Feature photo: Council of Europe | © Leonid Andronov, Shutterstock
Especially in the current election campaign for the next Bundestag, all serious parties are reciting their commitments to the European Union like a mantra. The candidates announce in unison that Germany's future lies in the EU.
After a good 70 years, one could well ask what these parties have actually done for a common Europe. Apart from mere lip service, in reality one must attest to Germany's lack of solidarity with the other member states and the rest of the world. There is no longer any need to talk about completely unnecessary and ineffective border closures and other national actions and agendas that violate EU law. It is also true for Germany, and perhaps even more so than for other countries, that the EU is only a vehicle for maintaining its own national sovereignty and, if possible, for being able to draw advantages from a common market.
With the possible exception of Luxembourg, one has to certify that all other "nations" either reject European values with all their hearts and out of the deepest conviction or, due to their own history, only hypocrite these values - we Germans are with the latter World Champion once again and very proud of it!
Even the EU institutions see the European Union only as a paper tiger and try - quite humanely and quite understandably - to keep their own jobs for as long as possible. One example is the European Parliament, which can increasingly be described as an assembly of claqueurs that wraps all the decisions of the European Council in a pretty democratic guise.
All EU protagonists agree that the respective nation states are the ultimate and that the meetings of the European Council are the Reichstag of our common Europe; but they only certify that they themselves are still firmly anchored in the 20th century and, if at all, capable of a single movement, namely back to the good old Biedermeier period.
After a good 70 years, we have to confirm to Europe that Europe is neither a community of values nor a community of laws, that we Europeans continue to see ourselves firmly anchored in nation states - even if some of these no longer even serve as a laughing stock, at most for European operettas (e.g e.g. EU summits) are good and only exist because they are dragged along by the other member states for reasons that are no longer understandable after all these decades.
However, the world outside of Europe has continued to turn. China, the USA and India are currently trying to reorganize the political world and make it fit for the future. Other countries outside of Europe are trying everything not to fall behind.
We in Europe are meanwhile concerned with the sensitivities of operetta kings, e.g. B. from Budapest or Brussels, and discuss things that would certainly be worth discussing in an ideal world, in the current world situation, e.g. B. with issues such as climate change, pandemics, lack of resources, environmental pollution, migration, aging populations, decline of democracies and decline in values, but are at most of secondary urgency.
European responses to the challenges of our world, like a Conference on the future of Europe or gossip for global health are not very effective and show that Europe is slowly but surely revolving around itself and is mutating into a problem for all of us - not just for us Europeans.
What we urgently need is a common European strategy from those countries that see the future of Europe in a federal state and are willing to operationalize this strategy as quickly as possible.
Economic cooperation could be offered to the rest of Europe, as well as the rest of the world, and deeper and more fundamental cooperation could be entered into with other democratic countries.
Joe Biden, itself burdened with its own internal challenges, has recognized this and tried to make sustainable (world) politics palatable to the Europeans and invited them to take responsibility for the world together with the USA.
So far, the only reaction has been that Europe is examining whether it is possible to continue to evade responsibility, now together with the Russian Federation.
As long as those responsible in Europe all live and act according to the motto "Après nous le déluge", and as an idea for Europe, at best, tie in with the failed dreams of a great power from Napoleon to Hitler, the EU will no longer have a future, but rather, like the sacred Roman Empire before, slowly but surely dissolve in favor.
“International politics is never about democracy or human rights. It is about the interests of states. Remember that no matter what you are told in history class.”
Egon Bahr, Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (4.12.2013)
