Europe's Map, Compass and Horizon: Where? Why? With Whom?

Hopes for a Europe united by democracy from west to east are fading. They are being erased by the ongoing, if not expanding, Balkan war, unusually high sustained unemployment, and a loss of faith. Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, European nations are united only by their identity crises: they share narcissism, self-doubt, and a weariness with democracy. In former Warsaw Pact countries, with the notable exception of the Czech Republic, ex-communists have regained power, although they are more "ex" than communist. In western Europe, with the notable exception of Germany, scandals have tarnished the public's belief in democratic principles.

Since the Pyrrhic victory of the Maastricht referendum in France in 1992 (an acrimonious campaign that left the country nearly deadlocked, 51 percent for the treaty, 49 percent against, and aroused skepticism among prospective member nations), Europeans seem more afraid of what they may lose to the European Union (EU) in terms of sovereignty and identity than comforted by their prospects for more opportunities and influence in the world. West European governments seem mired in technocratic, soulless discussions of ways to build on the three pillars of the EU -- institutional reform, economic and monetary union, and common foreign and security policies. Fixated on how to "do" Europe, they have lost sight of the moral values and fundamental cultural and political objectives that constitute the "why" of it.

Europeans are painfully aware that their priorities are increasingly divergent. Around France, countries to the south are looking across the Mediterranean to the Maghreb with a growing sense of vulnerability and fear. Countries to the north, around Germany, are giving priority to the enlargement of the EU in east-central Europe. On Bosnia, Europeans have exposed their divisions (rather than sending them), their lack of political will, and their failure to perceive the moral and symbolic cost of over-cautiousness in the face of suffering of other Europeans. They have not been able to count on America to stop the fighting. Worse, the protracted war has strained and divided the Atlantic alliance. Europeans are ultimately the only ones responsible for other Europeans. The cost of nonintervention and indifference is proving higher than that of political and military interference...