The EU must balance its image of a humane and fair democracy with the risk that democracy will destroy its unity

The father of a united Europe, Jean Monnet, is credited with saying: “European countries should be moved towards a superstate without their citizens understanding what is happening. This can only be achieved by successive steps, each of which supposedly has a purely economic meaning, but gradually and irreversibly leads to federation.”

Eurosceptics love this idea because they see it as confirmation of the diabolical cunning of integration - it was supposedly a conspiracy from the very beginning (allegedly uttered in 1952). Monnet's followers claim that the founder did not say this, and this is a distorted presentation of his views by one of the British conservative commentators.

However, although the quote is fictitious, it accurately conveys the essence of the integration process. Jean Monnet was a great statesman who was never elected anywhere, remaining either an appointed official or a behind-the-scenes ideologist. He combined loyalty to ideals - the preservation and strengthening of peace - with a very deep understanding of how politics, or more precisely, human nature, works.

Monnet dreamed of bringing to life a utopia - a united Europe in which the borders between states were erased (and it was they, in his opinion, that gave rise to wars), but he understood that people would not make this fairy tale come true, because they were not able to step over national stereotypes. And if you go through persuasion, it will take decades and is unlikely to lead to the desired result. This means that it is necessary to captivate people with economic benefits, secretly creating an inextricable political fabric. In other words, the process cannot be democratic, the decision is always up to the “wisest,” but it must be packaged in such a way that the “people” see the benefit for themselves.

On the same topic, the British Tory Peter Thornycroft wrote in 1947 in The Future of Europe: “No government that depends on the democratic will can agree in advance to the sacrifices necessary to realize any coherent plan [of European unity] " And he concluded: before people feel the benefits of a new situation, they cannot be told what it will be like.

Almost 70 years later, the question of the relationship between integration and democracy could not be more acute. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik published the best-selling book “The Paradox of Globalization” in 2011, in which he argued that it is impossible for a modern state to simultaneously be democratic, sovereign and participate in the global economy. One element will always have to be sacrificed. Rodrik was finishing the book when the debt crisis with its epicenter in Greece had already begun in the EU. And it was she who became a clear illustration of the described paradox.

Athens sacrificed sovereignty for the sake of a global economic project (single currency), problems arose not only for the country, but also for the project. But then it turned out that sovereignty cannot be limited; democracy is also incompatible with the project. The story of the referendum (that is, an act of direct democracy) on the attitude towards the conditions of creditors in July 2015 is fantastic. Its results (a solid “ooh”) were ignored by both united Europe and the Greek government itself, which had just announced a plebiscite and campaigned for “no.”

What is not in the spirit of Monnet and Lord Thornycroft? Don’t ask people, do what you have to do, move towards the goal. But the differences are obvious. First, the goal. The Founding Fathers knew exactly why this was needed: so that there would never be a war in Europe again. Now European integration is more reminiscent of the maxim of the revisionist Bernstein, hated by Lenin, “the goal is nothing, the movement is everything.” Secondly, the means. The founders of integration, while declaring a federalist approach at the political level, were guided in practice by the principles of functionalism. That is, an economically justified gradual unification of functions where appropriate. Today, the European structure has turned into an increasingly less functional de facto federation, where Germany has taken on the role of manager without securing formal powers.

And finally, the main thing. In Monnet's time, democracy was meant as a form of government in the countries of the community, but did not serve as its supporting ideological framework. Now the European Union, both in domestic and foreign policy, relies on “soft power”, and its basis is the everywhere promoted image of the most humane and fair democratic community, a universal model and magnet. But how can this fundamental image be reconciled with the risk that the application of democratic procedures within the union will simply destroy it? To resolve this paradox of integration, a political genius on the scale of Jean Monnet is needed, but it seems they are no longer produced in Europe...

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