There is a certain degree of ambivalence in the European perspectives on globalization: Europeans very much liked globalization till it was seen as favouring their own prosperity: mixed feelings, uncertainties prevail now, in a phase in which globalization does not necessarily play in favour of the West, or at least not automatically.
The Europeans are not Americans. Europe does have a vision of the world, but it is rather Euro-centric. This is a legacy of the central role Europe played for centuries. However, the Europeans are not as cosmopolitan as they normally consider themselves. Recent years reflect growing provincialism and proximity to other cultures amongst Europeans. In Europe, we think we are open to other cultures because we are open to other European cultures. But the transition from Europeanization to globalization is presenting new challenges we are still unprepared for.
European integration predates globalization. Our ambitious process of regional integration has been for decades the best response we could have conceived to the challenges of the post-war scenario. In 1945, Europe was in ruins and displaced from the centre stage of the world, where it had been for so long.
Joining our efforts, first through a process of economic integration, and then progressively widening the spectrum of our common venture to more and more aspects, we reached a stage in which our destinies are indissolubly linked, to an extent making any alternative to Europe virtually impossible.
The results in terms of shared and increased prosperity, peace and stability, strengthening of democracy and social solidarity have been so impressive that make redundant any quantitative assessment of the benefits of Europe (even though the Cecchini Report was prepared in the 1980s).
However, sixty years down the road, European citizens tend to forget about the political reasons that motivated the launch of the European project:
- – Elder generations normally appreciate value-addition by European integration, without losing their strong national roots.
– Baby-boomers tend to be the real pro-Europeans, since grown up in a period in which Europe was a magic word, len the gate to a different future; the generations born in the 1960s 10 and the early 1970s have been traveling around Europe with an Inter-Rail ticket or studied abroad with an Erasmus scholarship – experiences that contribute decisively to your feeling of European citizenship.
– Younger generations take Europe for granted, often missing the picture about what all the process was and is about (e.g. their surprisingly negative vote on the occasion of the constitutional referenda in France and the Netherlands). Another trend among the youngsters is a certain reject of globalization as a such, with anti-global or alter-global feelings emerging strongly in our universities.
If the perception of Europe changes according to your age and your concrete experience of Europe, it is now important to take a step back, and to discuss what we have been really doing in Europe in the last fifty years, and what does this experience mean to the rest of the world.
If we approach Europe too mechanically or techniċally, as we normally tend to do, probably due to Eurocracy’s pivotal role in the process, we risk missing the real perspective of what has been happening.
The European dream
I will refer here to an alternative view, the most brilliant of Europe I recently took knowledge of: it is the European Dream concept, elaborated by Jeremy Rifkin in the recent book by the same tite! It is paradoxical thatwe needed an American, admittedly a son of another dream, the American dream, to come up and eloquently expound what the European dream is. The American dream has been extremely successful,and stillconstitutes the main source of American “soft power”. Its basic pillars are freedom, working ethics, individualism, sense of fulfillment by achieving objectives, and submission of natural resources to human sovereignty.
The European dream in progress is built on different pillars: collective values, inclusion, diversity, sustainable development, quality of life, universal access to high standards of education and healthcare, solidarity, universalisation of human rights, nature rights, and peace achieved through the strengthening of multipolarity.
I agree with Rifkin when he concludes his book by arguing that the European dream seems to be the adequate one for the twentyfirst century, beyond the limits of the American dream, which has been so successful in the twentieth century. In his last sentence, he states: “Americans used to say that it is worthy dying for the American dream. The new European dream is one for which it is worth living.”
My view is one that brings one far away from the commonly accepted view that Europe is a “bureaucracy” or an “ivory tower” remote from people. This can be the perception channeled by the media, we know how influential, but anyone familiar with the daytoday of Europe knows this is not true.
In the second part of this chapter, I will give my own views on the existence or non-existence of an “Indian dream”.
EU as a new form of governance
The European Union experiment represents a completely new form of governance for the twenty-first century, which builds up a new way of facing complex societal challenges through a cooperative approach. To pursue a common objective, the Member States of the European Union accept to put in common parts of their sovereign prerogatives. The implementation of the European treaties has replaced three centuries of Westphalian Europe.
This cooperative approach gives a prominent role to civil society, extremely powerful in Europe, and takes progressively away from governments some of their coercive powers, and replace them with regulatory powers. Rules thus determined are the result of a complex and long bottom up process, where sovereign states are obliged to leave behind hem “optimal but selfish solutions” to embrace solutions better for the collectivity as a whole.
This challenge to traditional sovereignty worked well in Europе, but it is now threatened in many ways:
- – The Europeans have lost faith in Europe because they no longer associate European integration with economic growth.
– Citizens have tended to lose sight of the big picture, focusing only on what they lose, never of what they get in exchange.
– Ageing population: The ratio between the working population and the elderly will pass from 4:1 to 2:1 in a few decades. We cannot face this without serious reforms far beyond what we have done so far.
– Innovation: Europe is at the front of technological developments in many more sectors than normally believed, but in2onovation has still to penetrate far more deeply into our dayto-day life. This will create huge economic opportunities and toy dit is the only economic perspective that still remain in our hands. The educational challenge is also related to this dimension, we still have a long way to go before reaching the level of skills ploy needed in the twenty-first century.
– Mobility: We have full mobility of people inside the EU, at least on paper. We have to remove all remaining obstacles and to promote a real full mobility, especially with more open borders, because all studies clearly show that we will need millions of newcomers in the next decades. It is better to plan their arrival and insertion today rather than the opposite.
– Energy: Europe was able to overcome the oil shocks in the 1970s, but the challenge is even harder now. Recently, President Barroso proposed a tightening of European energy policies and strategies, which has become a real necessity.
