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European Union would appear to be a success at every step. The parliament
is functioning, it is wielding influence as a governing body in
world trade, and the smooth transition from national currencies
to the euro surprised even its boosters. But before raising your
glass to a newly unified Europe, consider the following comments
of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"Nobody,
I repeat nobody, can think they can put us under their control or
worse still, treat us as a subject with limited sovereignty,"
he said in a speech to the Italian parliament, responding to the
resignation of his pro-Europe foreign minister. The pundits cried
foul, but Berlusconi knew exactly what he was doing. He understands
that demands for national sovereignty, not withstanding the euro
and the EC, are as intense now as ever, and possibly more so in
the aftermath of the new currency.
And that fact
raises alarm bells. The word nationalism is 20th-century European
history is inseparable from belligerence, conflict, and even catastrophe.
Where the pundits go wrong is in believing that the alternative
to nationalism is the centralized bureaucracy and political consolidation.
The dream of a united Europe, one held to by Europe's finest statesman
and intellectuals, is not identical to an ambition to transfer all
political power from national capitals to Brussels.
Now is the
time to reflect on a word that rests at the core of the vision of
European unity: subsidiarity. It is found in Article 3B of the Maastricht
Treaty: "in all areas which do not fall within its exclusive
competence, the Community shall take action, in accordance with
the principle of subsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives
of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member
States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the
proposed action, be better achieved by the Community."
Savvy observers
of the European political scene credit Article 3B with providing
the crucial level of public support to bring Europe to its present
state of integration. It said, in effect, that the central power
will only be used when absolutely necessary but otherwise all competence
will be presumed to rest with the member state.
But that is
not how the EC has carried out its aims thus far, or how many partisans
of Europe currently understand the term. Instead of placing the
burden on the EC to demonstrate it superior competence to the member
state, it places the burden back on the state whenever it discovers
areas of regulation that it believes can be better enacted and supervised
by the center.
This skewed
view of what constitutes "subsidiarity" reverses its meaning.
The term itself derives from the Catholic tradition, explicitly
with the Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno
(1931), where he wrote: "those in power should be sure that
the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations,
in observance of the principle of subsidiary function, the stronger
social authority and effectiveness will be, the happier and more
prosperous the condition of the State."
The principle
was not new with Pius XI. The idea of dispersing authority throughout
society appears throughout the entire Thomist branch of Catholic
political thought. Pope John Paul II has elevated subsidiarity to
a high principle in his encyclicals, and overtly expanded it to
apply not only to relations between states but to all institutions
in society. It was the Maastricht Treaty that introduced the term
into common usage.
But if subsidiarity
guarantees member sovereignty in its area of competence, what is
the point of unity? That is a question that has been asked far too
little during the many decades in which the idea of a European Union
has been discussed. The proper goal is captured in another term
that serves as the second pillar of Catholic society teaching: solidarity.
It recognizes the unity of interest of people who strive after similar
goals, among which are peace, security, prosperity, and the general
thriving of culture.
The goals of
solidarity are perfectly compatible with subsidiarity provided that
we choose the proper means. An improper means is the crushing of
national and local political culture, and the micro-regulation of
all members states from an accountable and far-away political apparatus.
The attempt to do this can only create backlash of the kind that
may be brewing right now. It paradoxically leads to disunity.
The proper
means are all those institutions that so excited liberals of the
18th and 19th century: mutually beneficial trade, cultural exchange,
freedom of migration, and free-flow of ideas. All of that can take
place without constant intervention from the European Union; it
is a function of cooperation of all public and private sectors within
member states. In other words, the goals of both subsidiarity and
solidarity are consistent with the general idea of freedom.
What Berlusconi
is warning against, and swearing to resist, is something that the
old dreamers of a united Europe similarly opposed. Unity achieved
through coercion and central management is a false unity. True unity
comes about by recognizing the principle of subsidiarity, the very
principle that Maastricht highlighted as a solemn pact with its
members. If the backers of Europe are serious about creating a lasting
union of states, they need to stop decrying those express the justified
fear that the EC doesn't take its own principle seriously enough.
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