Do you get a lump in you throat when you
hear the words of Schiller's Ode to Joy? Do you grow misty-eyed
at the mention of our great European heroes, Robert Schuman, Alcide
de Gasperi and Jean Monnet? Do you blink back the tears when you
see the blue and gold stars being waved at the Ryder Cup?
I thought not. And that, according to Chris
Patten, is the trouble. "A healthy European democracy will
develop only when people begin to feel an emotional attachment
to their European identity," says Our Man in Brussels in
the current issue of The Spectator.
One sees his point. The reason that we feel
closer to our nations than to the EU is not simply that the EU
often does things badly; it is also because the nations are able
to draw on a deep well of sentiment: of poetry and literature,
of national heroes, of history. The EU offers us the trappings
of statehood - flag, passport, anthem - with no underlying sense
of common identity.
The timing of the Commissioner's comments
is interesting. Tony Blair has made it clear that he wants a referendum
on the euro next year. He has also made clear how he intends to
fight it. He will present the question, as he did to Jeremy Paxman
on Wednesday, as a wholly economic one, and make a great song
and dance out of pretending to have met the Treasury's five tests.
Mr Patten implicitly disagrees. For him,
the matter has as much to do with heart as with head. In this,
he is reflecting the prevailing view in Brussels, which has always
held the euro to be a political goal, for which the EU should
be prepared to pay an economic price. He is no doubt aware that
the countries where the new currency has been most enthusiastically
embraced - Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg - are also those whose people
are readiest to identify themselves as "Europeans".
I see Mr Patten in Brussels from time to
time, mooching around disconsolately. He seems somehow greyer
and paunchier than when he arrived, and the bags under his eyes
have spread. Not long ago, it was reported that he was "counting
the hours" until the end of his term. I put it down to disillusionment.
To a man like Mr Patten, a principled and idealistic European,
the reality of the Brussels system must be hard to bear. Instead
of finding himself among pioneers, working to transcend war and
bring a new political order to the continent, he has found himself
among some of the most stubborn and self-serving officials in
Europe. Even his thoroughly uncontentious plans to make the EU's
overseas aid programme less corrupt ran up against vested interests
in the bureaucracy. We sceptics are not really surprised when
the EU makes a mess of things. We may kick up a fuss about the
expenses regime, or about the billions of unspent euros in the
budget, or about fraud. But, inside, we are enjoying the warm
glow that comes from having our prejudices confirmed.
For Mr Patten, the failings of the Brussels
system are far more painful. He is desperate to make it work,
and believes that this could be achieved by generating a sense
of civic loyalty. As long as no one feels any Euro-patriotism,
people will treat the EU largely as an opportunity to get their
hands on public money.
The trouble is that nationhood cannot be
created overnight by bureaucratic fiat. Nations evolve because
their citizens feel enough in common one with another to accept
government from each other's hands. This identity may be shaped
by many things: language, culture, history or geography. But it
cannot simply be synthesised.
The EU's attempts to "strengthen the
sense of European citizenship" range from the irritating
to the hilarious. As well as the passport and the driving licence,
there are proposals for a single EU international dialling code,
and for a common internet address: dot eu. There is also an EU
public holiday, Europe day, which fell, as you were doubtless
aware, 10 days ago.
And then there is Ode to Joy to which, at
least in Brussels, we are now expected to stand to attention (I
find that it has the same effect on me as on Alex in A Clockwork
Orange, and for the same reason: bad connotations). The idea that
these and similar gestures will make us feel European, in the
same way that someone feels American or Norwegian, is preposterous.
National identity is one of the most tenacious
of human feelings. The USSR tried for 70 years to give its people
a sense of Soviet nationality. Yet, as soon as they were free
to vote, they reverted to their traditional linguistic units.
I can already hear the Europhiles spluttering into their sancerre.
There is nothing that annoys them more than mention of the European
and Soviet Unions in the same context. But I am not trying to
argue that the EU is a totalitarian system. On the contrary, my
point is that not even the Soviet Union, with all the resources
of a police state at its disposal, was able to extirpate the older
patriotisms of its peoples. How, then, can the EU, made up of
15 liberal democracies, hope to succeed with nothing more powerful
in its arsenal than a common passport?
Mr Patten thinks he has the answer. "You
can already feel the stirrings [of pro-European patriotism], perhaps,
in the shared indignation at US steel protection," he writes.
"You can feel it at the Ryder Cup, too." It is significant
that the only two examples he can come up with are based on anti-Americanism.
From his point of view, this may make tactical sense. Nations
do indeed cohere when they perceive an external enemy. And there
is a certain market for anti-Americanism even in this country.
But I wonder whether long exile is beginning to distort Mr Patten's
view of the British.
When truly important matters are at stake,
we tend to sympathise most with the community of free English-speaking
nations, the countries which have stuck by us in most conflicts
from the First World War onwards.
No number of Ryder Cups can compete
with the reality of cultural affinity, based on common legal and
political traditions and, above all, on a shared language. Mr
Patten shrewdly understands that a common EU identity will be
facilitated by a sense of "them" and "us".
But I suspect he will be disappointed by how the British define
"us".
