Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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European unification has been pushed for long enough by political
elites. As long as everyone profited, the citizens were content. Until
now, the project has been granted legitimacy by its results. But the
Europe of 25 is in store for conflicts over distribution which will not
be appeased by this kind of output legitimation. Citizens are
dissatisfied with the modus of bureaucratic control, and acceptance is
also dwindling among the populations of Europe-friendly member states.
The France-Germany tandem has been out of step for a while, and no
longer decides what direction is to be taken.
In
this situation, the French government had the courage to hold a
constitutional referendum. As a German who is disappointed with the
faint-heartedness of his own politicians, I envy France. This French
republic is still conscious of the democratic standards of a tradition
it does not want to fall short of. The act of choosing a constitution
is taking place among polarised opinions and dissonant voices, through
the cumulative "Yes" and "No" of the French citizens. So we could be
content with the many-sided discourses from the French press that reach
us over the Rhine - if it weren't for one problem. Those of us looking
towards France from beyond its national boundaries know that it is also
our constitution which can miscarry with the French vote.
In the
same way, the French are dependent on the votes of the English, the
Poles, the Czechs and all the others. While in the normal case a people
decides on its own constitution, the European constitution must result
from the supporting votes of 25 peoples, and not from the common will
of the citizens of Europe. For there is still no European public space,
no transnational bundling of themes, no common discussion. Each one of
these votes takes place within the bounds of the individual country's
public sphere. This asymmetry is dangerous, because the primacy of
national problems, for instance reservations about Chirac's government,
can obstruct the view of the problems actually posed by the acceptance
or rejection of the European constitution. In each of our national
public spheres, the pros and cons of the other nations should also find
a voice.
It is in this spirit that I understand the invitation
for me to become involved in the French electoral campaign. In my view,
a Left which aims to tame and civilise capitalism with a "No" to the
European constitution would be deciding for the wrong side at the wrong
time.
Of course there are good reasons to criticise the course
that the unification of Europe has taken. Delors failed with his
political vision. Instead, Europe has been integrated horizontally,
through the creation of a common market and a partially common
currency. Without the dynamic of economic interests, the political
union would have probably never gotten off the ground. This dynamic
only strengthens the worldwide tendency toward market deregulation. But
the xenophobic perception of the Right that the socially undesirable
consequences of this lifting of boundaries could be avoided by
returning to the protectionist forces of the nation state is not only
dubious for normative reasons, it is also outright unrealistic. The
Left must not let itself be infected by such regressive reflexes.
The
regulative capacity of the nation state has long been insufficient to
buffer the ambivalent consequences of economic globalisation. What is
vaunted today as the "European social model" can only be defended if
European political strength grows alongside the markets. It is solely
on the European level that a part of the political regulatory power
that is bound to be lost on the national level can be won back. Today
the EU member states are strengthening their cooperation in the areas
of justice, criminal law and immigration. An active Left taking an
enlightened stance toward European politics could have also pressed
long ago for greater harmonisation in the areas of taxation and
economic policy.
The European constitution now creates at least
the conditions for this. It will maintain the European Union's power to
act, even after the eastward expansion. In the Europe of 25, divergent
interests must be coordinated according to the procedure decided on in
Nice, because the Europe of 15 was not able to give itself a political
constitution in due time. If this state continues after the rejection
of the draft constitution, the EU will certainly not become
ungovernable. But it will fall back to a level of immobility and
indecisiveness that can only add grist to the mill of the neoliberals.
They already achieved their goal with the Treaty of Maastricht.
A
Left that opposes the neoliberal economic regime must also look beyond
Europe. It can only follow a social-democratic - in the largest sense
of the term – alternative to the ruling consensus in Washington, if the
European Union acquires the power to act not only on its home turf, but
also in international affairs. It must learn to speak the language of
foreign policy with a single voice, if it wants to counter the
hegemonic liberalism that is willing to push through free elections and
the free market on its own and backed by military might, if need be.
Bush
is the one who would rejoice at the failure of the European
constitution, for it would allow Europe to develop a common foreign and
security policy with enough soft power to bolster opposition to the
neoconservative view of global order, also within the United States. It
is in our common interest to develop the United Nations, and the law of
nations, into a politically constituted world community without a world
government. We must attain an effective juridification of international
relations, before other world powers are in a position to emulate the
power politics of the Bush government in violation of the law of
nations.
We can only meet the challenges and risks of a world in
upheaval in an offensive way by strengthening Europe, not by exploiting
the understandable fears of the people in a populist manner. The
involuntary coalition of the Leftist "No" with the reactionary "No" of
the Right has a tragic note to it, because it rides on a Leftist
illusion: that a "No" in France could prompt other member states to
renew negotiations on the European constitution. This idea contains a
twofold error.
From the perspective of all the other nations,
the French "No" has a specific significance. After the end of the
Second World War, the French nation took the generous initiative of
reconciliation with Germany. In doing so, it started the ball rolling
for European unification. And France has continually given new impulses
to this unification. If now, at this critical junction, France departs
from the route it has been following, a prolonged depression will
spread across Europe.
I hold this for practically unavoidable.
France is not Great Britain. If the constitutional referendum were to
fail there, which I hope it will not, I think most of the member states
would probably react defiantly. Their answer to a constitutional "No"
in a country that had always been hesitant could well be "all the more
reason!" But a "No" in France would paralyse Europe in the long term,
because it would send a signal to all other European countries, and tip
the precarious balance of opinion in favour of Europe's adversaries –
nationalists and sovereigntists of all stripes. And it would play into
the hands of the neoliberals, for whom the concept of a European
constitution goes no further than the existing economic constitution.
It
is a grotesque overestimation on the part of the Leftist naysayers to
presume that the constitution would be reopened to negotiation because
the perverse coalition of French "No" votes also includes a few friends
of Europe who feel the political integration does not go far enough.
And that is the second illusion: if in fact the French vote did lead to
new negotiations, the winners would be those who feel the constitution
compromise goes too far. The result would in no means be a further
strengthening of European institutions, but a strengthening of
intergovernmentalism.
I do not relinquish the hope that the
French Left will remain true to itself, and that this time too, it will
be swayed by arguments, and not by sentiment.
*
The article was originally published in French in the Nouvel Observateur on 7 May, 2005, and in German on the Perlentaucher website on 11 May, 2005.
Jürgen
Habermas, born in 1929, is one of Germany's foremost intellectual
figures. A philosopher and sociologist, he is professor emeritus at the
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and the leading
representative of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. His works
include "Legitimation Crisis", "Knowledge and Human Interests", "Theory
of Communicative Action" and "The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity".
Translation: jab.
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