In early 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis, the 2010 Euro Crisis developed concerning some European states. What should be the response? How should economic and financial policies be coordinated at the EU level?

In the years before the arrival of the Euro (2002), a campaign of institutional advertising was assuring that ” the Euro makes us stronger “. For some years (2002-2007) the above mentioned slogan seemed to turn into axiom.

The happened between 2007 and 2013 does not deserve, as it seems to our celebrated political class, no explanation. To push and point. We do not interest these politicians as citizens but as taxable cigars.

Now, on the occasion of the celebration of the ” 2013 European Year of the citizens ” (and of step to be preparing the area for a few tricky elections to the European Parliament in 2014) the following advertising campaign appears us.

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Since its reunification 22 years ago, Germany has become the leading economic power in Europe. The sovereign debt crisis has offered it the opportunity to translate economic might into political clout within the EU. Problem is, as the austerity policies currently ravaging the continent illustrate, German politicians – from both the right and the New Left – are rather ill-prepared for such a responsible role.

This assessment belongs to former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who in 2011 cautioned his party and conationals against issuing economic diktats and against insensitivity to the plight of other, economically less fortunate, EU members (speech re-published by Alternatives Economiques in 2012). He mentioned the fact that the German trade surplus had been obtained at the expense of other countries’ deficits. (Gerhard Schröder labour market reforms prevent Germany from acting as consumer of last resort in Europe, as the purchasing power of millions of Germans has suffered severe reductions over the past few years. The current leadership’s refusal to introduce a minimum hourly wage and its insistence on the imposition of draconian austerity packages in Southern Europe have greatly unsettled a majority of its partners within the Union).

In this election year, German politicians would therefore be wise to keep in mind Helmut Schmidt’s sensible advice:

“Taking into account our central geopolitical position, our unfortunate role in European history until the middle of the 20th century, as well as our current economic performance, the German government has to take the particular care of the interests of our European partners. Such altruism is indispensable.”

Austria appears to be the last EU country resisting any attempt to disclose banking secrecy. The announcement made that even Luxembourg is to lift its bank secrecy by 2015 leaves Vienna as the only state standing against such a measure. On Friday 12 April, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain announced in a joint press conference the intention of setting up a pilot, multilateral project to exchange banking information based on FACTA in force in the US.
“Austria is sticking to bank secrecy”, stated a fiercely an defiant Austrian Finance Minister, Maria Fekter, in response to criticism at the last Eurogroup meeting in Brussels. The Austrian Minister answered back to her British counterpart George Osborne that “the UK especially has a plethora of money-laundering paradises and tax havens in its immediate area of legal responsibility”. The accusation was promptly rejected by the British Minister who listed the country’s efforts to tackle tax evasion and the importance of setting up a European wide information exchange concerning bank account holders.

Meanwhile the EU estimates in that one trillion euros is lost through of tax evasion in Europe (every year??). The Commissioner responsible for taxation, Algirdas Semeta, underlined the importance of an agreement on the requirements foreseen by the Saving Directive, which implies also aims for a more transparent bank management. “This is a part of a wider agenda which also includes a tougher stance against tax havens and abusive tax planning”, he said after a meeting in Dublin.

It goes without saying that Austria cannot maintain this tough stance for a long. A recent investigation conducted by international journalists showed how much tax havens affect the European economy and its society. Bank secrecy is directly linked to these phenomenons, as the Cahuzac case in France clearly shows. The economic crisis and the austerity measures that have affected hit European citizens and enterprises require all European countries, and the EU itself, to  prevent all the leaks and resolve once and for all the unbalances imbalances within its borders. Financial markets and banks proved to be one of these.

“Nobody can deny that bank secrecy is outdated, that we need an efficient system of to tackle evasion strategies”, stated French Minister Pierre Moscovici. Actually “outdated” is an euphemism. The recent bank crises in Greece, Cyprus and Spain highlights that banks need greater transparency and accountability in their activities. Cyprus is perhaps the clearest example of how an unregulated banking system can become a threat to an entire country. The Cypriot banking bubble had become grown to eight times the country’s GDP, a situation that soon proved to be unsustainable.

Today Austria, ranked as a AAA country by rating agencies, refuses to disclose its banking secrecy. In so doing Vienna is proving not only egoism but also political myopia. Even Luxembourg, a country with a banking industry roughly 22 times the size of its economy, and with deposits 10 times its GDP, surrendered to international pressure and announced the end to bank secrecy by 2015. “We cannot deny to the Europeans all that we will have to concede to the Americans in a bilateral treaty”, said Luxembourg Premier Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. Now it is the turn of Austria, to follow suit.

The only good results that the economic crisis could deliver is better regulation of financial markets and banks activities and a deeper European integration. So far people have paid all the bill. Lets’ take something positive out of all this mess.

@AlessioPisano

Business Secretary Vince Cable is right to keep Osborne in check on the sale of bailed-out RBS. Osborne’s apparent desire to sell off the company quickly is rash; the nation will benefit from our politicians employing more wisdom than that.

Reports that Osborne was hoping to quickly sell off RBS fully warranted the reaction from Business Secretary Vince Cable, who encouraged the chancellor to consider other options.

Osborne was allegedly hoping to sell off the banking group to the highest bidder, at a loss from when Alistair Dowling bailed them out in 2008 under the Labour government.

Cable spoke on Sunday, commenting: “I don’t see the need for any haste.” He added, “There’s a lot to be said for the idea of using RBS to create a more competitive banking sector.”

It is true that such a move may well involve greater complications for the government from a legal perspective, yet Cable is surely right to try to hold Osborne back from throwing the bank away thoughtlessly. That would achieve less than nothing, dragging the situation between banks back to the same problems of 5 years ago.

