Despotism In Brussels? Misreading the European Union

The answer to both questions is no. Tocqueville's Democracy in America is an enduring classic because it combines sharp and sympathetic empirical observations with a profound and prescient theory of modern politics. Democracy in Europe offers neither. Instead Siedentop mixes an unsympathetic, often simply inaccurate description of European integration with a doctrinaire application of sociological and philosophical dogmas two centuries old. His engaging prose and enthusiasm for political philosophy mask a remarkable neglect of the historical record, the true nature of current European institutions, and current debates over European constitutionalism -- all of which belie his claims. In the end, Democracy in Europe tells the reader much about the curiously persistent insularity of many Anglo-American commentators on Europe -- with whom Siedentop shares more than he admits -- and very little about the future of the region.

A NEW FRENCH EMPIRE?

Among the fundamental misunderstandings of European integration that underlie Democracy in Europe, three stand out. The first involves the history of the EU. Siedentop advances the peculiar claim that the EU is a French scheme. The French government, he believes, speaks the language of European federalism, but its underlying ambitions are no different from those of Louis XIV and Napoleon -- namely, to dominate Europe politically and propagate the French administrative state across the continent. He points out, correctly, that one major EU initiative, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), has long benefited French farmers. He also asserts, incorrectly, that the French government suddenly embraced monetary union and federal ideology in response to German unification in 1989-90. These two facts, one true and one largely false, are hardly enough to sustain such an idiosyncratic interpretation of the history of the European project.

Siedentop relies instead on nineteenth-century diplomatic and intellectual prejudices, specifically the traditional British distrust of France's geopolitical pretensions on the continent, and the doctrine -- last seriously advanced by Montesquieu, Hegel, and Carlyle -- that great nations and great politicians disseminate distinctive, world-historical political ideals. There is more than a whiff of Oxford "high-table history" in this combination of quaint notions. It recalls the mid-1950s assessments of European integration by British elites, who viewed European unity as either a French geopolitical gambit or an idealist aberration. These mistaken beliefs resulted in the United Kingdom's exclusion from the continent for decades -- misjudgments that leaders of the period such as Anthony Eden, foreign secretary in 1951-55 and prime minister in 1955-57, soon regretted.

Certainly this fanciful account of European integration has little in common with mainstream contemporary analyses (which Siedentop's bibliography pointedly, sometimes disdainfully, excludes). Most scholars today view the EU as a series of pragmatic responses to economic and geopolitical interdependence, influenced by all three of its most important member states (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom). France, to be sure, won big with the cap and the use of French as one of the two de facto working languages in Brussels. Yet the EU's quasi-federal structure, as well as its substantive emphasis on free trade, antitrust policy, high agricultural prices, and an independent central bank, stemmed from German proposals, and its most recent emphases on economic deregulation and a defense policy compatible with NATO owe much to British initiatives. The EU's institutions -- the European Commission, Court of Justice, Parliament, and Council of Ministers -- do not reflect the philosophical ideals of any single national political culture but are instead pragmatic institutions designed to resolve disputes when special interests press for exceptions from free-trade rules and common regulatory standards. In this regard, the EU is much like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement, or any other international institution.

EUROPE FOR PHILOSOPHERS

Even more curious than Siedentop's understanding of the EU's origins is his neglect of the fundamental institutional reason why European governments can and will continue to successfully resist centralization. The EU is hardly a nation-state, but it has in the 1957 Treaty of Rome -- which founded the European Economic Community -- a de facto federal constitution and a distinctive culture of constitutional deliberation around it. This document plays the role of a constitution in the straightforward sense that it establishes a stable, overarching structure of political authority in Europe. Its often-amended provisions define an enduring separation of power between Brussels and national governments; set forth ongoing procedures for EU legislation, adjudication, and implementation; prescribe the rights and duties of individual citizens; and assure compliance with EU rules.