The rebirth of Europe revisited

Twenty years in the past, on 31 Could 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 an intensive 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 warfare: The rebirth of Europe”.

The impetus for Habermas’s enchantment, which was revealed in each the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Libération, was a selected historic constellation: in spring 2003, enormous crowds had gathered in European capitals to protest in opposition to the US-led assault on Iraq, an invasion in violation of worldwide regulation. These had been the most important public demonstrations for the reason that finish of World Struggle II. On the identical time, the Iraq warfare had made Europeans painfully conscious of their very own failure to kind a typical overseas coverage and had sparked a dispute concerning 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 rely, but additionally the delicate energy of negotiating agendas, relations, and financial benefits. On this world, the discount of politics to the silly and dear various of warfare or peace merely does not pay.’

At the moment, it has turn out 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 realized 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 nearly full omission of the attitude of the brand new EU members within the east – as if 1989 had by no means occurred. In Could 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 enchantment, nevertheless, they had 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 might do with out arduous energy, which – as has turn out to be clear right now – allowed Russia to pursue its imperial ambitions unhindered. Or the assumption that the primary 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 warfare’, because the title of the manifesto learn. Even when, 20 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 warfare’. 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 warfare in 2008 or, certainly, the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian warfare in Crimea and Donbas in 2014, spoke volumes.

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

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

On the identical time Europe, regardless of all its inner 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 USA. Europe and the remainder of the West stand united – a minimum of for now.

Excessive time for one more try at renewal

As a substitute of interdependence, power independence has turn out to be an outspoken purpose. As a substitute of ever nearer integration of some “core” European nations, 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 additionally in the case of whose perspective is related and whose just isn’t.

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

With this collection, we wish to contribute to Europeans’ self-understanding within the face of their biggest problem since World Struggle II. We now have requested main public intellectuals in each western and japanese Europe, together with Ukraine, to tackle this problem and replicate on the potential for a ‘Rebirth of Europe’. Habermas’s and Derrida’s article from 2003 is on this context above all some extent 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 right now are completely different than twenty years in the past. The teachings to be realized from the continued warfare typically appear to level within the actual wrong way. In any case, the necessity to develop a imaginative and prescient of what Europe is, and what it might and will turn out to be, is bigger than ever.

Vienna and Björkö, July 2023

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