economic activities and the lack of a shared value system, these conflicts between
national interests are playing an increasing role in the European Union.
The crisis of the European Union
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Economization
The European Union has done little to give the population of the European countries the
feeling that they are citizens of Europe and that they have influence on European politics.
The EU has its own calendar where national and international interests are aligned with the
interests of international business. The EU is a technocratic and bureaucratic apparatus
whereupon democratic control is low. Therefore, the project of European cooperation is no
longer supported by large groups of citizens.
By way of English and American influence the social market economy, with its protection of
workers, its by the state organized solidarity and public sector, is largely demolished. The
"Rhineland" model of consultation was replaced by the 'Anglo-Saxon' model of
confrontation. The EU embraced neo-liberalism and globalization at the expense of the
weaker groups in society. Privatizations have been practized everywhere, even where they
were not useful. International companies largely determine EU legislation.
Not only the political but also the cultural sector is a part of the economy - culture as
entertainment that needs to make money. In education, the general and versatile formation
of man (called in German Bildung) has become secondary to the development of skills for
the labor market. European culture has been supplanted in many ways by American culture,
marked by materialism, superficiality and glorification of the ego.
Cultural threat from outside
Many people experience the arrival of large numbers of migrants and refugees from other
countries as a threat to their own culture. A multicultural society is problematic as ghettos
emerge with a culture that in its values and rules is contrary to the leadership culture and
are thus placed outside society.
Europe in fact is facing the beginning of an Islamic and African migration. The migrants and
refugees from outside Europe who have settled here, are the vanguard of the hundreds of
millions who want to come because their societies have no future. The question is whether
Europe can absorb this flow without actually going to perish.
These immigrants come from cultures in which the development of a free, creative and
socially engaged personality still has not taken place in full. The culture shock that they are
experiencing is great and many in Europe fall back on traditional views. They must be willing
to commit themselves to the core values of European culture, as part enshrined in the
constitutions of the various countries. But only to the extent that there are common
European values. What just has failed in Europe is the articulation of those values.
The root causes of the crisis
From this perspective, some root causes can be identified for the crisis in which the
European Union has ended. These are:
The influence of international business in the legislation of the European Union. Large
companies can play countries against each other in order to obtain tax advantages. They are
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the engine of globalization which has a disruptive effect on many areas. The economic
system suggests thereby wrongly to be a-moral, that is in its effects on the society not to
assess as 'right or wrong'. The one-sided focus on the economy as a goal instead of a mean
also leads to the environmental crisis, with economic growth leading to waste and the use of
ever more energy, and (scarce) resources. The climate problem requires Europe to a very
significant ecological modernization.
The imbalance between public and private responsibilities. The neoliberal ideology leads to
great disparities and thereby destroys the cohesion of society.
Large-scale privatization and the promotion of the neoliberal vision that everyone should
take care of themselves, have weakened the social sector severely.
By the mixing of public and private responsibilities, large private banks have been upheld by
governments and the risks they take are passed on to taxpayers. The financialisation of
society is due to the public-private imbalance. By assuming that all can be privaticed (can be
appropriating) while putting money into circulation from the private (banking) atmosphere,
all is becoming subject to financial speculation. This will make land and real estate
investment objects that are too expensive to realize their original social functions.
The introduction of the euro for political reasons, before there was a political and economic
framework inferred. When Germany became one, there was made a requirement by the
other countries that Germany would give up the D-Mark. For southern European countries
this has had a deleterious effect on their economic development and youth unemployment.
Ignoring the problems of a multicultural society and labor migration has led to the formation
of ghettos in the big cities and the rise of populism.
The lack of democratic control of the European institutions, especially the European
Commission.
The refusal of governments to cede sovereignty, whereas it is necessary to arrange things in
common.
Common values and morality
Over the centuries, the humane image that is typical for Europe originated - the human
image of a free, self-conscious person, defining himself and developing within the
boundaries of culture and society, a person with a conscience, a moral responsibility social
awareness, with rights and duties. Linked to the values of freedom, equality and solidarity.
Central to this human image are the ideas of human dignity and humanity.
At the end of the Middle Ages thinking about mankind came into gear. The Renaissance, the
European voyages of discovery, the Reformation and the rise of national consciousness in
the Southern and Western European countries led to a new self-awareness.