Cable, on the contrary, is suggesting breaking up RBS and thereby creating greater competition between banks; this is in line with the Coalition’s goal to do exactly that, in order to drive us out of recession.

Reports of Osborne attempting to quickly sell off the company stink of a hasty desire to wash his hands of the problem before the next elections.

We can be grateful that, for the time being at least, not everyone in the cabinet is already overcome by this mind-set. It is, after all, our nation’s economy with which they are gambling.

On April 26 2013, I had the great honor to attend a lecture on Democracy, Solidarity, and the European Crisis by one of the foremost thinkers of our age, Professor Jürgen Habermas. The event, which can now be watched online, took place at the premises of a very important center of knowledge in Belgium, if not worldwide, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and was introduced by the President of the European Council, Mr. Herman Van Rompuy.

The purpose of the present blog post is not to put forward a eulogy to Habermas, nor to engage in a hermeneutical exercise of the meaning underlying his pronouncements, but only to isolate some of the key remarks in his speech and use them as an impetus for propounding my own thoughts on the subjects concerned.

Without willing to dwell on introductory remarks, I shall proceed with the present post that is divided into thematic sections that are based on quotes excerpted from the transcript of Habermas’ lecture. Please note that this is a very long piece of text, containing a number of ideas I have on a range of issues and, as such, I would recommend that you consider each section as an article in its own capacity, even though all of them are constituent parts of the same architecture of thought and should be treated as such (I allowed each section to have its own permanent link which you can copy, bookmark or share separately). Parts I, II and III are closely related to actual European politics, whereas IV falls under the realm of political theory, most probably in the Aristotelean sense of the term “political”.

Contents:
I. “Postponing democracy is a rather dangerous move”
II. The politics of the Eurocore
III. Germany in the context of an asymmetric Europe
IV. Of the organic democracy and its tension with the heteronomy of the existing nation-state

I. “Postponing democracy is a rather dangerous move”

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On the tension between technocracy and democracy that is inherent in European integration and especially on the Blueprint towards a Deep and Genuine Economic Monetary Union that was put forth by the Commission in late 2012, Habermas spoke thus:

Supranational democracy remains the declared long term goal on paper. But postponing democracy is a rather dangerous move. If the economic constraints by the markets happily meet the flexibility of a free-floating European technocracy, there arise the immediate risk that the gradual unification process which is planned for, but not by the people will grind to a halt before the proclaimed goal of rebalancing the executive and the parliamentary branches is reached. Uncoupled from democratically enacted law and without feedback from the pressing dynamics of a mobilized political public sphere and civil society, political management lacks the impulse and the strength to contain and redirect the profit-oriented imperatives of investment capital into socially compatible channels. As we can observe already to-day, the authorities would more and more yield to the neoliberal pattern of politics. A technocracy without democratic roots would not have the motivation to accord sufficient weight to the demands of the electorate for a just distribution of income and property, for status security, public services, and collective goods when these conflicted with the systemic demands for competitiveness and economic growth. [...]

[T]he steering capacities which are lacking at present, though they are functionally necessary for any monetary union, could and should be centralized only within the framework of an equally supranational and democratic political community.

In as far as technocracy is concerned, I certainly agree with the distinguished professor. Besides, I have already published a scathing critique on the rise of technocracy in Europe(December 15, 2012), as a reaction to the Commission’s blueprint and the European Council’s corresponding roadmap for the completion of the EMU. Today, under the profoundly intergovernmental principle of “shared sovereignty” or “joint responsibility”, decision makers have emphasized on the rules and institutions governing the fiscal conduct of individual Member States. The deficiencies of the original Stability and Growth Pact, namely the effective non-enforcability of its provisions on an ex ante basis, are now being addressed by means of secondary legislation that have introduced such confederal arrangements as the European Semester and which have placed the ideocentric foundations for the installation of a permanent “troika” mechanism of surveillance and economic control, manifested in the euphemistically branded “reform contracts” for “competitiveness and growth”.

There is no doubt whatsoever that institutions must be set in place to provide for the application of laws and agreements and to ensure the predictability and foreseeability of political action at the Community level, as well as guarantee a degree of coordination and homogeneity. What has been meticulously omitted from this much-needed reformulation of the legal-institutional context, is the corresponding legitimacy that derives from the sovereignty of the citizens. The reconstruction of the EMU has been limited to the reinforcement of the preemptive and corrective arms of fiscal discipline and macroeconomic symmetry, exemplified in the fiscal compact, the two-pack and the six-pack. In this regard and without having improved the input legitimacy of the institutional architecture, Europe quatechnocratic abstraction presents itself as the arbiter of economic prudence and the enforcer of budgetary orthodoxy, without any citizen or collective of citizens having a direct say on the matter; for while the EU is a “Union of Democracies”, at least in principle, it nonetheless is not a democracy as such, since as the fallacy of composition clearly demonstrates, the aggregation of the parts is not necessarily equal to the whole; and the “whole” that is the EU unfortunately has as its executive function, the Commission, which is non-electable by the citizens, and the European Council that is a platform for intergovernmental deliberations which on their own capacity are devoid of input legitimacy, let alone transparency, as they are an amalgamation of often opaque governmental interests, rather than having an organic form, as ought to be the case in any fully integrated polity, where the popular will is transmitted via the numerous media of political action to the decision-makers and vice versa, in a manner that represents a unified entity in which one part cannot operate without the other; or in other words, in which secrecy and democratic illegitimacy are not tolerated and cannot withstand the test of time.

