What is the EU for?

If the British debate over membership of the EU is to achieve any clarity at all on fundamental issues at stake – rather than simply adding, to the usual fog of political debate, the foghorn of amplified partisan rhetoric – it must ask what kind of an entity the EU actually is. Only if we are clear on that can we assess the rationale for its very existence, how it might be reformed and whether Britain should remain a member. I’ll illustrate this in relation to the theme of ‘peace, forgiveness and reconciliation’.

The EU is a species of the genus ‘political community’. Today, the nation-state is still the most common species of that genus but there have been many other variants in the past (city republics, principalities, empires) and there are many today (local/regional governments, NATO, the UN). The EU displays certain state-like features (permanent bureaucracy, legislative competence, representative fora, etc.), but still contains crucially important inter-governmental features, as in the structure of the Council and the unanimity provision for treaty revision. It is a unique hybrid, which is why it is difficult for those who, like most English people, have only experienced unitary nation-states, to make sense of it.

This situation is compounded by the constricted horizons of much British political thought. Unlike continental traditions, British political discourse has shown little interest in ‘abstract’ questions like ‘the purpose of the political community’. In ordinary speech we thus tend to speak of ‘government’ – a functional organ we expect to get things done for us – rather than ‘the state’ – a more expansive concept raising questions about identity and goals. Add to this the fact that the most elaborate ‘theory of the state’ in post-war Britain has been the libertarian, anti-state philosophy of F.A. Hayek (ironically, a continental European). It then becomes clear why Brits are not well-prepared to reflect on the finalité (purpose) of the EU.

What, then, is that purpose?

The EU is not a cultural community, whose existence could be justified by the fact that it creates new arenas for cultural exchange – indeed for cross-cultural ‘reconciliation’. There was plenty of that before it existed – my late Dutch father-in-law was travelling to Germany to promote reconciliation with German Christians already in 1947 – and there would be plenty if it folded. Nor is it a spiritual community that is equipped to engage, for example, in acts of ‘forgiveness’. Those are best left to civil society, religious communities and the personal sphere.

Yet, nor is it essentially an economic community, whose existence could be justified by its contribution to promoting material prosperity as a goal in itself. The debate over Scottish independence was seriously skewed by the small-minded (and inconclusive) argument over whether independence would improve or hamper Scottish GNP. Promoting economic growth is only an imperative for a political community such as EU if it is essential for it to carry out its uniquely political tasks. From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, the EU allowed itself to be dominated by processes of growth-driven market integration to the neglect of ‘weightier matters of…justice’ (Matthew 23:23). It has been struggling ever since to define a proper political purpose that could unite its activities and inspire its increasingly indifferent or alienated citizens.

What, then, is the fundamental purpose of a political community – at any level?

Here I can only assert, not argue for, an answer: the establishment, through the political instruments of law and public policy, of a robust public framework of justice and the common good in which member states and their citizens and associations can pursue their own proper vocations (not ‘interests’) in security, freedom and responsibility. That statement, of course, cries out for fuller elaboration, and is inevitably controversial. It implies a potentially wide range of activities, but here are just four examples of why something like the EU is necessary to fulfil this purpose.

First, the founding aspiration to establish peace between formerly warring European nations. Peace is the first condition of justice, and the promotion of peace within the EU, but today much more beyond it, remains no less pressing today. The creation of EU structural funds to assist areas of chronic deprivation which some member states have been unable to tackle alone is another, since economic exclusion is also a prime case of injustice. Climate change is yet a third compelling example of where only a transnational political community can summon the political momentum to engage with this global threat to justice and the common good. Finally, a properly-coordinated humanitarian response to the current desperate refugee crisis in Europe demands a transnational response. This will be a vital test case of the EU’s collective will and capacity to do justice to ‘the sojourner within your gates’ (Exodus 20:10).

The key referendum question is: do we want to remain part of this ambitious, sprawling, always frustrating, but necessary and still inspiring project of transnational justice, or shall we turn inwards to protect our own? Is it to be justice, or ‘just us’?

About the author

Jonathan Chaplin is Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics (KLICE), Cambridge, a member of the Cambridge University Divinity Faculty and a Senior Fellow of Cardus. He is a specialist in Christian political thought. His latest book, co-edited with Gary Wilton, is God and the EU: Faith in the European Project (Routledge, forthcoming).