What’s the future of European integration?

The European Union has taken democratic integration – driven by the free will of its members, rather than military force – to unprecedented levels, securing its place at the forefront of institutional innovation. But today, sentiment in the EU seems to lean toward “conflict,” rather than “cooperation.”

Some member states are touting their sovereign right to embrace unilateral action, even as they request financial assistance, while others are acting as mere creditors, ignoring the social suffering that the current debt crisis has caused. To return to the path of innovative integration, the EU needs a new framework for public debate that underpins effective cooperation among partners and friends, instead of fueling conflict among seemingly irreconcilable rivals.

Overall, European integration has been a harmonious, ordered, and just process. Less wealthy member countries benefited from tools like the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, which provided considerable resources to enable them to boost their per capita income. But protracted economic crisis has changed their citizens’ perspective, with a rising proportion viewing EU membership as more costly than beneficial.

Not surprisingly, that change has fueled demands for more “national sovereignty,” which populist parties, such as Greece’s newly elected Syriza, have translated into electoral success. All of these parties, whether on the right or the left, place national sovereignty at odds with the so-called “external powers,” and seek to tilt the EU’s political axis accordingly. This reductionist view is the only glue holding the Greek ruling coalition together.

In this trendy discourse, sovereignty means “empowerment,” and EU institutions are “undemocratic.” Sovereignty has thus become a particularly seductive concept for citizens of the southern member countries, who have increasingly come to believe that the EU’s “rigid” structure has been imposed upon them. Meanwhile, the northern EU countries are falling prey to a simplistic message of their own: that their southern counterparts are irresponsible spendthrifts who should be left to solve their own problems.

At the root of both beliefs is the fear and uncertainty generated by globalization, with citizens concerned for their security and unsure of their place in the world. But there is no going back to a global order defined by isolated nation-states – even if one would not know it from the populist rhetoric dominating today’s discussions.

Of course, EU members are sovereign states, and they negotiate among themselves as such. But they are also interdependent, with each member’s actions shaped by external factors. This interdependence stems not only from a shared currency: it is the fruit of endless socioeconomic interactions that weave the EU member states into a dynamic web.

That is why a public debate that considers only two extreme scenarios – imposed integration or absolute national sovereignty – is misleading and dangerous. It drives participants into opposite corners, setting them up for conflict – an outcome that should be avoided at all costs.

There is a middle ground. The EU should commit to continue democratizing its institutions, as it did when it gave the democratically elected European Parliament a voice in the selection of the European Commission president. For their part, EU member countries should recognize that they, as sovereign actors, chose integration, because the benefits of pooling their sovereignty outweighed the costs.

European institutions reflect this dynamic. The European Stability Mechanism, for example, is a collective project aimed at safeguarding the eurozone’s financial stability, not an instrument of domination or confrontation. The ESM’s resources belong to everyone, just as one country’s bankruptcy affects everyone. When financially stable countries disregard the challenges facing their struggling counterparts, they are acting against their own interests.

Likewise, the economic transfers conducted through the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund involved sovereign, democratic countries. And it was the sovereign governments of Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Ireland that requested bailouts from their European partners. Greece has already received aid worth 117% of its GDP; in Cyprus, the figure is 55.9%, followed by Ireland and Portugal, at 45.1% and 46.6%, respectively.

Clearly, interdependency cannot be avoided; nor can the responsibility than it entails. The idea that, when the going gets tough, an EU country can solve all of its problems by reverting to pure national sovereignty is an intellectual fallacy, a political chimera, and thus a source of considerable social frustration. Sovereignty does not negate interdependence.

It is time for countries to abandon the notion that there is some magical form of sovereignty that will allow them to escape their responsibilities as EU members without incurring serious costs. In the real world of Europe today, debtors cannot break agreements that they have made in exchange for aid, and creditors must recognize the need to continue contributing resources to the bailout fund.

It would also help if creditors understood that their contributions, like their decades of support to cohesion funds, will not impoverish them (by, say, depleting their public pensions). On the contrary, creditor countries will benefit from more stable, solvent commercial partners for their exports.

The myth of sovereignty has been perpetuated for far too long in the EU, fueling dangerous nationalist sentiment and fear of the “other.” Member countries, beginning with Greece, must acknowledge that interdependency is unavoidable – and, indeed, desirable, if managed properly.

As Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, admitted recently, “Europe is a space for negotiation and mutually beneficial compromises.” Integration was a choice – and a positive one. Europe has much work to do to strengthen the multiple identities needed to avoid conflict. Whether we are from the north or the south, from Germany or Greece, we are all European. And we are richer for it.

This article is published in collaboration with Project Syndicate. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. 

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Author: Javier Solana was EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of NATO, and Foreign Minister of Spain.

Image: A huge euro logo is pictured next to the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) before the bank’s monthly news conference in Frankfurt August 7, 2014. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski.