̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Eurozone

Opinion: Can the EU keep the peace in Europe? Not a chance

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:02:33 +0000

̽��ֱ��European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 because of its “six decade-long contribution to peace and human rights in Europe”. In 2015, as the UK gears up towards its referendum on EU membership, we hear very often that the EU played a key role in building peace after World War II. For all its faults, the argument goes, the European Union is the best peace project Europe has.

There are three reasons why this is wrong. ̽��ֱ��first is that European integration contributed very little to the building of peace in post-war Europe. ̽��ֱ��second is that the EU’s record in keeping the peace on its external borders is poor. ̽��ֱ��third is that the Euro has aggravated conflicts between the members of the Eurozone: between north and south, creditor and debtor, exporter and importer.

It may seem crazy to suggest that the EU is not a peace project. This is, after all, its founding narrative. But history suggests otherwise for two reasons.

One is that in the late 1940s and 1950s there were many more powerful forces leading to peace in Europe. ̽��ֱ��shift from warfare to welfare states, made possible by the class compromise put in place after World War II, was crucial. European cooperation was really just an extension of that deeper change in European societies. ̽��ֱ��Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was intended to extend welfare provision to farmers.

Central to post-war peace in Europe was also the Cold War and the support given to Western Europe by the United States. Most important of all was the post-war boom. After the war, people wanted a better life and it was to their own governments that they turned.

Another reason is that the EU of today has little to do with European cooperation in the 1950s. Today’s EU has more recent roots. ̽��ֱ��Coal and Steel Community was a cartel intended to make European steel production more competitive and give the French access to West German coal. This initiative was quickly overcome by the economic success that raised demand for coal and steel. By 1957, it was quietly folded into the Treaty of Rome.

̽��ֱ��aim of the Treaty of Rome was to soften the effects of economic success. Growing economies push up wages and prices, which makes imports cheaper and leads to repeated balance of payments problems. Look at Britain’s Stop-Go economic experience of the 1950s and 1960s. A common external tariff, which raised the prices of imports, was Western Europe’s answer to this problem.

Today’s EU has its roots in economic crisis, not in economic success. Its history takes us back to the 1970s and the end of the post-war consensus. Governments sought many ways to exit this crisis and eventually settled on European market integration (the Single European Act) plus fiscal consolidation through more robust external rules (the Maastricht Treaty). This takes us to the EU and the euro of today.

Groundhog Europe

̽��ֱ��European Union has not been very successful at promoting peace beyond its own borders. ̽��ֱ��EU does have a foreign policy but it is stuck in a time loop.

If one goes back 20 years to 1995, the kinds of questions being raised about Europe’s role in promoting peace related to whether it would speak with one voice. This was the time of the Yugoslav war when European divisions meant that the United States got heavily involved in the Balkans. People wondered if the EU would finally become not just an economic giant but a political one, too. People described 1995 as a crossroads and a watershed moment.

Fast forward to 2005 and the very same clichés are being used. Two years after the US invasion of Iraq had divided Europe, people asked when it would speak with one voice. ̽��ֱ��EU was again at a crossroads. This was two years after the EU’s first Security Strategy, intended to give Europe a sense of direction in foreign policy.

Today, we hear much the same thing and Europeans are once again drafting a new security strategy. ̽��ֱ��war in Ukraine led commentators to lament the divisions between EU member states. ̽��ֱ��rise of Islamic State in the Middle East has made people wonder if the EU will ever become a regional power or whether it will always have a “lowest common denominator” foreign policy.

As in the film Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray is stuck in a time loop, the European Union is forced to relive its foreign policy frustrations time and time again. Groundhog Day has a Hollywood-style happy ending; the EU may not be so lucky.

̽��ֱ��euro versus democracy

̽��ֱ��euro was meant to lead to convergence in Europe. It was expected that a single currency would lead to harmonisation of national business cycles. Instead, the buzzword amongst economists is heterogeneity.

̽��ֱ��euro has created new divisions but it has also cemented older ones. It has exaggerated the differences between productive and unproductive national economies. It has heightened intra-Eurozone competition. New divisions between debtors and creditors have broken out. There is no single European economy, just very different national economies. More than ever before, the economic map of Europe looks like it did in the 19th century when advanced northern societies complained about the “backwardness” of southern and eastern Europe.

A solution to this is to build a political union with fiscal powers. Transfers from rich to poor parts of Europe would iron out today’s enormous gaps. There is no political appetite for this anywhere, neither among elites nor among domestic publics. As a result, the survival of the Eurozone seems set against national democracy. Few accept this at present but the euro and national democracy may be incompatible.

