Jürgen Habermas

The Constitution of Europe

(Orig.Title: La constitution de l’Europe)

Paris, Gallimard, 2012

Originally published in German by Suhrkamp Verlag as “Zur Verfassung Europas. Ein essay”, the most recent book by this German philosopher marking our current period provides a breath of hope in an ocean of doubt and abandonment. It is also, in a certain way, an appeal to rebel by the 80-year-old author. In his preface in the French version, he starts with the lines, “it is imperative that European citizens do not surrender the process of reciprocal de-provincialisation to their heads of state and government”. He argues that this is the only way in which member states will be able, to a certain extent, to protect their current standing in our globalised world.

Is this another major work by Habermas? Perhaps not, given that he includes a substantial number of ideas that were already covered in the days following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the period preceding the Obama’s election in autumn 2008, up until the end of last year. Nonetheless, the intellectual coherence with which this book is imbued helps the reader to discover the underside of the picture presented, such as the senseless anarchy affecting European construction, as well as the unhealthy and puerile motives of those operating in this field and the problems underlying the European project, which result from this environment. The analysis will undoubtedly provide grist to the mill for those complaining about national sovereignty, as well as other nationalistic Eurosceptics, but even these agents would do well to learn about possible solutions that fully respect member states and democracy, as outlined by Habermas, as a means to develop a Europe based on its people and which, in his view, is indispensable. Some federalists may feel somewhat castigated by the possible alternatives suggested by this German philosopher, but the most thought out amongst them will no doubt take consolation in the fact that the brains behind the concept of constitutional patriotism also, in his way, leads them along deliciously meandering roads towards a kind of global federation, which does not yet speak its name.

Any excessive claims are obviously banished from this intellectual universe, but Jürgen Habermas is not loath to launch a venomous attack on the behaviour displayed by Chancellor Merkel on the European scene. He overtly accuses her of tearing apart the “crucial confidence German governments have over the past half century successfully created with their neighbours”. The first part of the book consists of an interview and several feature articles published in the press (Die Zeit, Esprit, Süddeutsche Zeitung). Again, he pulls no punches in both his accusations and precisions when he states that there is a “self-centred perception that Germany reunited all by itself”, which is revealed in the way in which it puts into practice its European policy. He subsequently accuses Ms Merkel of sinking to the level of a short-sighted “lobbyist”, acting on the basis of cold short-termist attempts to win votes in her defence of the biggest economy in Europe. Habermas regrets that, under her leadership, Germany has forgotten the lessons that the former Republic of Bonn learned from history. This in turn has revived former suspicions towards Germany regarding the fact that what is good for Germany is not necessarily good for the rest of Europe. On an even more serious note, this aberrant German behaviour is based on the cult of sanctions in the Union, or at least the Eurozone, and that “an economic government should take into account regional and national differences when attempting to gradually harmonise the different levels of competitiveness”. All this is a far cry from the “inter-governmental collaboration”, which served as a watchword for the Merkel-Sarkozy duo, which the author believes led to a more obvious democratic process, given that the circumvention of funding rules by national parliaments gave the national executives room for manoeuvre that was hitherto unknown, and which the writer describes as a “coup d’état of the executives” by way of the European Council and, through it, the other national executives.

Should we deduce that Habermas is prepared to accept this drift? On the contrary, in his essay on the “[C/c]onstitution”, namely, the current state of Europe and its political constitution, he seeks to pave the way towards the construction of transnational democracy, of which the Lisbon Treaty has proved, in his eyes, to be an outline, by distancing itself from an inappropriate model such as a federal constitution. In the very dense pages making up this book, which, consistently, however, remain very readable, this philosopher methodologically unlocks the remaining obstacles to the trans-nationalisation of democracy and, to this end, European unification within a comprehensive coherency underpinning and encoding through legal forms of state power in a subsequent humanising and civilising manner. Is this not also similar to the majestic contribution made by the “founding fathers” 60 years ago, which helped to develop the political action and capability that went beyond national states?

In the analysis contained in the final part of the book on the dynamic of conflict linked to “indignation”, which still continues to create hope that, no matter how improbable it may appear, human rights could be institutionalised on a global scale, Jürgen Habermas finally leads his readers to the promising delights of a realistic utopia of human rights, which would be accomplished through the development of an international community of states, as an extension of an international community of states and citizens of the world of which the Union is a pre-figuration, that should be both cherished and protected more than ever. Would such a utopia, however, no matter how realistic and promising, be able to inspire political leaders who have become a simple operational elite dependent on the polls and managing public opinion, and who are ill-prepared for situations that are out of the ordinary? Asking the question, does not necessarily mean that there is an answer, but it does, nevertheless, need to be asked.

¹ The article was originally published in Agence Europe, September 2012