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標題: [哈伯] Germany and the Euro-Crisis◎Habermas
時間: Sat Jun 12 23:42:33 2010
作者: ccyares (分明是。到無話可說) 看板: Kabinett
標題: [哈伯] Germany and the Euro-Crisis◎Jürgen Habermas
時間: Sat Jun 12 22:54:30 2010
http://www.thenation.com/article/germany-and-euro-crisis
˙This article appeared in the June 28, 2010 edition of The Nation.
˙Translated by Ciaran Cronin (with acknowledgments to Eric Rosencrantz at
presseurop.eu
These are fateful times. The West and Russia celebrated the anniversary of
the victory over Nazi Germany on May 8 and 9, respectively. Here in Germany
these are also officially known as "days of liberation." This year the armed
forces of the Allied coalition against Germany (also including a Polish unit)
marched together in the victory parade. Angela Merkel stood directly beside
Vladimir Putin on Red Square. Her presence reaffirmed the spirit of a "new"
Germany: the postwar generations have not forgotten that they were also
liberated by the Russian Army—and that the Red Army in the process suffered
the heaviest casualties.
The chancellor had flown in from Brussels, where, in an entirely different
capacity, she had witnessed a defeat of a completely different kind. The
picture of that press conference, in which the EU heads of government
announced their decision to establish a joint rescue fund for the ailing
euro, betrays the fretfulness not of the "new" but of present-day Germany.
The grating photo captures the stony faces of Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy—
worn-out heads of government who had nothing left to say to each other. Is it
destined to become the iconographic document of the demise of a vision that
shaped postwar European history for more than half a century?
In Moscow, Merkel stood in the shadow of the tradition of the old Federal
Republic. But in Brussels on May 8, she had behind her the weeks of struggle
of a hard-nosed lobbyist for the national interests of the economic
powerhouse of the European Union. Appealing to the model of German fiscal
discipline, she had blocked a timely joint intervention by the EU to shore up
Greece's creditworthiness against speculation aimed at triggering a state
bankruptcy. Ineffectual declarations of intent had frustrated concerted
preventive action—on the mistaken assumption that Greece was an isolated
case.
Not until the most recent slump in the stock market did the chancellor relent
meekly, her resistance broken down by the collective psychological massage
administered by the presidents of the United States, the International
Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Out of fear of the weapons of
mass destruction wielded by the tabloid press, she seemed to have lost sight
of the destructive force of the weapons of mass destruction wielded by the
financial markets. She would hear nothing of a eurozone, about which the
president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, would declare in
the days that followed: if you don't want a unified economic policy, you'll
also have to forget about the monetary union.
The momentousness of the Brussels decision of May 8 is now dawning on all
concerned. The Anglicizing metaphors prevalent in Germany, in which we are
ceaselessly deploying "rescue parachutes" and cobbling together "rescue
packages," should not conceal the fact that the hastily agreed-upon emergency
measures to save the euro will have different consequences from any previous
bailout. Because the Commission is now taking out loans on the market for the
European Union as a whole, this "crisis mechanism" is a "Community
Instrument" that changes the basis on which the European Union operates.
The fact that from now on the taxpayers of the eurozone bear joint liability
for the budgetary risks of each of the other member states amounts to a
paradigm shift. This brings a long-repressed problem to awareness. The
financial crisis, which has developed into a crisis of the states, calls to
mind the birth defect of an incomplete political union marooned in midstream.
A common market with a partially shared currency has developed in an economic
zone of continental proportions with a huge population, but without the
establishment of institutions at the European level with sufficient powers to
coordinate the economic policies of the member states effectively.
No one can write off the call by the president of the IMF for "European
economic governance" as unreasonable anymore. The models of a "rule
compliant" economic policy and a "disciplined" budgetary policy that conform
to the requirements of the stability pact do not meet the requirement of a
flexible adaptation to rapidly shifting political constellations. Of course,
the national budgets have to be balanced. Yet this is not only about Greek
"cheating" and Spanish "delusions of affluence" but an alignment of levels of
economic development within a currency area with diverse national economies.
The stability pact, which France and Germany themselves suspended in 2005,
has become a fetish. Imposing harsher sanctions will not be sufficient to
counterbalance the undesirable consequences of a planned asymmetry between a
complete economic and an incomplete political unification in Europe.
Even the business editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung see "the
European Union at a crossroads." Of course, they are merely invoking a
nightmare scenario to stir up Deutschmark nostalgia against the so-called
soft-currency countries, while a pliable chancellor is suddenly speaking of
the need for Europeans to become "more tightly intermeshed economically and
financially." But there is not the slightest trace of an awareness of a sea
change. Some are blurring the causal connection between the euro crisis and
the banking crisis and are blaming deficient fiscal discipline for the entire
disaster. Others are eagerly trying to talk down the problem of the overdue
harmonization of national economic policies into a matter of better
management.
The European Commission intends to put the interim rescue fund for the euro
on a permanent footing and to vet national budgets—even before they are
submitted to the national parliaments. It is not that these proposals are
unreasonable. However, it is outrageous to suggest that such an encroachment
by the Commission on national parliaments' budgetary prerogatives does not
impinge on the treaties and that it would not exacerbate the longstanding
democratic deficit in an unprecedented way. An effective coordination of
economic policies must entail an increase in the powers of the parliament in
Strasbourg; it will also stimulate the need for better coordination in other
policy fields.
The eurozone countries are heading toward a situation in which they will have
to choose between a deepening of European cooperation and relinquishing the
euro. It is not a matter of "mutual surveillance of economic policies"
(Jean-Claude Trichet) but of concerted action. And German politics is
woefully unprepared for that.
