The elusive quest for subsidiarity, solidarity and responsibility
- 2016-04-08
- By ReimaginingEurope
- Posted in Ben Ryan, Nick Spencer, solidarity, Subsidiarity
The intellectual basis for the early European project, as several contributors to this blog series have already noted, was rooted in Christian Democracy. More specifically, if we were to identify an ideology that defined early European integration the answer would owe much to Catholic Social Teaching and the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity and responsibility.
If that serves as the ideological underpinnings of the European movement, however, it ought to be acknowledged that that is not unproblematic. Not even the most blinkered ideologue could claim that the realization of those principles has been an unqualified success.
Solidarity can look a hollow claim when enforced austerity programmes paralyze the Greek welfare state and leave up to 45% of pensioners below the poverty line. Or when youth unemployment in Italy and Spain hovers around the 50% mark, forcing a generation of young people to try their chances abroad or else do little more than sit and wait for better times.
It seems a bold claim too when we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean caused in part by a failure to properly support a Europe-wide search and rescue service or to reform the Dublin Regulation that defines the asylum rules. That the burden for processing and supporting these refugees falls disproportionately on those frontline countries least equipped to pay for it (Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Italy) is a mark of a failure in solidarity.
Subsidiarity too looks a difficult claim at times. The EU has become, in the words of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, a “technocratic hegemony”. Too much activity takes place without clear enough accountability or democratic oversight. Policies have been imposed on some member states in clear defiance of national will.
And as for responsibility, we have an ambitious European-wide environmental policy, yet continue to import cheap dirty energy from Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine – self-evidently undermining those environmental efforts. The environment, it turns out, has little respect for the borders of international agreements. Buying energy from those countries, while claiming to be a world leader in environmental policy is not only hypocritical, it is a failing in moral responsibility.
These are failings, and pro-Europeans ought to be honest enough to recognise that. They are not, however, mortal failings: there is still hope for redemption. They should also be sat alongside legitimate success stories (as Europhobes should be honest enough to recognise). The reconciliation of France and Germany is, in historic terms, remarkable. The economic growth and reconstruction of various countries, but perhaps particularly the Republic of Ireland in the 1970s and 80s, has been a great success story.
We might add the oft-overlooked EU role in supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland and in supporting democracy in post-communist Eastern Europe. We ought to be quite astonished, when it comes to solidarity, that Serbia and Bosnia are both currently seeking to join a political union which includes and Croatia and Slovenia. This, less than 20 years since the Yugoslav wars, is remarkable.
The overall weakness of the EU at present is that the moral mission that was once fundamental has been allowed to fade. A technocratic obsession with neoliberal economics has become a rival pole to the moral mission in European decision-making. As an underlying basis for support this is desperately weak. Economics, as the Eurozone crisis has painfully reminded us all, is a fickle beast.
If the basis of European integration is to be that the EU will make people richer then it is doomed. Citizens will tolerate such a body in the economic boom times, and reject it when times get tough. The only sustainable basis for union is to be based on something more fundamental; something moral, perhaps even spiritual. A recovery of the moral mission of Europe and in particular the courage to put solidarity, subsidiarity and responsibility back at the top of the priority list is not naïve utopian politics – it is the last best chance for the EU to really work.
About the authors
Ben Ryan is a Researcher at Theos. He first joined Theos as an intern in September 2013 and graduated to a researcher in early 2014. He read Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Cambridge and also has an MSc in European Studies from the LSE European Institute. He is the author of A Very Modern Ministry: Chaplaincy in the UK.
Nick Spencer is Research Director at Theos. He is the author of several Theos reports and a number of books, including Darwin and God (SPCK, 2009) and Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (Hodder and Stoughton, 2011) and most recently Atheists: The Origin of the Species (Bloomsbury). He is Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London
The Theos report A Soul for the Union is available here http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/publications/2016/01/21/a-soul-for-the-union
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Taken from their post:
“The only sustainable basis for union is to be based on something more fundamental; something moral, perhaps even spiritual. A recovery of the moral mission of Europe and in particular the courage to put solidarity, subsidiarity and responsibility back at the top of the priority list is not naïve utopian politics – it is the last best chance for the EU to really work.”
As not only in the UK, but around Europe, Church attendance is declining, as we become a more secular society. Less & less people are actively living for Christ. Moral decline is the norm. I see no prospect in my lifetime, of this changing, but with God, anything is possible. But as it stands, your prognosis for the EEC, is poor, as no moral mission of Europe, is visible, so it appears that the last best chance for the EU to really work, is non existent.
John, can I come back to you on the question of agricultural policy please. You rightly said at the time that we should see what the NFU says. Indeed so and the NFU have commissioned a study which will be debated shortly at their Council meeting. This is good as it is remarkable how those proposing exit have avoided the policy questions that arise for farming: there is no escaping the choice between protection and public finance support for farmers.
The study makes this clear and says:
“Outside of the EU and therefore outside of its CAP, the UK Government would need to consider what, if any, direct income support to provide to British farmers. In addition to the trade scenarios, three different approaches to UK farm support payments have been modelled:
- Retention of 100% of the current level of direct payments to UK farmers;
- Reduction by 50%;
- Abolition of direct payments.
Under two of the three scenarios modelled (FTA and WTO default) the future British agriculture policy would become more protectionist.
Impacts for British food and farming if either of these scenarios were to happen are:
- An increase in farmgate prices
- Imports would become more expensive due to trade costs and under the WTO agreement
higher tariffs to pay to trade with the EU
- Stimulation of domestic production caused by higher farmgate prices.
- This would be a reverse of the policies that successive British governments have pursued for the past 40 years; it would go against a worldwide trend to more open agricultural trade and would be in contradiction to the stated aims of many of those who advocate that the UK should leave the EU.
The third scenario is that of UK Trade Liberalisation. This appears more in line with UK Government policy and of those advocating leaving the EU.
Impacts for British food and farming are:
- Lower prices for UK meat and dairy
- As a result of low prices, there would be an impact on production levels and a decrease the
UK’s self-sufficiency in these foods.”
One way or another, either there will be higher costs for the taxpayer: just maintaining farm subsidies at the current CAP levels would cost over £2.8 billion last year; or there will be protection by tariffs to the cost of the consumer.
I am quite worried that we might leave the EU, I think it would be economically difficult and not just in the short term but more important I think that in the long term the peace in Europe could breakdown.
To try to inform people more about the issues I too publish a blog. I post about a different issue every two days, so far there are 26 posts and you can see them at http://www.poitoucharentesinphotos.wordpress.com.
“The overall weakness of the EU at present is that the moral mission that was once fundamental has been allowed to fade”
This is not true - how closely have the writers actually looked at the day to day demands on the EU?
Trying to find solutions to an overwhelming crisis such as the refugee crisis, working to neutralise the nuclear ambitions of Iran, helping countries that have made a mess of their economies without increasing member state irresponsibility - all these tasks are being taken on by extremely hardworking and dedicated officials in the EU institutions. Trying to reconcile the different imperatives of solidarity and subsidiarity is not easy in a union of 28 countries. What about the work in development aid, in regional policy, in human rights etc etc?
Of course the EU is not perfect - what political system is and solutions have not been found for all the problems thrown at institutions in the last 10 years but the reason given by the two writers does not hold up.