27June 2012
This has been the week of European visions. Without the merest hint of national consultations, the central European institutions launched a new centralisation plan for future economic policy and planning. Having presided over the debacle that is monetary union and the humbling of the Euro, Europe’s unelected elite tell us the answer is more federalism and a dilution of sovereignty.
Another European vision emerged in Germany this month. A speech by the President of the German Central Bank, Jens Weidmann, in keeping with Chancellor Merkel’s European vision, starkly laid out the consequences of German economic solidarity to their European partners and the price of saving the eurozone – centralised monetary and fiscal policy and the restriction of national sovereignty for errant states.
It would be certainly unfair to criticise German concerns about the running of the Euro – given that German financial largesse is currently funding the bailouts of numerous EU partners. Understandably, the German Central Bank and its political masters must be able to see and feel fiscal responsibility on the part of those being saved.
However, it is also fair to look beyond the purely economic factors of the current Euro crisis and look at German solutions in the wider context of the EU’s future. On that basis, one could reasonably argue that the cost of Germany’s vision is a dilution of democracy in the EU and the further diminishing of public participation in democratic decision making.
Europe’s problem is not merely about failing banks and sovereign debt. The problem is much deeper. Whether by default or design, the grand European mantra of progress has been built on debt, on finances and standards of living we could not afford and lumped on the shoulders of our children for repayment. Our societies, built on the premises and hallucinations of the baby boomer generation, have become exceedingly dysfunctional, selfish and a prisoner to instant gratification and consumption. With record levels of unemployment and the numbers seeking state support, we have developed a dependency culture for many of our citizens. Our politicians do not even pretend to know what democracy is. In years gone by, our leaders came to politics after successful careers in other areas, whether law, banking or commerce. Today, many of our politicians are professional politicians with no more experience of the wider world than the average unemployed person. Europe’s political elite – especially those that reside in Brussels – a veritable who’s who of ‘has beens’ – are pitiful to watch as they lead us ever deeper into economic stagnation and emasculate democracy in the process.
Hungary cannot escape this process. Indeed, for the past two years, Hungary and Viktor Orbán have been at the receiving end of the EU’s flawed economic policy and even more flawed visions of what constitutes democracy. However, things are going to get worse.
The current government in Budapest also has a vision of Europe but it is based on a competing narrative of what is good for the Union. It does not believe that the European model is completely broken but does recognise that some elements of it do not sit well with a concept of Hungary that acknowledges the primacy of the nation state in terms of political and economic sovereignty, that progress has more than one face and that the rights of the individual must be balanced against responsibilities. The concept of democratic accountability is paramount and economic decisions must be taken at national level if they are to have any resonance with the taxpayer.
In the coming months, Hungary will have to decide where it sits in this debate. Having struggled so valiantly to throw off communist domination, both physically and mentally, is Budapest really ready to sign up to ultimate political authority residing in Brussels or Berlin? Was this really the European vision Hungarians aspired to?
Rejecting the new visions of a more Federal Europe will come at a price. Hungary will have to look to itself for economic prosperity and people will need to get used to a less expansive notion of ‘progress’. Viktor Orbán will need to make this point clear to an electorate which includes too few taxpayers. Maybe he needs to think about this now and be prepared for the formation of a new eurozone which is fundamentally smaller than the version we have today.