Bananas: straight or curved?

Citation

Benedetto, G. (2001), "Bananas: straight or curved?", European Business Review, Vol. 13 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2001.05413aab.014

Bananas: straight or curved?

Bananas: straight or curved?

Review of The "Straight Banana" Republic, by Aidan Rankin, New Europe Research Trust, London, 2000.

Giacomo Benedetto Giacomo Benedetto is a Research Assistant in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. E-mail: G.Benedetto@lse.ac.uk

Keywords Europe, European Community, European Union, Politics

To set the record straight, "straight bananas" are only produced as a result of genetic modification practised by US multinationals with dubious ethical standards. It is unfortunate that Aidan Rankin sees European construction as a force homogenising different national cultures. On the contrary, left-wing federalists argue that a strong European political identity could protect European cultures from the homogenisation of multinationals, so that we can continue to enjoy curved bananas from the Windward Islands and Ivory Coast.

Having overlooked the reasons that lay behind the formation of the European Communities in the 1950s, Rankin is clear about what he opposes in the EU, in fact the list seems infinite. It is not clear, however, what he proposes. His observations are undermined by a tendency to simplify and denigrate.

Sceptics deplore the supposed dilution of British sovereignty and identity, regarding the creation of a common foreign policy and army with horror. Curiously some of the same people were happy for British foreign and defence policy to be pooled in NATO during the Cold War. We often hear that the EU imposes things on ordinary people or is obsessed with regulation, although no actual examples of how this occurs are ever offered.

The rise of single issue pressure groups and NGOs result from what political scientists call "partisan de-alignment", which goes further than the European issue alone. Political sociologists ascribe this to "post-materialism", whereby growing sections of the population, mostly public sector professionals and small and medium entrepreneurs, no longer identify with materialist politics of left and right. This explains the rise of protest movements, the emergence of green, regionalist and anti-tax parties. It is up to traditional parties to respond to this emerging market or lose votes. Rankin insists that these interests converge with political correctness and are responsible for "social engineering" at the European level. I see no evidence for this being the case. If anything, political correctness is an import from the USA.

We are asked why we cannot "grow our own" rights-based culture, evolving from our own political conditions rather than importing something from continental Europe. Yet British political thought has been part of the wider European tradition for centuries. It has not evolved in isolation. To pretend that the kind of constitutional rights that exist in continental Europe, derived from the Enlightenment, are alien is to be intellectually dishonest. Apparently, pro-Europeans assume that a "rights-minded society" can only be imported from Europe. I have not detected this assumption anywhere. If we wish to improve the rights that we have in Britain, it might be useful to look for "best practice"[1] examples elsewhere in the world. Perhaps, even from across the Channel.

A criticism from neo-liberal opponents of integration is that the EU seeks to "bootleg" social policy, what Thatcher described as "Socialism by the back door." In a single market, some harmonisation of social policy is required in order to create a level playing field, otherwise member states that have fewer social rights and lower social costs gain an unfair competitive advantage. Since Britain opted into the Social Chapter, unemployment has continued to fall. There is a deafening silence from the critics of the Social Chapter, whose dire predictions of increasing unemployment have been proved wrong. The Single European Act and Maastricht were drawn up by governments of left and right. Left-wing governments, fearful of the single market, insisted on developing common social policy. Such is the result of give-and-take in international relations. Likening proposals to codify social alongside civil rights within the EU as something akin to practice in the Soviet Union undermines Rankin's case. Codified social rights exist within the French and Italian Constitutions and are part of the post-war settlement.

We are used to hearing that sovereignty should remain with nation states, rather than with a manufactured entity called "Europe". This is perfectly consistent with the federalist principle of subsidiarity. However, some nation states are not so widely accepted or legitimate as others. For the citizens of "stateless nations"[2], Europe may be a preferable identity to that of the nation state. The modern nation state is also a construct resulting from the events of the nineteenth and late eighteenth centuries, whether through the Revolution and culture of the Republic as in France, or the wars of unification in Germany and Italy. Use of the French Revolution as an example of how bloodthirsty elites imposed changes on the people is therefore, curious. The French Revolution symbolically marks the end of absolutism and the creation of the modern nation state in Europe, something of which Rankin would approve.

Opponents of integration in its current form are right to complain that it is an elite-driven process. However, this an elite also consisting of trade unionists. Elites have always held sway in the political process, which is precisely what makes them elites. What about the anti-EU elites? The rich foreigners who own the right-wing press? Vested interests that depend on low social standards and exploitation?

The feeling of alienation towards the European project is symptomatic of the alienation from political processes in general. The question is how to address this, other than by mouthing platitudes as some pro-Europeans do repeatedly. We should celebrate the success of European integration thus far, despite its many faults. Unprecedented co-operation between the states of Europe has banished any possibility of war between France and Germany. Although Kohl and Mitterrand sought to immortalise themselves through a single currency, sceptics miss the point that the real reason was to stabilise a reunited Germany by tying her into the rest of Europe.

One utilitarian achievement of integration has been efficient management of policies of low political saliency at the European level. These are policies of little interest to public opinion, like agriculture, competition, the internal market and research and development. Issues of higher saliency like much of foreign policy, health, education and tax have been retained at national level. The management of low saliency policies has given the European Commission a dull, bureaucratic and alienating image. However, the main fault lies with the Council not the Commission. National governments have gained more power by pooling sovereignty. Legislation is passed by the Council of Ministers, without reference to national parliaments and, according to the procedure, varying degrees of reference to the European Parliament. Many of the Commission's acts of administration are ratified in secret by Council committees, with the national and European parliaments excluded. Unaccountable bureaucracy is rife not within the Commission, now hyper-sensitive to parliamentary scrutiny since the fall of the Santer administration, but within different delegations to the Council. "All power to the centre" is not the cry of the pan-Europeanists, as Rankin suggests, but of the intergovernmentalists.

The immense challenge for democratic federalists is to convince the public of the need to move from secretive intergovernmentalism to a supranationalism where the Commission is fully accountable to a European Parliament that enjoys public support and legitimacy. Sadly, the dismal turnout in the 1999 European elections is not a good start.

Notes

1. 1.

   A helpful New Labour term.

2. 2.

   Interview, Eurig Wyn MEP, Plaid Cymru, March 2000.