We are right to ask if Europe can keep the peace. ̽��ֱ��answer is “no”. Peace in Europe owes much to other factors and the EU has done little to build peace beyond its borders. Peace within Europe has become fragile as the euro unleashes competitive pressures that pit national economies against one another.

Chris Bickerton, Lecturer in politics at POLIS, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Inset image: Marcha en Madrid en solidaridad con Grecia y por el NO (OXI) en el referéndum griego (Adolfo Lujan).

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Chris Bickerton (Department of Politics and International Relations) discusses the role of the European Union.

Stuart Chalmers

European Commission

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Sleepwalking into the Euro nightmare

sjr81 — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 08:59:23 +0000

Professor Jesper Jespersen, an economics expert and visiting overseas fellow at Churchill College, will use his lecture ‘A European Nightmare: How could the economists be so wrong on the Euro?’ to suggest Greece’s need for another multi-billion bailout - and call for a fundamental shift in economic practice to prevent the break-up of the Eurozone as we know it today.

Jespersen, who previously advised the Danish Parliament on monetary union policy, says that despite reports of limited growth and rising optimism in some quarters, recession, social unrest and political turmoil will only worsen while crushing austerity measures continue to bite in central and southern Europe.

“This is a nightmare that could have been prevented. But the real nightmare is yet to come,” said Jespersen. “ ̽��ֱ��economists who said monetary union would bring growth and stability were entirely wrong. Instead of trusting mathematical models that claimed such a crash would happen only once every thousand years - and losing sight of the realities - they should have stuck to real economics.

“People were blinded by the perceived benefits of integration rather than the actualities. They said the system could be detached from political interference; but those who imagined that were either naïve in the extreme or were part of the elite that stood to gain from monetary union.”

Now, argues Professor Jespersen, only a profound and fundamental rebalancing of economic hierarchies and financial policy can save from ruin those parts of Europe most affected by the unemployment and social crises.

He argues the most effective way to save Europe from its looming nightmare would be for Germany to accept its hegemony and reduce its huge balance of payments surplus – a surplus larger than that of China’s. Germany could display solidarity with its struggling European neighbours by using more money domestically and abroad, rather than strengthening its own position by accumulating more foreign assets. Then, the notion of a fairer, better balanced Eurozone, could be more likely.

However, the idea of Germany or any other surplus country eschewing national gains for the necessary stabilization of the common currency is not respected, perhaps hardly understood, and therefore largely inconceivable; a problem Jespersen argues has dogged the notion, and reality, of European monetary union from the beginning.

“ ̽��ֱ��Euro countries are too different to make the idea of a single currency work by itself,” added Jespersen. “ ̽��ֱ��EU Commission, the surplus countries and most economists say that countries in difficulty should just do as Germany has done. But that is a political and logical impossibility because all countries within a monetary union cannot run balance of payments surpluses. For every surplus country there has to be a deficit country otherwise the equation does not add up. So, Germany and other surplus countries have to reduce their balance of payments surpluses.”

Jespersen will also use his lecture to frame today’s current woes in an historical context; looking at the position of Germany before and after both World War One and Two and examining its status as Europe’s economic superpower.

He will also contemplate that for some nations, falling out of the Eurozone and returning to a sovereign currency, may be in the best long-term interests of the country as well as the EU as a whole, even if it proves inconvenient for the European elite in Brussels and for the economists who misjudged the consequences of a single currency.

Jespersen pointed to the 15 years of growth Britain enjoyed following ‘Black Wednesday’ and its exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism – as well as Argentina’s departure from the currency board arrangement – as positive examples of what can be achieved. Jespersen argues that the European economy would ‘definitely benefit’ and begin growing from such a rebalancing; pointing to the growth of all EU member states outside the Euro (except Britain) since 2010.

“Things are getting worse from a social point of view,” said Jespersen. “ ̽��ֱ��welfare systems of some southern European countries are in ruins in an unfair attempt from Berlin (and Brussels) to require balanced public sector budgets. Unemployment is still running at more than 25 per cent in Spain and Greece. Tensions are huge. Greece will need one more rescue package – they will default if they don’t get it. But there is an elite and a bureaucracy in Greece that has really benefited from the Euro and is still in favour of the Euro. There is huge Greek wealth abroad while the working people get their pensions cut.”