The rise of science has led to a rational examination of the visible world. In the Age of
Enlightenment (ca 1650 to ca 1800) was a great confidence in human intellect pronounced.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the rational, scientific view of man, however was shaken
when the irrational in man and in society became visible (aggression, urges and instincts, the
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struggle for existence, nationalism, war and terrorism) . The Spanish painter Goya created
the famous etching The dream of reason brings forth monsters (ca 1798) expressing the
irrational.
Science and technology are not guided by a moral consciousness. Organizations, companies,
and entire societies derail too.
The common denominator in the above accumulation of failure factors is the lack of a more
or less shared, worthwhile value system and thus a 'heart and soul' of Europe.
Earlier this was provided by the moral framework of the church, but after the Enlightenment
this was no longer acceptable and there was the attempt to derive the moral framework
from the now highly valued standing rationality. But that failed. A new moral framework
however could be derived from a shared pattern of values that comprises more than just
rationality. The good news is that such a shared value system already is implicit in the
European culture and the experience gained in the course of European history. That value
system translates into a social objective. Morality subsequently implies that this objective
must be regarded as normative; by acting morally this objective is brought closer to that
goal, by acting immorally this gets out of sight.
The new Europe of culture
Humanism is one of the major movements in which the idea of humanity came into life. It
has its forerunners and representatives in all European countries. It originated in Greece
(Socrates), elaborated in Rome and came to life again in the Renaissance (Ficino and Pico
della Mirandola in Italy, Erasmus in Holland and Thomas More in England. After the
Renaissance we find great humanists in France (Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire), in Germany
around 1800 (Herder, Goethe, Schiller), in the idealistic flows in the Polish, Czech and Slovak
philosophy and in the Russian religious philosophy.
The great traditions of European literature, music, painting and sculpture for centuries give
us unique opportunities to experience our human-being in its depths and heights and can
therefore be considered as belonging to humanism in a more broader sense (Shakespeare,
Mozart, Wagner).
In the 20th century new spiritual and socially critical dimensions were added to humanism.
In addition, we now know many people who put a moral vision to the problems of our time
into practice (such as in the areas of peace, sustainability, tolerance, human rights,
management of the earth, the environment and caring for others). This humanism lives also
outside Europe.
With the Enlightenment Europe parted from the (revealed) morality of the Church, but
thereafter it was not able to base a replacement moral framework on the now highly
rationality. This is explained by the fact that 'rationality' is a unilateral aspect of human
nature, so there is no room for example for 'sense' or 'spirituality'. In addition and related,
there was no acceptance of human objective or purpose (telos). Without such objective
rationality without direction and morality is difficult to define.
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A moral framework will have to be derived from human nature as a whole and the direction
into which human nature is developing. There is, therefore, searched in three directions for
a broader shared, current approach to 'human nature'; social surveys, religious and
philosophical notions and the European culture. This results then, as an approximation of
that "human nature" (humanity) into a set of values that is defined by two main axes; in the
vertical the contrast between material and im-material qualities (the matter - spirit
opposition) and in the horizontal the “I - other" subject - object opposition. Individuals put
individual accents in this 'common denominator'.
Following the Ethica Nicomachea of Aristotle, from this follows that the social objective
would be to keep a balance (virtue) between these fundamental contradictions (vices).
This objective is aimed at the preservation of human dignity and thus simultaneously
coincides with the idea of ‘sustainability’. Such a "virtue ethics" can provide direction for
European policy and may determine the institutional and financial-economic structure of
Europe.
Such ethic is confirmed by both the European history and European culture:
- European history shows that major social disruptionbs always stemmed from the loss of
the balance between the fundamental forces. The religious wars, the totalitarian state, the
role of science and technology, the ecological crisis and the current financial-economic
crisis can be explained by the successively unilateral domination of collective spiritual,
collective materialistic and individualistic-materialistic oriëntations. In European culture of
myths, legends, fairy tales, but also and above all of the great masterpieces of literature
and music (Goethe, Shakespeare, Mozart, Wagner, Jung) is routinely referred to an
Aristotelian concept of human image, in which the human being is warned to hold the
balance between the emerging contradictions. It suggests a virtue ethics, whereby the good
(virtue) more or less is the 'middle' between two evils (vices).
Starting from this intended balance between public and private qualities and responsibilities
and between material and non-material (ideal and cultural) qualities, concrete
recommendations can be made for a European Union that strives for the best possible
quality of life for its citizens.