After the Holocaust, it took decades of concerted efforts—from Adenauer and
Heinemann through Brandt and Helmut Schmidt to Weizsäcker and Kohl—to bring
the Federal Republic back into the fold of civilized nations. A tactically
astute Genscherism and an opportunistic orientation to the West were not
enough. What was needed was an infinitely arduous change in mentality
throughout the whole population. What ultimately won over our European
neighbors were, first and foremost, the changed normative convictions and the
liberal-minded attitudes of the younger generations who had grown up in the
Federal Republic. And, of course, the fact that the convictions of the
politicians active at that time could be relied upon played a decisive role
in diplomatic relations.
The historically justified distrust of the Germans could not be weakened by
their discernible interest in a peaceful European unification alone. West
Germans seemed to have come to terms with the partition of the country, in
any case. Mindful of their past nationalistic excesses, they could have no
trouble in forgoing the recovery of sovereignty rights, in accepting their
role as the largest net contributor to Europe and, if need be, in making
concessions that paid off for the Federal Republic in any case. To be
convincing, the German commitment had to be normatively anchored. Jean-Claude
Juncker described the stress test well when, in view of Merkel's cool
interest calculation, he missed a willingness "to take domestic political
risks for Europe."
The new German intransigence has deeper roots. In the wake of reunification,
Germany's perspective had already changed in an enlarged country preoccupied
with its own problems. But there was a more sweeping change in mentalities
after Helmut Kohl. With the exception of a too quickly exhausted Joschka
Fischer, since Gerhard Schröder took office a normatively unambitious
generation has been in power that has become preoccupied with a short-winded
approach to the day-to-day problems of an increasingly complex society.
Conscious of the diminishing room for political maneuver, these people shy
away from farsighted goals and constructive political projects, let alone an
undertaking like European unification.
The current German elites are enjoying the return to normality as a
nation-state. Having reached the end of a "long path to the West," they are
certified democrats and can once again be "just like the others." What has
disappeared is the anxiousness of a people, who were also defeated morally
and were compelled to engage in self-criticism, to find their bearings more
rapidly in the postnational constellation. In a globalized world everyone has
to learn to incorporate the perspectives of others into his or her own
instead of withdrawing into an egocentric blend of aestheticization and
utility-maximization. One political symptom of the dwindling willingness to
learn are the Maastricht and Lisbon verdicts of the German Federal
Constitutional Court, which cling to outmoded dogmatic legal conceptions of
sovereignty. The solipsistic and normatively depleted mindset of this
self-absorbed colossus in the middle of Europe can no longer even guarantee
that the unstable status quo in the EU will be preserved.
The Blunted Sense of Crisis
In and of itself, a change in mentality is no cause for reproach; but the new
indifference has implications for our political perceptions of the challenges
ahead. Who is really willing to learn the lessons from the banking crisis so
eloquently enshrined in the declarations of intent at the G-20 Summit in
London more than a year ago—and to fight for them?
As regards taming a financial capitalism spinning out of control, there can
be no doubt about the preferences of the majorities among the national
populations. In the fall of 2008, for the first time in the history of
capitalism, the backbone of the financial market–driven global economic
system could be rescued from the brink of collapse only by the guarantees of
the taxpayers. And the fact that capitalism is no longer able to reproduce
itself under its own steam has now taken root in the consciousness of
citizens who, as taxpayers, must bear liability for the "system failure."
The demands of the experts are on the table. Among the proposals under
discussion are increasing the equity capital of the banks, greater
transparency for the activities of hedge funds, improved oversight of stock
markets and rating agencies, the prohibition of fanciful but economically
destructive speculative instruments, a tax on financial transactions, a bank
levy, the separation of investment from commercial banking and the preventive
breakup of banking conglomerates that are "too big to fail." A certain
nervousness was detectable in the face of Josef Ackermann, the shrewd head
lobbyist of the banking industry, when television presenter Maybrit Illner
invited him to choose between at least a selection of these legislative
"instruments of torture."
I don't mean to suggest that regulating financial markets would be
straightforward. It certainly also requires the expertise of the cleverest
bankers. But the good intentions are thwarted not so much by the "complexity
of the markets" as by the timidity and lack of independence of the national
governments. They are thwarted by the rash renunciation of any international
cooperation aimed at constructing the political capacities for joint action
that we lack—worldwide, in the European Union and, for a start, within the
eurozone. When it comes to the bailout for Greece, currency dealers and
speculators are more inclined to believe Ackermann's shrewd defeatism than
Merkel's lukewarm consent to the euro rescue fund; realistically, they don't
think that the euro countries are capable of working together resolutely. How
could it be otherwise in a club that squanders its energies in cockfights
over appointments to its most influential posts—only to fill them with the
most colorless figures?
In times of crisis even individuals can write history. Our lame political
elites, who prefer to read the headlines in the tabloids, must not use as an
excuse that the populations are the obstacle to a deeper European
unification. For they know best that popular opinion established by opinion
polls is not the same thing as the outcome of a public deliberative process
leading to the formation of a democratic will. To date there has not been a
single European election or referendum in any country that wasn't ultimately
about national issues and tickets. We are still waiting for a single
political party to undertake a constructive campaign to inform public
opinion, to say nothing of the blinkered nationalistic vision of the left (by
which I do not just mean the German party The Left).
With a little political backbone, the crisis of the single currency can bring
about what some once hoped for from a common European foreign policy, namely
promoting a cross-border awareness of a shared European destiny.
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