Underpinning these shifts in European diplomacy from looser inter-governmentalism to tighter confederalism, is the static rationale of incrementalism to integration, which presupposes the passivity of the electorate vis-à-vis the harmonization or approximation of the technocratic aspects of the EU, the corresponding concentration of power at the EU level and the concomitant erosion of democracy at the national level and in whole, manifested in the incapacity of an elected government—any government at any level of power—and a politically-conscious populous to conduct, inter alia, economic policy on a self-determined basis. The most visible change that the Great Recession and the Eurocrisis brought upon Europe is the realization by the people that the European Union, apart from being heavily exposed to the vicissitudes of global finance, shadowy banking and the increasing complexity of financial and fiscal engineering, is of utmost importance in the daily life of each citizen, even at the local level, which suggests that the pervasive indifference that once allowed European politicians congregating some European institution to determine policy in the absence of popular will or even against such a volksgeist, is about to become—or already is—a legacy of the old, probably defunct modus operandi of European integration.

As I have noted before in my critique of European meta-nationalism and the usually oneiric exogenous impetus to integration it makes judicious reference to, the magnificent phantomality of “More Europe”, the vagueness and nothingness it entails, cannot delude vigilant citizens for much longer, for it has already been understood that state power must be counter-balanced by popular control and meaningful participation, rather than the pitiful scaffolds appended to the EU architecture on the institutional “involvement” of citizens within the framework of the year 2013, the “European year of citizens”; implying that a thoroughgoing democratization of the EU edifice is necessary in present time, not as a groundless wish or a figment for the years to come; because as soon as citizens witness, for instance, the annual budget of their elected government being vetoed against by the Commission, following the proceedings of the European semester, they will no longer be keen to proceed with “more Europe”, as that phraseology will rightly offer them the impression of granting even more power to unelected overlords and economic tzars. A genuine EMU pre-requires the institution of a true European democracy—and it needs it now, before the euroscepticism of our time blends naturally with the exuberant europhobia that technocratic oversight over daily political life will certainly engender.

Alas, if one is to read through the aforementioned Commission Blueprint for the EU, will see on page 35 the clear intention to obfuscate and to hide the fact that the we are already living in a democratically inadequate European entity; in a piece of text which, in addition, provides the grounds for the derision and vilification of anyone willing to extend a critique to the citadel of technocracy that is gaining shape in Europe. The said text of page 35 of the Blueprint reads as follows (emphasis mine):

The Lisbon Treaty has perfected the EU’s unique model of supranational democracy, and in principle set an appropriate level of democratic legitimacy in regard of today’s EU competences. Hence, as long as EMU can be further developed on this Treaty basis, it would be inaccurate to suggest that insurmountable accountability problems exist.

I am afraid to point out that such Olympian pronouncements have nothing to do with reality and as a matter of fact they are a panoply of misinformation and falsehoods. The EU’s democratic legitimacy is largely inadequate and if there is no Treaty change, ideally a true European constitution, or at least a proto-contistution, it will be impossible to remain silent to the accountability and power asymmetries that will arise or be aggrandized and the problems resulting from them be exacerbated. Professor Habermas is certainly correct in saying that postponing democracy is a rather dangerous move, especially in these times where people across the land are becoming ever more loud and vociferous in asking for justice and democratic legitimacy, properly understood.

II. The politics of the Eurocore

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Habermas clearly is in favor of a European democracy and he believes that this can or must emerge within the EU rather than being a democracy of the EU. He stated the following:

What is necessary in the first place is a consistent decision to expand the European Monetary Union into a Political Union (that would remain open, of course, to the accession of other EU member states, in particular Poland). This step would for the first time signify a serious differentiation of the Union into a core and a periphery. The feasibility of necessary changes in the European treaties would depend essentially on the consent of countries preferring to stay out. In the worst case a principled resistance had to be overcome only by a re-foundation of the Union (based on the existing institutions).

I term this kind of approach, which I essentially disagree with even though it is the zeitgeist in many influential circles, the politics of the “Eurocore”, for it clearly advocates the formation of a politically integrated core that will stand against or in juxtaposition to the rest of the EU’s Member States, presumably exerting a power of attraction on them, which is nonetheless a mere hypothesis of an optimistic sort. I have taken note of this tendency in many of my previous articles, such as “The (euro)crisis of nationalism” (August 6 2012) and “The failure of ideology, not Germany” (December 12, 2012).

The very existence of the Euro area, as a stage of closer state cooperation within the European Union, constitutes a turning point in the history of European integration. Its significance exists in the shift in approach the governments of Member States adopted with respect to the diplomatic means used for the further development of the European project. The principle of unanimity, which once was the condicio sine qua non for integration, was decisively swept into the dustbin of history with the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht and the consequent Treaties, which introduced the possibility of a number of states to proceed with further integration, leaving others behind in the process. The creation of the Euro as ade facto “enhanced cooperation” of certain Member States was the manifestation of this change in principles.

The euro was and is a stateless currency, yet it is crystal clear that the imaginary institutions of a fiat monetary system and a sovereign state are so inextricably bound up together, both conceptually and historically, that no monetary union per se may ever be made sustainable on a long term basis, as has already been proven to be the case with the eurocrisis; and, conversely, no unified state may ever be truly sovereign as state without a fully and properly functioning common currency in place. Historically, logically and practically the Euro has always been the conduit to a European federation, with the tacit understanding that “federation” in this respect means nothing more than a mere re-allocation of state functions across the various layers of government, without entailing some of the ideologically-intensive elements that the original federalist and democratic movements envisioned. Should a federation of this de-conceptualized version emerge in Europe in the years to come, it will most likely spring from the Euro area and might not necessarily encompass the EU as a whole but only a collective of states, who will effectively usurp the European Union or completely reshape its institutional morphology.