Key tasks and recommendations for reform
Key tasks of the European Union
The intended (horizontal) balance between public and private responsibilities and qualities
(uniformity and diversity) gives rise to the following proposals:
- Respecting public ‘commons’, domains of man and the world that may not be privatized;
just not everything is for sale (to be commodified). This involves nature, the sea, the air, but
also intangible qualities such ideas. Appropriation of ideas in the form of licenses and
patents can not be legitimized. This is because new findings build too much on past social
achievements. Many licenses and patents are largely based on common (government)
efforts.
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- Respect for "private" qualities also implies some degree of "sovereignty". That means the
local scale and local property (eg, of land and infrastructure) must be respected.
Agricultural land should not be sold to parties outside the sovereign organization, that is
outside the Netherlands or Europe.
- Subsidiarity is applied consistently to do justice to the natural diversity of the European
community. This means that tasks that can be performed at a lower level, there be
deposited. In this way, the traditional opposition between Europe and the individual
nations can be eliminated in a three-way split which also creates a regional layer of
decision-making. This is already the case in the German Federal Republic.
It allows in countries suffering under a centralized administration (Italy, Spain, France)
regional autonomy that reflects the existing regional identities. In this way also the
necessary space can be given to the East-West opposition.
- Infrastructure is a public affair. This also applies to the financial infrastructure (payments).
European citizens should be able to put their money on a European Bank where 100% is
guaranteed, but no interest is paid (0%).
- The creation of money is not private (banks) but public responsibility. Money is a social
construct. Through the (for price stability) creation of new money the European authorities
can stimulate the real economy through direct investment in European infrastructure, such
as a sustainable energy supply. It would also save taxpayers hundreds of billions of euros.
Retaking the creation of money in public hands could give a huge boost to employment
(especially for youth) and this measure alone would be enough to help Europe out of the
crisis and give new impetus.
The intended (vertical) balance between material and im-material qualities leads to the
following recommendations:
- To reduce the material intensity of the economy (and avoid environmental problems), in
the market-oriented European economy, market-oriented incentives are needed. This
requires higher taxes for the use of environmentally harmful substances, including fossil
fuels and new won (virgin) materials. Proportionally lower taxes would be levied on labor
(including art and culture) and recycled materials.
- Art and culture should be given a much higher priority in the social system, particularly in
education. It supports the maintenance of a balanced pattern of values and therewith a
virtue ethics.
- Full equality of male-female position in society is an absolute and non-negotiable condition
for human dignity.
- A dialogue between the worldviews (Christianity, Islam, Humanism) is a prerequisite for
achieving a more or less shared value system.
In particular, the untenable claims that are made from different groups on the 'one truth',
must be put into perspective.
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- War immigrants could settle temporarily in Europe in principle and as a rule. It may be
required of migrants that they initially conform to the existing value system and later
constructively contribute to social dialogue in order to keep alive that pattern.
- Economic immigrants need (because of sovereignty considerations) not be accepted.
However, Europe has a moral obligation to help countries with large economic
disadvantage. It will, in contrast with the current (WB and IMF) situation, respect the local
culture. The primary goal will be local economic development in the specific countries
(partly aimed at the demographic transition to a decreasing population pressure). (Direct)
economic interests of Europe may not play a role.
Finally, the consequences will have be drawn from the resulting normative framework. The
intended balance between the fundamental human values can be achieved with a large
degree of human freedom. But when that freedom becomes obsessive-onesided, bringing
balance risk losing, then it is legitimized to speak of immoral acting. Against that acting, like
that at this juncture especially is manifested in the financial sector and works on many social
areas including climate change and the environment, can be acted against, distinctly and
legitimized.
Further recommendations for the reform of the European Union
Measures to promote solidarity in national and European society:
• regulation of the economic sector to protect people, the abolition of tax structures of large
enterprises
• restoration of the public sector
• reorganization of the financial sector (through separation between private banks and
investment banks, abolition of the right of banks in money creation and establishment of a
utility bench for the pension funds)
• experiments with a basic Income
Measures to improve the democratic nature of European society at all levels:
• monitoring the European Commission by the European Parliament
• formation of coalition governments broadloom
• involvement of citizens in decision making through referenda
• selective admission of immigrants and refugees in Europe
Measures to strengthen the European culture:
• promoting lifelong learning/education for all members of society
• education in the European culture
• lessons in humanity, dealing with modern technology
• cultural integration of immigrants and refugees
Texts on which this analysis is based, can be read at the Concert for Europe website:
www.concerteuropa.nl
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