All these points are the core of the European Commission’s strategies to upgrade Europe in order to match the challenges of the twenty-first century. Moreover, generally speaking Europe has to learn again to think strategically to her role and place in the world, as she did it five decades ago when the European Communities were created.
All these global challenges need a revision of our decision-making model, that delivered efficient results insofar trade and economic aspects were involved. However, it will probably reveal inefficient when different kinds of issues have to be dealt by a higher number of countries in a 25-member Europe.
The point I am personally more sensitive to, as a European diplomat, is the role of the EU in the world. I do not want to seem arrogant when arguing that the world needs a strong European Union. Experience shows that where the EU is strong and compact (trade, multilateral debates on environmental issues, criminal court), she automatically takes a lead, contributing to a good balance. This does not translate automatically in perfect solutions, but in multilateral debates where consensus is pursued for the beneut of all. I hope you are with me when I strongly argue this is a very relevant contribution to the development ofinternational governance.
When the EU is divided or unable to speak with a single voice, the balance is not there and the achievement of good solutions becomes even more difficult.
Even though there are still resistance here and there, mainly from interested parties (national political establishments, national bureaucracies), I would dare to say that there is a growing consensus in Europe about the need to further consolidate the external dimension of the EU, in order to strengthen the presence of the EU in the world beyond trade, environment and human rights, where we already have systematic common positions.
The European Constitution had created a framework in which the EU role in the world becomes stronger, through the consolidation of the role of a quasi-permanent President of the EU; the formalization of the role of a EU Foreign Minister and Vice-President of the Commission, with authority on a single EU Foreign Service not composed like today by 26 well-coordinated foreign services (25 member states plus the European Commission) but a real single foreign service for the EU.
The ratification of the Constitutional Treaty has been actually frozen, but not stopped. There is a clear consensus on some chapters ofit, like the external dimension, that will make possible their approval in the near future.
In view of the above, the strengthening of the external dimension of the European Union has a potentially beneficial impact on global governance. We have to do our homework: we will do it without any doubt. The contribution of the EU to global economic governance should also come by in the form of a better coordination among European members, in all Bretton Woods institutions.
The rise ofthe Euro brought stability and diversification to the international monetary system, for the benefit of all. We have to be able to fully exploit the potential of it improving international monetary governance.
The Indian dream
If these are the pending tasks for Europe, where does India stand in all this debate? The emergence of Indiais an irreversible process. No informed person in the world would deny that India entered the twenty-first century in the best possible way, and her role will be growing in the next decades.
I will attempt to provide an alternate view that does not deny that evidence, but tries to look at the future of India under a slightly different framework. I feel that there are a number of factors or risks that are not at all taken into consideration in the prevailing debate. The extrapolation of rates of growth alone does not make them happen. I think the emphasis of GDP absolute values has become a misleading habit in India. I can understand and even sympathize with this boosting attitude of Indian citizens in this particular moment, I was myself born in a country that came a long way from relative poverty to wealth and prosperity.
I argue that India is looking at its emerging role through a fullfledged twentieth century perspective, whose pillars are: hard power; nuclear and military capability; attention to GDP in absolute, not relative, terms; centrality of the State, limited and only a limited role given to civil society; inability to even contemplatea supranational dimension; and only nominal support to multilateralism. India may be right in this approach and may be we are still fully immersed in a Westphalian world, but I think it would be worth at least considering an alternate option.
The Indian dream today seems to be the following: to be aсcepted as major nuclear and economic power by the world of the twentieth century. In this framework, individual aspirations seem to become secondary to the achievement of very national – centred objectives.
Why is there so much emphasis on the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) methodology for calculation of GDP, which certainly has a statistical and economic relevance, but which cannot be the only and exclusive parameter of reference? Why does India have an abysmally poor ranking in GDP per capita (at number 139 in 2000, with US $523, well behind countries like Swaziland or Sri Lanka, immediately behind Papua New Guinea) is given so little attention?
In Europe, one never bothers about the GDP in absolute terms; we only focus on the per capita dimension, the one that really matters. Even the distribution of European funds is done taking the average per head revenue in a country or region as parameter. Thus, in terms of global economic governance, is India adequately equipped to make the contribution that is expected from it, especially if it views the world through a prism of the previous century?
The global partnership with the United States is a very welcome step provided it is given the importance it really has and does not again become an obsession. To developa constructive and mutually beneficial partnership with the only superpower of the world will certainly bring many benefits to India, if India does not think too seriously to having really become the “best friend of America”.
The EU, India and the United States
The recent Indo-US Declaration is amazingly similar, with few differences, to the Indo-EU Joint Action Plan. One of the differences is that there is no mention at all in it of health and education, which, incidentally, are the two areas in which the EU is leader in cooperation with India.
Does this signify that these dimensions so crucial for the future of India are not an issue in Indo-US relations and they are in Indo-EU relations? If this were the case,I would feel extremely proud as a European citizen, seeing that India perceives Europe as a potential “civilian” ally in the international arena. I would be a bit worried if I were an Indian citizen, especially one of the 700 hundred million below, if the privileged relationship with the superpower had no room at all for these dimensions. A preferential axis with the United States built on hard power only would not necessarily strengthen multilateralism if seen in detriment of shared and consensual solutions. This is a risk in terms of international governance.
The Indo-EU strategic partnership is far less known by the public, but in my view far more adapted to the real challenges of the twenty-first century, because by definition strengthens multilateralism and opens new, consensual, ways of solution to challenges the world has to face in the future. To that end, both Europeans and Indian have to seriously change their mindset, becoming able to think strategically to the world of tomorrow rather than looking at the world of yesterday.
NOTES
1 Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream. How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly
Eclipsing the American Dream (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2004).