The dream of a united Europe is in danger of fading into history

I read somewhere the other day that the problem with the European Union was that its best days were behind it; loath though I am to admit it, there may be truth in that. History doesn’t hang about. It is without sentiment. It leaves the past behind without so much as a second’s thought. Just as the British Empire was already doomed in the lead-up to the Second World War, so the European Community may find that the boundless optimism that held it together from its inception in 1957 to, say, the financial crash of 2008 is no longer seen as supporting revealed truth, but, rather, dogma.

It wouldn’t be the first time that what once seemed permanent, even immovable, gave way to a new reality. It happens all the time, often for the better. That said, the idea of the European Union as the political and economic equivalent of the Catholic Church, with the Quartier Européen in Brussels as the Vatican and the Commission as the College of Cardinals, is not exactly compelling.

We have heard a lot from the Commission in recent years, usually in the context of Brexit, about the Four Pillars. These are the freedom to move goods, capital, services and labour within the Union without respect to national borders. Yet just this week President Emmanuel Macron of France and the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, have warned that the unintended free movement of Islamist terrorists may lead to the collapse of the Schengen Agreement that since 1995 has guaranteed open borders from Lisbon to Bialystock and from Stockholm to Palermo.

Mass immigration already posed a threat to Schengen. The emergence within the new arrivals of a cadre of lone-wolf jihadis only added to the pressure. The governments in Hungary and Poland – already out of step with Brussels over their assertion of political control over the appointment of judges – have consistently refused to participate in a scheme to distribute Muslim refugees, most of whom land in Italy and Greece, across the wider Union. They claim that Europe is a white, Christian continent and must remain so – a sentiment that is by no means confined to the former East Bloc but is also a source of populist conceit in each of the member states.

At the same time, the coronavirus crisis has caused the nations of Europe to retreat into themselves. We heard a lot in the late summer about the €750 billion Rescue and Recovery Plan agreed by the 27 to enable, in particular, Italy and Spain to cope with the impact of Covid. It was quite a coup. But as the crisis has widened and deepened across the entirety of Europe, so its limitations have been exposed. Every country now needs the cash. The donors have become applicants. And as more and more hands are outstretched, so the disbursements are bound to be reduced. In the end, unless the increasingly mythical “markets” can be persuaded to come up with even more largesse, it could end up as a game of pass the parcel rather than targeted assistance.

The “Frugal Four,” made up of the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark, that earlier in the year came close to vetoing the recovery plan could find that their argument will ultimately prevail, less because of an ideological shift than because the cupboard is bare and it has become a question, quite literally, of sauve qui peut.

We are all defined by how we respond to adversity. It is easy to be generous and expansive when the going is good. It is when things turn against us that we have to dig deepest. In 2008, the Euro nearly died. It was brought back from the brink only by a massive concerted effort led by the Commission and the European Central Bank, with the backing of the 19 Eurozone member states. Today, the single currency looks to be reasonably robust, up there with the dollar and sterling. But there is a lingering suspicion that one more crisis could knock it on the head and the unfolding economic recession could, if it is as bad as many fear, provide the appropriate sockful of coins.

Europe, in the form of the European Union, has yet to live through a 1930s-style depression. It has never had to endure a pandemic. What happened between 2008 and 2012 was bad, but it was survivable. Spain, Portugal, Ireland, even Greece, lived to fight another day.  This time round, if businesses – especially small businesses – continue to close at the current alarming rate, the resulting surge in unemployment could overwhelm the EU’s resources, while the spread of a sense of hopelessness among the dispossessed is likely to boost populism of an essentially nativist character.

It won’t be Europe, in this scenario, that rises up; it will be the French, the Italians, the Spanish, even, perhaps, the Germans of the former GDR. How relevant will Ursula von der Leyen, as President of the European Commission, appear if angry crowds start massing in the main squares of Europe’s historic capitals? How significant will the rescue and recovery plan look if factories everywhere are closing and the only growth industries, other than policing and crowd control, are crematoriums and morgues?

I am being deliberately alarmist. It doesn’t have to be like this. European stoicism will more likely prevail. A magic potion, in the form of an effective vaccine, could be just around the corner, whether delivered by America’s Pfizer Corporation or Britain’s Glaxosmithkline, or even, God help us, courtesy of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. Any measures introduced that seem to threaten the four pillars of wisdom could prove short-lived, justified by all concerned as necessary in defence of public safety.

In short, all may yet be well, but the next few years will not be pretty.

If there is any immediate good news it is that Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, will be President of the United States at midday on January 20. Europe’s leaders, with the exception of the usual suspects, Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, have tended to regard Trump as a visitation, a bit like a political version of Covid-19. They have endured him, waiting for the vaccine that a presidential election would provide.

Now, however, they will have to live with the reality of a President who, while broadly supportive of a united Europe, expects it to act as a responsible partner, most obviously in the field of defence and international security. Biden may be ready to follow Europe’s lead on green issues, but he will be no push-over when it comes to trade. He will also expect the 27 to take a tough line on the global ambitions of Beijing and Moscow.

One indicator of the new President’s sympathies, together with his grasp of realpolitik, will be revealed when he announces his 2021 international schedule. There can be no doubt that Macron is hoping he will visit Paris first. In Berlin, Angela Merkel will be hoovering the red carpet. Boris Johnson may even be optimistic enough to prepare for an early touchdown by Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall. There is even a chance that Brussels will be the lucky destination, but for Nato purposes rather than the EU. No one knows. It is all up in the air.

But these are testing times for the European Project, which for decades was predicated on success, not mere survival or circling the wagons. The days when Onwards and Upwards was its mantra, intoned to the strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, are long gone.