In light of the politics of the Eurocore and to appreciate the significance of the Euro in the concatenation of events leading to a European federation, it is of paramount importance to remind our selves of the original approach governments had to European politics. Ever since the early years of European integration, from the 1950’s onwards, the governments of the six founding Member States of the European Community thought it expedient and politically pragmatic to proceed with incremental and orderly steps for the harmonization of certain economic policies along the lines of the Aristotelian golden mean or, more fully, by adhering to the principle of unanimity as the only suitable way for the materialization of the project for an ever-closer community of states in the post-WWII Europe.

The process was excruciatingly slow, sclerotic and inefficient, requiring laborious efforts from all sides involved, in finding common grounds for agreement between all six governments whose commitment to economic protectionism was still quite strong and readily apparent. Protectionist mentalities did indeed hamper European integration in its early decades, preventing the implementation of important agreements on the single market. Had it not been for the broad interpretations of the Treaties from the side of the European Court of Justice, it could well be said that the political deadlocks could persist for years, making an already cumbersome process ever more inflexible and unworkable.

For reasons that transcend the boundaries of the present essay, this approach was effectively, though partially, discarded with the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht in the early 1990’s. It then became possible, especially theoretically or rather in terms of political strategy, for certain Member States to proceed with deeper integration while other states could choose to remain outside of the process, clinging on to their sovereignty and the specificities of their national agenda. This change in diplomatic conduct did in effect signify the end or the beginning of the end of the principle of unanimity or consensus as the precondition to integration. Most importantly it effectively separated the European Union as such from the objective of a European federation. The two were no longer considered identical or necessary parts of one another, litanies to the contrary notwithstanding. Though never admitted in the open, it was implicit in the 1990′s agreements that European integration could and would thenceforth mainly be predicated on the basis of the intergovernmental cooperation of a number of consenting states, who would in effect establish a permanent majority within the broader European Union architecture, to forward their own understanding of a European political union. Such a permanent majority has been no other than the euro area’s Member States, which in the passage of time have shown signs of acting more like a unified bloc rather than an amalgamation of otherwise squabbling states; in spite of occasional differences in opinion, approach, tone and objectives. The opt out clauses from the euro area that the UK and Denmark received were the first signs of this seemingly timid and cautious yet profoundly radical shift in political approach. Their exclusion from the monetary union made it evident, even though it remained tacit, that under certain perhaps pressing conditions some states could choose to proceed further in pursuit of any common objective deemed essential for the continuation of the European project, while others could decide not to be involved, remaining therefore at an outer ring, so to speak, of the evolving European Community.

The inferences that could be drawn—and were drawn—from the application of this principle were and still are quite far-reaching. For if it were legitimate or expedient to introduce opt-out clauses for certain states under a given political, economic, social and legal context, with the aim of allowing other Member States to commit to further integration, then it could be claimed, using the same tenets of reasoning, that a complete federation of a sort could emerge within the European Union, not necessarily from or of the European Union. The creation of the euro had set in place a precedent that would—and did—put two irreconcilable world views on European integration, in a collision course, where only one would prevail, leading us to either a loosely confederated, slightly hermaphrodite political system centered around the single market and its related areas of policy; or throwing us into a political milieu where the states in support of full integration would gain the upper hand, and by exercising their majority power, would gradually but systematically usurp the existing complex, multi-tier European superstructure.

Such a scenario can be particularly plausible once considered within the framework of the institutional but mostly political dichotomy within the European Union architecture between Euro area Member States and non-members. The EU as a whole, the one which transcends the boundaries of the monetary union, has in fact no real reason—no pressing need—to pursue any ambitious political end, for its very existence is not directly dependent on the degree of harmonization of policies its Member States may achieve, nor on the scope of such policies. As amiable as the EU, this sui generis political entity, may be for many people, as lofty as the principles underpinning it undoubtedly are, it must be stressed that its very form or main function is rather limited to the maintenance of a certain degree of conformity to some general guidelines of economic policy. The EU’s raison d’être is in practice to maintain a relative free trade zone in Europe, a quasi-single market, always by respecting one of the oldest meta-ethical doctrines of European political thought, that of the national sovereignty of all of its Member States. It is almost impossible for the EU qua single market organization to circumvent the obstacles that national sovereignties pose towards a transitory process for genuine federalization.

In contrast the euro area, for it to be economically but mostly socially and politically sustainable as a monetary union or as a union per se, may sooner or later only follow either of the two paths:

• the suboptimal one: the one leading to the orderly disintegration of the euro and the gradual re-introduction of national currencies, or to the creation of two or more homogeneous currency unions, to cater to the particular needs of the states involved, as a counter-measure to the impracticable one-size-fits-all approach in the absence of a surplus recycling mechanism,
• the optimal one: to the genuine federalization of the euro area, which implies the formation of a banking union, a fiscal union and a democratic political union to complete and to render workable the euro as a common currency and as a shared political cause.

With the above in mind, it is crystal clear that what Habermas suggests, is but a re-affirmation of the principle that has been carefully and consistently applied over the last two decades or so. The politics of the Eurocore are the standard of our time, be it a desirable one or not, thus the problématique which arises, at least for those willing to remain open to the greater picture, is to make them as workable as possible, so that they do not end up being divisive and to result in the kind of fission that characterizes European political history. Understandably the implicit “we-they” approach to integration and the accompanying introduction of ad hoc opt-outs or other institutional arrangements that compound the complexity of the broader edifice, shall place a time bomb at the foundations of the European polity, by producing varying and inconsistent classes of states and of citizens.

