[Reader-list] Combine and conquer - Mark Leonard

[Menso Heus]

Hi all,

The current AdBusters has an article by Mark Leonard (reprint from Wired
2003 June issue) which I thought might be of interest to some of you. 



------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMBINE AND CONQUER
Euro space: a state of mind


The European Union's obsession with legislation is usually taken as a sign 
of weakness - a foil to the pyrotechnic might of the US military machine. But 
take a closer look: The bureaucrats in Brussels have been busy creating a new 
political space that has the power to make the 21st century the European 
century. The EU's geographical expansion to 25 countries, which will grow to 
include a dozen smaller ones and maybe even Russia, is nothing compared 
with its increasing legal and moral reach. The 80,000 pages of laws the EU has 
developed since the common market was formed in 1957 - influencing everything from 
genetic labeling to human rights - have made Europe the world's first viral political 
space, spreading its authority in three innovative ways.


First, it spreads by stealth. Although the EU legislates up to half of its member 
states' laws, most of their trade, and many policy decisions - from agriculture to 
economics - it's practically invisible. Take Britain. There are no European courts, 
legislative chambers, or business regulations on display in London. Instead, just 
as a virus takes over a healthy cell, the EU operates through the shell of 
traditional political structures. The British House of Commons, British Law Courts, 
and British civil servants are still there, but they have all become covert agents 
of the EU. This is no accident. By creating common standards that are implemented 
through national institutions, Europe can take over the world without becoming a 
target for hostility. While every US company, embassy, and military base is a terrorist 
target, Europe's invisibility allows it to spread its influence without provocation. 
Put bluntly, even if there were people angry enough to want to fly planes into European 
buildings, there is no World Trade Center to target.


Second, the EU thrives on diversity. The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger 
once complained that Europe doesn't have a single telephone number. When there's a 
crisis, Americans don't know who to turn to as the authentic voice of opinion. This is 
because Europe possesses many centers of power. Even the splits between new and old, 
and the accidental good cop/bad cop routine played by Britain and France, can be seen 
as a sign of the EU's strength. The ultimate failure of diplomacy leading up to the war 
on Iraq shows that the EU is less powerful when it doesn't share a common vision of the 
world, but even so, the multi-headed nature of the union did force the US to take its 
case to the UN. The best way to understand how Europe functions is to look at a 
globally networked business like Visa. By sharing control widely, and by making it 
impossible for any single faction or institution to dominate, a networked business can 
combine its global presence with innovation and diversity to gain the kind of edge 
normally reserved for smaller entities. Visa, though it represents the largest single 
block of consumer spending power in the world ($362.4 trillion annually), is a 
skeletal organization with just a few thousand employees. The fact that Europe does not 
have one leader - but rather a network of centers of power united by common policies 
and goals - means that it can expand to accommodate ever-greater numbers of countries 
without collapsing, and continue to provide its members with the benefits of being the 
largest market in the world. 


Third, Europe "syndicates" its legislation and values, often by threatening others with 
economic isolation. Many governments outside the continent have adopted Europe's 
regulations to get access to its market. Even US companies have been forced to follow 
European regulations in at least three spheres: M&A, GM foods, and data privacy. But 
this model of passive aggression has had its most dramatic effect in the EU's backyard. 
Consider some of the dangers faced by both Europe and the US: drug trafficking, large 
flows of migrants across hard-to-police borders, transnational criminal networks. 
Europe encourages political and economic reform by holding out the possibility of 
integration into the EU, and this strategy has had more success than the swift military 
interventions of the Monroe Doctrine. While the EU is deeply involved in Serbia's 
reconstruction and supports its desire to be "rehabilitated" as a European state, the US 
offers Colombia no such hope of integration through multilateral institutions or 
structural funds, only the temporary "assistance" of American military training missions 
and aid, and the raw freedom of the US market. 


This new type of power means that Europe effects change from the inside out. By contrast, 
when the US engages other countries, it does so through the prism of geopolitics. Talks 
with Russia focus on nuclear weapons, NATO expansion, and civilian control of the military. 
Talks with Colombia look at the flow of drugs across its borders. Europeans start from the 
other end of the spectrum: What values underpin the state? What are its constitutional and 
regulatory frameworks? Turkey renounced the death penalty to further its chance of admission 
into the EU; Britain rescinded its ban on gays in the military; and Italy reformed its 
profligate economic ways to meet EU standards. Europe's obsession with legal frameworks 
means that it can completely transform the countries it comes into contact with, instead of 
just skimming the surface. The US might have changed the regime in Afghanistan, but Europe 
is changing all of Polish society, from its economic policies and property laws to its 
treatment of minorities and what gets served on the nation's tables.



The overblown rhetoric directed at the "American Empire" misses the fact that the US reach is 
shallow and narrow. The lonely superpower can bribe, bully, or impose its will almost anywhere 
in the world - but when its back is turned, its potency wanes. The strength of the EU, 
conversely, is broad and deep: Once sucked into its sphere of influence, countries are changed 
forever. Europe is a state of mind that cannot be contained by traditional boundaries.

 -- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   "Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry"
	    		- Arundhati Roy	
--------------------------------------------------------------------------