The collapse of Babylon Europe – about bubbles, borders and a lack of inspiration – Joop

Every now and then I travel from Northern Romania – where I live – to the Netherlands and then choose where I spend the night, Budapest is halfway, Bratislava and Krakow also about, and a series of towns around it that are worth an overnight stay. This time I am writing this in Kezmarok in Slovakia, with a view of the still snow-capped mountains of the High Tatras. The evening wind is sweet and heavy, of rapeseed and acacia blossom. It is difficult for me not to love Europe and perhaps I should count Europe’s blessings, but the cynicism with which Hungary, Poland and Slovakia alternately play the EU puts me off. Integrating and disintegrating forces are closely aligned in today’s Europe, nowhere more clearly than here. Traveling is becoming easier but the sentiment towards Europe is quite grim.

Nevertheless, Babylonian tower construction in Brussels continues undisturbed. Plans for expansion of the Union and conditions for new entrants continue to attract new civil servants from the periphery of Eastern Europe, and they all continue to add to the EU’s bureaucratic structure. The tower, however, is a hollow tower, everyone builds here out of their own interest, the fact that they hardly understand each other seems to escape everyone – only if the tower falls, it will later be interpreted as a confusion of tongues. Unity is not wholeheartedly pursued, the EU does not formulate a higher goal and seems to revolve around assuming its own identity.

For the unity of a nation state, a language and a defined area are the best starting points. With 24 languages ​​in 3 scripts – including one from enemy Russia – things are slightly different for the EU. To make matters worse, the English language has been chosen as the Lingua Franca, a language that no one speaks as a native language since Brexit. aber soi – anything is better than having to learn the language of a former enemy. But because of the many languages, the national bubbles remain intact. Bubbles in which one can quietly continue to criticize other Member States and Brussels.

Things aren’t looking any better with the map. A map has emotional value for residents of a country, just like the national anthem and the flag, but as far as the European Union is concerned, almost no one knows what the map looks like. There is a Euro card, a Schengen card, a Union card and these cards also change faster than you can remember them. Great Britain has drifted away, unknown parts are constantly being added in the east, on one of the maps mentioned.

A map can be reinforced by developing cultural or social activities in the territory in question, but Europe is also failing here. If there was an EU football competition, many people would have been better off getting it now. An EU Eurovision Song Contest would also have been a good idea, logically without Israel and Azerbaijan. A European film festival.

In the media field, the EU is absent – there are hardly any European newspapers, news sites or TV channels, that is to say – coinciding with the borders of the EU, with the target group not the Brussels in-crowd but all EU residents. This could have created unity, and the lack of this perpetuates national bubbles and their disintegrating forces. The only thing that the EU organizes are the European elections, which of course can hardly be called a party. A European day off on election day, why doesn’t anyone show up for it? Something from Brussels that makes people happy?

But in Brussels people seem indifferent, as if they don’t care that the EU remains unloved. As long as they can continue to fill their top positions and keep working between Brussels, Strasbourg and the European capitals. The government leaders of the Member States, in turn, can continue to compete in non-commitment towards Europe, and worse – blackmail and sabotage have become commonplace.

But sometimes something unexpected happens – suddenly there is a Eurovision song that sings about the love for Europe. Europapa, finally someone who connects Europe to a sentiment. Europe has of course produced greater music, and I find Rammstein’s Deutschland more passionate, but Joost Klein’s attempt shows courage, and the positive reactions seem to indicate that minds are ripe for a different interpretation of the concept of Europe. What people do not sense in Brussels may spontaneously bubble up among the population. Maybe I say, just to be nice, pay attention to the points that Joost will get from Eastern Europe.

The love for Europe could change the perspective. For example, I think that one word of European love would have been enough to prevent the British from leaving, but who should have spoken that word in Brussels – on the contrary, the terrible consequences of Brexit were threatened. In this way it was a piece of cake for a little demagogue to position love for his country against the cold regulators in Brussels and the rest is history.

It is just an example of how the Brussels attitude is decisive for the integration or disintegration of the European Union. If European citizens are not lovingly involved in the EU, the EU will inevitably lose its support base and, moreover, European elections will become a sham – democracy without involvement is not democracy. And let’s be honest – ultimately we can also have the EU as a bureaucratic apparatus managed through national governments – a situation that de facto already exists.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has bought the EU some time, the integrating forces temporarily have the wind at their backs, out of fear, but it seems unlikely that new love will blossom between the Member States and the EU citizens. If the EU remains determinedly half-hearted, we would be better off abandoning the frenetic idea of ​​unification and looking for a more pragmatic union, based on shared interests rather than shared values ​​and identity. The BRICS countries are also not looking for unification, they work together in the context of their shared interests. North-Western Europe, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe are more than we realized very different worlds and now that the economic dominance of the North-West is decreasing, landslides are imminent in Eastern Europe. Not to mention the splitting forces within the member states themselves, to which few countries are immune.

For the time being, Brussels has the character of a European puppet with wires to all European capitals. A puppet that performs a wooden dance around a hollow tower during election time. I have long thought that the sympathetic creation that I thought the EU was would really be revived. Now I fear that the fear and unwillingness among national rulers and the nonchalance of Brussels are too great for this. Unless the tower collapses, we will be able to watch this European puppet dance with pity for a long time to come.