Hold the applause, please. What’s truly remarkable about Fischer’s speech is its awful timing. This is hardly the EU’s shining moment. The euro has dropped 24 percent since it was launched 16 months ago. The big project on the EU’s foreign-policy agenda–its much-advertised “stability pact” for the Balkans–has been bogged down in the usual Brussels red tape and has delivered only a tiny fraction of the promised aid. All the talk of a new, more muscular European defense and security policy remains mostly that: just talk, with governments squeezing already inadequate defense budgets. You’d think Fischer and other “staunch Europeans” would have their hands full trying to remedy these concrete problems. Instead, we’re back to soaring rhetoric and grandiose dreams.
What accounts for this curious behavior? The key explanation is that the “red-green” German government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder is not as different from its predecessor as it claims. Schroder insists that his generation is pro-European because it wants to be; Helmut Kohl and his team, he says, operated on the assumption that Germany had to push for European integration because otherwise they would be accused of slipping backward into nationalism. The Kohl belief was that Europe had to keep pedaling along the path of unification or fall off its bike. Fischer is even more representative of the new Germans than Schroder. The experiment has to move forward, he insisted, since “even just a standstill” will exact a fatal price, “particularly” for Germany. In other words, the old rules apply.
Fischer’s new declaration could easily backfire. Euroskeptics like Austria’s Jorg Haider and many Brits are certain to seize upon it to bolster their cause. Fischer acknowledged the danger, but claimed that fears that he was proposing the end of the nation-state in Europe were wildly exaggerated. A “lean European federation” (oxymoron alert!) would focus on those issues that should be regulated on a European level, “whereas everything else would remain the responsibility of the nation-states.” This would make for a clear delineation of powers. Really? Pan-European issues now touch on almost every aspect of life. And Fischer called for a new European government that “should speak with one voice… on as many issues as possible.” You don’t have to be a dyspeptic Euroskeptic to see this as a maximalist approach.
Instead of overreaching, Fischer and other leaders would do better to focus on the immediate challenges. There’s a reason Kohl toned down his own European-unification rhetoric toward the end of his final term: the battle to win acceptance for the euro took a heavy toll, and he knew that Europe needed a period of consolidation. It still does. German exporters may be delighted by the weak euro, since it has given them a competitive edge. And many economists believe the euro will rebound in the long run. But the danger is now. A euro that keeps dropping could undermine confidence in the infant currency–and, by extension, in European integration.
Then there’s the nagging question of the aftermath of Kosovo. While they sheepishly acknowledged that the Americans did almost all the fighting in the air war, the Europeans vowed to make the reconstruction effort for the Balkans their showcase project. By their own admission, they’ve barely started yet. Ditto for their ballyhooed plans for launching a common defense and security policy. Former NATO secretary-general Javier Solana, who was handed that mandate, has almost dropped off the radar screen. If European forces are going to mount any operations on their own, they will need far more resources than anyone is currently offering them. Germany, which spends only 1.5 percent of its GNP on defense (the United States spends 3.2 percent), is planning new cutbacks over the next four years. But try to find a European politician making the case for reversing the trends. Forget it.
All of this creates a jarring disconnect between Fischer’s sweeping rhetoric and the very real problems. There’s something particularly Germanic in this situation. Once you seize upon an idea, you can’t let it go. If you’re for European integration, you have to keep pushing to go all the way. Even when it’s tactically foolish to do so, even when there are more pressing issues to address. Yes, this is a sweeping generalization, a bit unfair. But it was the great 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine who wrote:
