The EU and the Defense of Democratic Values

Abstract

Jean-Claude Juncker opened his speech on the State of the Union on a note of optimism. “Wind is in our sails”, he said. After Brexit, the victory of pro-European parties in political elections in France and Germany and President Macron’s important speech at the Sorbonne on “the rebuilding of a sovereign, democratic and united Europe”, conditions seem to be ripe for resuming the march towards federal union. But there is no absolute certainty. If that way will not be followed, the EU’s disintegration, that is already underway, will lead to the end of the European integration experiment. The fundamental contradiction of our time lies in the gap between the economy, that has become global, and politics, that remains national. The wave of globalization produces a toxic combination of two negative elements: the retreat of the state and the growing power of global finance and multinational corporations. As a matter of fact, states have abdicated their responsibility to regulate globalization and allowed market forces to gain the upper hand over politics. They are like failed corporations put into receivership by the new world order dominated by non state actors. In other words, power has migrated from the organizations that ensure public goods to those primarily oriented towards profit and private interest. Margaret Thatcher’s prophecy of a deregulated society is fulfilled. But the result is not freedom, peace and prosperity. Unlike her expectations, the power vacuum produced by the retreat of the state generates the loneliness of the citizen and spreads fear. The fall of collective reference points paves the way to unbridled violence and arouses a sense of precariousness. The fading of state’s authority generates monsters like terrorism, xenophobia, racism and revives old nightmares like the atomic bomb.