III. Germany in the context of an asymmetric Europe

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Habermas also elaborated on his views about solidarity and the role of Germany in the present European context, saying that:

The leadership role that falls to Germany today for demographic and economic reasons is not only awakening historical ghosts all around us but also tempts us to choose a unilateral national course, or even to succumb to power fantasies of a “German Europe” instead of a “Germany in Europe”. We Germans should have learned from the catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century that it is in our national interest to avoid permanently the dilemma of a semi-hegemonic status that can hardly held up without sliding into conflicts. Helmut Kohl’s achievement is not the reunification and the reestablishment of a certain national normality per se, but the fact that this happy event was coupled with the consistent promotion of a policy that binds Germany tightly into Europe.

If one wants to preserve the Monetary Union, it is no longer enough, given the structural imbalances between the national economies, to provide loans to over-indebted states so that each should improve its competitiveness by its own efforts. What is required is solidarity instead, a cooperative effort from a shared political perspective to promote growth and competitiveness in the euro zone as a whole.

The element of correctness of this proposition exists in the fact that it recognizes the correlation between national unity and European orientation and that it stresses the importance of the formulation of a European social imaginary that shall provide the foundations for the political solidarity that citizens across countries will show, in having a normative obligation to provide to their fellows whatever they can afford in times of need, expecting for reciprocity in time.

Solidarity, in its political and meta-ethical sense, only exists as the outward manifestation of the imaginary collectivity, as the primordial commandment for political action in the name of the collective, the milieu which furnishes one with all there is, in the socio-political order of things. In that sense, it has nothing to do with the altruistic teachings of wise people of the past and present, but with a tacit political obligation that is embedded deeply in the shared or common tissue of fixed perceptions that pseudo- a prioristic incorporealities bestow upon the acting subject. Solidarity as a self-instituted political act constitutes the cornerstone of the primary rules that ensure the integrity of the polity, along the lines of a constant reaffirmation of the commitment to the political process.

Against this backdrop, one is permitted to proclaim that in the absence of a European shared political perspective no solidarity of the political sort can be sustained, for the present reality of ad hoc fiscal transfers, conducted under the duress of markets and economic constraints, may only give rise to essentially xenophobic and fractionalistic tendencies.

Nevertheless, the formulation of a shared meta-narrative per se cannot be perceived as a remedy in its own accord and in an ex ante sense, for the quality and content of this imaginary is of cardinal importance in determining the longer-term effect on the community, the fusion or fission it will bring about. In line with what was elucidated in the previous section on the politics of the eurocore, the tendency of the present is to provide the first elements to a European metanationalism that necessitates a European identity, unfortunately brought about through the application of the methodological means of nationalism, in the identification of the people with a state of affairs and a given territory.

It is indeed correct to emphasize the need for all participants to account for the others, but this ought to be embedded in an understanding of the whole, rather than as a sectarian power surge that seeks to unite the “us” as against the arbitrarily defined otherness.

The kind of shared political perspective that the German government and others are molding is one that stems from the further integration of the Euro area, along the lines of an ordoliberal conception of the politico-economic order and in the framework of a confederated European institutional environment that introduces different classes of Member States and their people, thus providing grounds for contradiction and separation, instead of offering a benign impulse for the harmonious combination and infusion of the parts into the whole.

Germany cannot have a hegemonic role in Europe, even if that is depicted as a pressing necessity of the times, for that shall bring about the beginning of the end of the community element that is needed to construct a European democracy. There can be no hierarchies of this sort in a Europe that has been plagued by hegemonic syndromes and nationalistic antagonisms, underpinned by superiority complexes and the exuberant or banal racism they entail.

That granted, it is not enough to speak of the need for Germany to proceed with genuine solidarity, in the sense Habermas ascribes to the term, but to call for a novel approach to European politics, one that is inclusive and which is the product of deliberations among equals, rather than a set of edicts from a superior to an inferior in a typical power structure that cannot withstand the pressures a freedom-seeking people will exert upon it.

As such, the idea of a presumably enlightened “leadership role” for Germany is a pernicious folly, as it places the seeds of hegemonism at the heart of the European project, even if the intention is towards the opposite direction. The role Germany and all others need to conform with, is that of members of a community of equals, at the governmental and citizen level; as a collective of people who ought to define mutually beneficial ends, freed from national prejudices and stereotypical perceptions of policy and polity. This differs fundamentally from what we are currently witnessing or from what may be furnished upon us in the years ahead, should a state or group of states decide to impose upon the rest their understanding of “the good”, in the name or under the pretense of some mystical “historical” responsibility of theirs to act with an iron will (and fist).

IV. Of the organic democracy and its tension with the heteronomy of the existing nation-state

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Habermas also touched upon the presumed function of the nation-state in the supranational structure of a European democracy and suggested something which appears to be very similar, in terms of substance, to a position that moderately conservative leaders such as Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso have put forth before. The following quote is one that I, a libertarian federalist, will subject to criticism:

On the other hand, the step to supranational democracy need not be conceived as a transition to a “United States of Europe.” “Confederation” versus “Federal state” is a false alternative (and a specific legacy of the constitutional discussion in 19th century Germany). The nation states can well preserve their integrity as states within a supranational democracy by retaining both their roles of the implementing administration and the final custodian of civil liberties.

Superficially the argument is plausible, for it suggests the mere addition of a democratic layer on top of the existing administrative architectures across Europe; and in some way, this is already happening to a considerable degree with the piles of European legislation being infused into national law. The presumption is that the democratic legitimation of the European political level can be achieved without substantial material and meta-ethical changes; that is to say without a root and branch reformulation of the imaginary institutions and meta-narratives underpinning the European polity. Such an essentially statist position rests on the age-old perception of the social contract as a pseudo-pragmatic manifestation of an agreement among citizens incorporated in a constitution from whence political legitimacy—sovereignty—springs from. The antecedence of the state and its presupposed legitimacyex ante was introduced to the history of “Western” thought in Plato’s “Crito”, in which Socrates justifies his acceptance of the death sentence against him on the grounds of a tacit contractual obligation of his to the polity of Athens. In a similar sense, the constitutionalization per se of the EU edifice which does not necessitate the profound reorganization of the political order across Europe, can provide the legal fundament upon which European democracy will be erected, as yet another application of a theory that attributes sovereignty to the incorporealities emerging from the trapping of the imaginary named “social contract”.

The tension, if not antinomy, inherent in that conception exists in the indirectness in which legitimacy is achieved as a one-off deal rather than a continuous process of affirmation and self-institution through inclusive and substantive action on a popular level, via participation and interaction; for if the phantomality of the social contract qua legal fundament provides the patina of legitimacy to the state as such, then the organic interrelation of an autonomous polity is rendered obsolete, by virtue of the hetero-institution of legitimacy as an hegemonic and a prioristic, ex cathedra commandment, which transcends the specificities of self-will and time.

The phantasmagorized hetero-institution of society as a passive recipient of enlightened legality has been the standard method for the allocation of power among the members and classes of the arbitrary collective and has had varying forms throughout its long history, either as theocratic totalitarianism, secular imperialism or liberal statism, as in all cases the logos of legality has been the fictionalized emanation of the upper source, of the elite, in its theological, meta-ethical and meta-political context, as that which stands in contradistinction to the self-determination of the citizen qua individual or collective who is bound by—and who operates within—the specificities of locality, culturality, institutionality and temporality.

Politics as the distribution of power among the members of the organized human society, can only be of an autonomous, organic form once founded upon the basis of a self-instituted-and-instituting collective of sovereign citizens, of self-conscious political actors who are fully aware that legitimacy stems from within, as a continuous affirmation, a confirmation of the popular will, as an ongoing process of creative-and-creating change in the imaginary institutions that permeate and penetrate political conduct, in the primary rules that establish primordial relations and in the secondary rules that stipulate specific conditionalities for given actions.

Organic democracy as the polity of an autonomous society cannot withstand the hetero-institution that constitutionalism, nationalism, theocracy or other emanations of the incorporeal universal collective bestow upon the minds of the participants in the political process. A democracy that springs from the top, or from an exterior source that is indirectly related to the existing citizens cannot be anything than an enlightened version of the oligarchies and other heteronomous concoctions of political control that have dominated the history of humankind; as in those arrangements the meta-political element is that of a robust hierarchy, with legitimacy concentrated in an elitist center of a kind, whereas in contrast the organic polity is the self-determined society that always exists in the present as a continuous affirmation of legitimacy stemming from each and every citizen and which is free from any influence that spectralized collectives may impose upon political drasis and theorisis.

The “who” and the “what” in an organic democracy are determined from within, without any power structure determining the order and manner of that which is, in the way and extent that it is. Consequently, the preservation of the nation-state as the effective conservation of the meta-ethical incorporeality of the nation qua ontology cannot be perceived as anything but a permutation in the spectrum of heteronomy, as yet another manifestation of the exterior “who” and “what” that shapes and animates the society of citizens in ways that transcend individualities, space, time and related particularities. The hetero-institution of this nationalism can only be a hierarchical structure that places the locus of sovereignty in the fantastic realms of nationality and supra-nationality, whose being is postulated as anterior to the citizen and whose superiority to them is perceived as a given, as a quasi-religious conviction whose ethical veneer cannot be penetrated by the logic of the will to autonomy. The nation-state as being the “custodian” of civil liberties is but another application of the heteronomous doctrines that dominate history; it is, in other words, a reconfiguration, perhaps a relative rationalization, of the suboptimality that already exists.

An organic democracy in Europe cannot exist in the presence of such meta-narratives that are attached to the now-exalted notions of “nation” and “state”, for their being fictitious universalities introduces the heteronomous element to political action, undermining the self-determination and auto-institution of the citizens’ society.

One may only pause to ponder on all of the above, thinking of our present predicament, to choose the kind of future we wish to make out of it, for us.

Picture credit: Protesilaos Stavrou, Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Footnotes on Jürgen Habermas lecture in Leuven about the European crisis | Protesilaos Stavrou — Originally published on April 28, 2013.

• Reducir horas de trabajo para generar empleos.
• Conciliación de la vida laboral y familiar.
• Relación entre las horas extra y la creación de empleo.
• El efecto de la economía sumergida sobre el paro.
• Prestaciones alternativas a la prestación por desempleo.
• Una sociedad que consume lo que necesita.

REPARTO DEL TRABAJO.- No se trata solo de reducir  las horas de trabajo o su salario, sino de la racionalización de la jornada laboral. Se trata de trabajar menos para vivir más, para vivir más con los nuestros. Está demostrado que la incorporación de avances tecnológicos y procesos de innovación en la producción, aumenta los niveles de productividad sin necesidad de incrementar las horas/hombre. De la misma forma que resulta fácil probar que la reducción de la jornada de 40 a 35 horas semanales de un puesto de trabajo, crea automáticamente un nuevo empleo. La acomodación de horarios y salarios de cientos de miles de trabajadores a sus necesidades reales, supondría un incremento de trabajadores cotizantes a la seguridad social, garantizando la sostenibilidad del sistema de protección.

