In a long and interesting interview in Die Zeit (26/11/08), philosopher Jürgen Habermas talked to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. Unfortunately Habermas doesn’t go beyond the proposal of a“closer cooperation” among the main European nation States, however he perfectly describe the flaws of the present European (and world) situation. Here are some excerpts from this talk (to read more).

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What role does Europe play in your scenario?

JH - Not the one it has in fact played in the crisis. It is not clear to me why the recent crisis management of the European Union is being praised so highly. Gordon Brown was able to bring the American finance minister Paulsen to reinterpret the laboriously negotiated bailout with his memorable decision because he brought the most important players in the Eurozone on board through the mediation of the French president and against the initial resistance of Angela Merkel and her minister of finance Peer Steinbrück. You need only examine this negotiation process and its outcome more closely. For it was the three most powerful among the nation-states united in the EU who agreed as sovereign actors to coordinate their different measures which happened to point in the same direction. In spite of the presence of Messrs Juncker and Barroso, the way this classical international agreement came about had almost nothing to do with a joint political will-formation of the European Union. The New York Times duly registered, not without a hint of malice, the Europeans' inability to agree upon a joint economic policy.

How do you account for that?

JH - The present course of the crisis is making the flaw in the construction of the European Union manifest: every country is responding with its own economic measures. Because the competences in the Union, simplifying somewhat, are divided in such a way that Brussels and the European Court of Justice implement the economic freedoms whereas the resulting external costs are palmed off on the member states, there is at present no joint will-formation at the level of economic policy. The most prominent member states are even divided over the principles governing how much state and how much market is desirable in the first place. Moreover each country is conducting its own foreign policy, Germany first and foremost. The Berlin Republic, for all its quiet diplomacy, is forgetting the lessons that the old Federal Republic drew from history. The government is exploiting the extended room for manoeuvre in foreign policy it has gained since 1989-90 and is falling back into the familiar pattern of national power politics between states, though the latter have long since shrunk to the format of minor princedoms.

But what could these princedoms do? What would be the next step?

JH - Are you asking me for my wish list? Since under the present conditions I regard graduated integration or different speeds of unification as the only possible scenario for overcoming the present stagnation, Sarkozy's proposal for an economic government of the Eurozone can serve as a starting point. This does not mean that we would have to accept the statist background assumptions and protectionist intentions of its sponsor. Procedures and political results are two different things. The "closer cooperation" in the field of economic policy would have to be followed by "closer cooperation" in foreign policy. And neither could be conducted any longer through backroom deals behind the backs of the populations.>>

Je pense que des coopérations renforcées ne prendront naissance que si les 2 ou 3 Etats les plus puissants évoqués par Habermas faisaient des propositions vraiment révoutionnaires, que les autres ne pourraient pas ne pas suivre. Malheureusement, les gouvernements français et allemand en sont incapables aujourd'hui.
Voir http://www.europesolidaire.eu/article.php?article_id=187&r_id=