Historical Waiting

Calling almost every occurrence historical is very much in these days. We hear about historical visits, historical meetings, historical declarations, etc. The European Union’s summit in Helsinki is considered historical for several reasons. First, the fifteen current EU member states decided to negotiate admission not with six countries, as planned a year ago, but with twelve. In other words, the European Union now stands a real chance to become truly European, and not just a club of some fifteen Western European countries. Such an extension of today’s most advanced civilization to states that quite recently were behind the Iron Curtain deserves all possible praise, except that there is the simultaneous impression that this is as far as it will go, that all those others (Ukraine included) are consciously barred entrance to civilized Europe. If anything, this is not likely to add stability to the Old World, accustomed as it has been to an undisturbed lifestyle over the past fifty years. Moreover, the Anglo-French beef war seems the harbinger of real trade battles that will rage inside EU; there are no real vehicles to prevent them, just as there is no way to combat protectionism, the latter a distinct hallmark of France. If only we had a clear picture of the EU’s future as a kind of confederation, economic alliance, or something else. So far, the EU looks more like a bureaucratic domain incapable of serious movement; it is reluctant to put up with the obvious need to change. What is now apparent is that the admission of new members will be an extremely difficult process, as evidenced by the long debates about Turkey as a candidate member.

Second, the EU’s fifteen member states decided that Europe (at least Western Europe) has a right to carry out its own defense policy and have its own rapid deployment forces. For some this means shedding complete dependence on the United States. For NATO nonmembers it means the opportunity to show their own importance on a bigger scale. In actuality, all this is the first step toward a real association that cannot always rely on purely economic vehicles and be expressed only in terms of the market. This is only the first sign that the EU’s interests may eventually prove at variance with those of the United States. It would be premature to broach the subject now, the more so that events in the Balkans over the past several decades show the EU’s obvious inability to influence the situation at home. Perhaps, its conversion from a powerful purely business alliance into an extremely influential international body will become a truly historical development. As it is, one can only describe the process as historical waiting.