CONCILIACIÓN DE LA VIDA LABORAL Y FAMILIAR.- Si queremos que los trabajadores del futuro estén preparados profesional y personalmente, los años de crianza de los niños, la presencia de los adultos que eduquen, se convierten en un aspecto esencial, que hay que cuidar y facilitar en aras de un futuro más optimista. Guarderías próximas a los centros de trabajo, aulas de apoyo escolar,… son medidas necesarias para la conciliación familiar, además de ser en sí mismas, una fuente de generación de empleo. Además, la estimulación de la conciliación laboral permitiría aumentar la natalidad en la Unión Europea, el área del mundo con más bajas tasas en este sentido, asegurando una mayor sostenibilidad del propio sistema.

LAS HORAS EXTRA.- Una cosa es el concepto de producción que requiere de la continuidad de un equipo de trabajo determinado y otra muy distinta, la práctica laboral que amplía la jornada desproporcionadamente con horarios casi inhumanos a lo largo de siete días de la semana. Muchos sectores, como por ejemplo la industria y la hostelería, son conocidos por la realización de un número de horas extra tremendo. Muy por encima de lo legal, y en muchos casos, ni se declaran, ni se cotizan. Simplemente no existen. Trabajar de lunes a viernes 11 horas diarias y el sábado 5 ó 6 con el tradicional almuerzo especial de por medio, ha sido práctica habitual de muchas empresas.

La ECONOMÍA SUMERGIDA.- Una sociedad que permite tasas de economía sumergida superiores al 20%, como es el caso de España, tiene un auténtico cáncer social en su interior. Hoy por hoy, resulta imposible evaluar correctamente de los 6,2 millones de personas que declaran encontrarse en el paro en la Encuesta de Población Activa, cuántos realmente lo están. Y si estas situaciones de ilegalidad se producen debemos huir de planteamientos hipócritas. La actuación de control e inspección de la Administración con las consiguientes sanciones severas para los delincuentes empresariales es imprescindible, pero también lo es rebajar las trabas burocráticas y analizar los costes sociales que el puesto de trabajo legal lleva aparejado. El incentivo siempre debe estar del lado del que cumple la ley.

PRESTACIONES SOCIALES ALTERNATIVAS.- El modelo recaudatorio y de prestaciones y subsidios por desempleo en España, ha demostrado en esta crisis, que está obsoleto y no soluciona ni alivia siquiera el problema. Las medidas de impulso para el empleo, no sólo deben ser subvenciones o bonificaciones para el empresario sino medidas con miras a medio plazo, que se prolonguen en el tiempo y que contemplen no sólo la flexibilidad del mercado de trabajo, sino de la propia Administración. Modelos como el alemán y el holandés, que en vez de pagar a los desempleados (en la forma de prestaciones por desempleo) pagan para que los trabajadores permanezcan empleados, pero trabajando menos horas y con menos salario, ha posibilitado que sus tasas de desempleo no aumenten al ritmo que lo han hecho otros países e incluso están por debajo de algunos de los que no han experimentado depresiones tan profundas.

CONSUMIR LO NECESARIO.- Todo lo dicho de nada serviría si no somos capaces de cambiar el concepto mismo de consumo y de necesidades vitales. Hemos construido una sociedad de consumo basada en la oferta de sobreproducción. Todo el esfuerzo marketiniano se dedica a convencernos de necesidades que están alejadas de la vida real de las personas. Tienen que ver con las necesidades de producción de fábricas que en absoluto tienen en cuenta la demanda y menos aún la sostenibilidad de los recursos naturales del planeta. El consumidor responsable es un consumidor sensibilizado, informado, crítico y consciente, es decir preocupado por las repercusiones económicas, sociales y medioambientales que acompañan a las sociedades de consumo.

Si no somos capaces de enfocar la reforma del mercado laboral desde un nuevo modelo de relación integral de la persona con el entorno, estaremos simplemente remendando un traje desfasado para vestir una sociedad que ha desbordado el esquema de producción posindustrial. Esta labor de cambio global requiere una toma de conciencia que parte de la reflexión individual para ser puesta en común entre todos. Es labor de los políticos, de los agentes sociales, empresarios y trabajadores, como lo es también del pensamiento que podamos aportar al proceso desde la universidad o los centros de conocimiento. Podemos optar por el consenso y la convivencia buscando entre todos soluciones al paradigma del desempleo que nos embarga actualmente o darnos al individualismo pernicioso salvando nuestro corto presente sin pensar en un futuro para todos. La elección es libre y de cada cual, pensadlo.

In EU today the ‘austerity’ measures are destroying national economies making it impossible for them to ever to pay back those debts created by banksters of virtual economy and their political cabals. At grassroots people have become the victim of parasitic credit capitalism and its unelected institutions. Neoliberal capitalism has been winning ground last 30 years. During last five years emergency economics has made it possible to replace democracy with debtocracy. EU and especially Eurozone today is in condition which was recognized by Abraham Lincoln already one and half century ago as follows:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.”

EU elite today does not see any alternatives to its only right policy. Lincoln had the opposite approach and he saw an alternative to the corrupt money power:

“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principals the taxpayers will be saving immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master, and become the servant of humanity.”

So in this way said Lincoln – an U.S. Republican. Coming back to present-day EU I see two dominating trends among EU leaders: First is to cut losses of players in virtual economy at the expense of taxpayers and the second is to guide EU towards strict federation at the expense of democracy. Change to this is needed for saving 99 % of people instead saving profits of the rest one per cent. With today’s strategy there is a risk that the combination of economic insecurity and political paralysis has been recipe for an increase in extremism and xenophobia. It is slow motion death spiral of economic collapse. That is the base to my view that people and the real world should be the first priority and not virtual economy, fiscal system, euro or EU elite. In my opinion it is time to whistle game out, collect losses and start new game in Day after Euro/EU context.

The best scenario from my point of view could be some kind of EU Lite version. A bit of similar ”privileged partnership” agreement than planed with Turkey (to keep it out from EU). EU Lite should be build simply to EU’s early basics as economical cooperation area including a customs union, the EU tariff band, competition etc linked to idea of the Common Market. EU Lite could also apply a structure of Confederation. Federalist intentions, the EU puppet parliament and the most of EU bureaucracy should from my point of view put in litter basket together with high-flown statements and other nonsense. In my opinion average citizen does not need EU to decide how wide tires one have in tractor or how big curve bananas can have. Most topics can more democratic way be handled at national level. For international affairs – e.g climachange, civil liberties, development aid – there are lot of official forums as well NGO-cooperation.

Even I sited Lincoln above I see some benefits with confederalist view in new desirable politics. Policy-making starts from community assemblies based on the practices of participatory democracy and continues further by interlinking villages, towns, neighborhoods, and cities into confederal networks. Power thus flows from the bottom up instead of from the top down like today. With critical issues – such as human rights, civil liberties, international policy etc political units can adopt a common constitution while the task of central governments would be providing support for all members. Democratic confederalism is based on grass-roots participation. Its decision-making processes lie with the communities; in conclusion my vision is decentralized society a network of directly democratic citizens’ assemblies in individual communities/cities organized in a confederal fashion.

Sure the scenario above can be seen as utopistic – however from my perspective the process or moving towards that Utopia is the core question.

My bottom line:

• People first system after
• Power flow from the bottom up
• Money for the people not the banks
• From private to public money creation
• Real economy instead of virtual economy
• Investor risk instead of taxpayers risk

P.S:

Related to Eurozone crisis some background in my article

EU in Turmoil and not only in Financial One

as well in article

Common Appeal for the Rescue of the Peoples of Europe

Imagine; you are locked in a room with twelve other individuals, it’s a stifling summer’s day and you have to decide whether a teenaged Puerto Rican will be sent to the electric chair (because this is the 1950s). His crime? Killing his father with a switchblade. You cannot leave the room until you and your fellow jurors have made a unanimous decision. You are also frustrated, because although there is clear evidence that the boy is guilty, one of your fellow jurors is refusing to cooperate. You don’t know his name but he has been labelled “Juror #8” for anonymity’s sake. He seems to think that the jury should collectively and methodologically go through the evidence one more time. You are not sure why, but it’s very frustrating because this room is very hot.

“If there’s a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused, a reasonable doubt, then you must bring me a verdict of not guilty. If however, there is no reasonable doubt, then you must in good conscience find the accused guilty. However you decide, your verdict must be unanimous. In the event that you find the accused guilty, the bench will not entertain a recommendation for mercy. The death sentence is mandatory in this case. You are faced with a grave responsibility. Thank you, gentlemen.”

– The Judge.

This is roughly the scene presented in Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men (1954) and later in Sidney Lumet’s feature film adaptation (1956). The play is exhausting, dominated by angry dialogue and violent disagreement. Slowly, Juror #8 convinces his peers to return to the evidence; they begin to see a strong case for “reasonable doubt”, and finally, Juror #3, the last remaining advocate of guilt, gives way.

There is a good message here; things may not always be what they seem and “evidence” should never be removed from scrutiny. The jury will never categorically know whether the teenager was innocent or not. Rather, it is their attitude of balanced evaluation that is exemplary and as a model prevents needless loss of life.

Until last week, the work of Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff (RR) on public sector debt ratios had largely been taken as fact in economic policy circles. Their statistical analysis, based on a 200-year database and covering dozens of countries, suggested that public debt rations above 90% were associated with much lower rates of GDP growth than debt rations under 90%. As European public debt expanded in the wake of the 2007/8 financial crises, policy advisors and economists alike advocated a healthy dose of “austerity measures”. Yet a new paper by Thomas Herdon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin (HAP) now argues that the RR “fact” was based on certain statistical errors.

In reality, the “truth” is much more complex; the original RR paper never convincingly demonstrated that GDP would dramatically decline once the 90% public debt threshold had been crossed, largely because the authors chose to focus on certain calculations rather than others (skewed evidence). On the other hand, even the HAP paper acknowledges that as a general trend, higher public debt does lead to slower growth. However, as Paul Krugman has argued many times, a negative correlation between debt and growth does not establish the direction of causation; slow growth may itself actually be the cause of higher debt, as governments borrow money to make up for lower tax receipts.

The economic debate has further entrenched divisions between northern and southern countries. Deciding on whether Europe should continue with austerity policies or not, Europe’s politicians could be characterised as 23 Angry Men and 4 Angry Women, (at the recent European Council Summit in March, female heads of state represented Slovenia, Germany, Denmark and Lithuania). These would do well to exercise the caution demonstrated by Juror #8. In Portugal, where unemployment rates hit a 17.5% high in February, application of the rule of law by the Constitutional Court found that proposed austerity budget cuts were untenable. Specifically, judges stated that cutting the 14^th month of pay for public-sector workers and pensioners constituted unfair discrimination. Brussels could barely hide its disgust at the ruling and then, with that wonderful twist of fate that has dictated so much of history, RR’s public debt thesis was publically humiliated. It pays to have institutions that offer equitable, fair and balanced examinations of “facts”.

On the subject of Constitutional Courts, the EU should also bend its thoughts towards Hungary, where President János Áder recently signed a decree for new constitutional reforms that removed the right of the Hungarian Constitutional Court from giving its opinion on the content of past and present law.

An equitable institution is powerful force and will always threaten those who wish to manipulate evidence.

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