Jespersen said a worst-case scenario might see the Euro being dissolved all together except for a ‘greater German area’ including Germany, Austria and perhaps the Netherlands and Belgium. Breaking up the German/French axis would herald the dawn of an entirely different European landscape.
He added: “ ̽��ֱ��present talk of tiny green shoots of growth as a vindication that ‘the medicine was right’ is misplaced. One should not forget that a balanced growth process implies 1.5-2 per cent yearly growth. Britain and Europe at large are still far below the normal growth rates. Growth, due to austerity policies, has been much slower than it could have been; therefore total unemployment in Europe is higher than ever before in the entire post-war period. Austerity is wrong from a growth perspective. Something has to change before prosperity will return to Europe.”

Professor Jespersen’s lecture takes place at 6pm on Monday, November 11 in the Bevin Room, Churchill College. All are welcome to attend.

Eurozone countries are still careering towards a financial and social ‘nightmare’ of their own making according to a leading academic speaking at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� on November 11.

This is a nightmare that could have been prevented. But the real nightmare is yet to come.

Jesper Jespersen

Avij

Euro bank notes and coins

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Research suggests meerkat predator-scanning behaviour is altruistic

ljm67 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:16:50 +0000

In order to spot potential predators, adult meerkats often climb to a higher vantage point or stand on their hind legs. If a predator is detected, they use several different alarm calls to warn the rest of the group. New Cambridge research shows that they are more likely to exhibit this behaviour when there are young pups present, suggesting that the predator-scanning behaviour is for the benefit of the group rather than the individual.

Meerkats are a cooperatively breeding species, with a dominant breeding pair and up to 40 ‘helpers’ of both sexes who do not normally breed but instead assist with a number of cooperative activities such as babysitting and feeding of offspring.

However, scientists have questioned whether sentinel behaviour, when helper meerkats climb to a high point to scan for predators, and other vigilance behaviour, such as standing on their hind legs, is done for their own preservation (with the group’s increased safety being an indirect consequence) or if the primary goal is altruistic, with the main purpose being the protection of the group.

Peter Santema, a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, said: “You see similar behaviour in a range of mammal and bird species, and we know from previous work that other group members are less likely to be attacked by predators when someone is on guard. Biologists have been debating, however, whether the protection that other group members enjoy is just a side-effect or one of the reasons why individuals perform these guarding behaviours.”

For the research, which was funded by the BBSRC, scientists observed non-breeding helpers in the period just before the dominant female’s pups had joined the group on foraging trips. They repeated the observations immediately after the pups joined the group. When they compared the results, they found that after the pups had joined the group on foraging trips, helpers showed a sudden increase in their vigilance behaviour.

Santema added: “These results are exciting, as they show us that individuals are not just on the look-out for their own safety, but that the protection of other group members is another motivation for these behaviours. Our results thus suggest that vigilance and sentinel behaviour in meerkats represent forms of cooperation.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge research was published today in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Meerkats are more likely to scan for predators from high vantage points or guard on their hind legs when young pups are present in the group.

These results are exciting, as they show us that individuals are not just on the look-out for their own safety, but that the protection of other group members is another motivation for these behaviours

Peter Santema, a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology

Research suggests meerkat predator-scanning behaviour is altruistic

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Can Hollande live up to expectations?

gm349 — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:31:30 +0000

No one could have been very surprised, not even M. Sarkozy, when François Hollande was elected as the second socialist president of the Fifth Republic, the first since François Mitterrand in 1981. Only a few months ago, he would have seemed a very unlikely president. What transformed his prospects was not the economic and political problems of France, and even less his own actions, but on one hand the notorious episode in a New York hotel that ended the career of French socialism’s preferred future president, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and on the other the personal unpopularity of Nicholas Sarkozy. M. Hollande comes to the presidency with a limited track record. In the short term, this may be an advantage: he has pretty clean hands, and an appearance of decency and dignity. In the long term, perhaps not: he has aroused a sudden swell of hope, but he is a novice, until now a figure of the second rank, with a reputation for indecision.

Inevitably, he has become a source of uncertainty, in France and Europe. Before his election, he was letting it be said on his behalf that he was a moderate, but moderation is not what his supporters expect. They want some sort of miracle: the end of austerity, economic growth, a return to normal. Hollande’s headline pledge to create 60,000 new teaching jobs epitomises the problem. We may all think that teaching jobs are a good thing in the abstract. But they are not going to redress France’s economy. What they really symbolise – apart from a desire to cheer up schoolteachers and job-hunting students, key Socialist supporters – is the hope that spending more money on creating public sector jobs is the best way to solve unemployment and boost growth.

This, of course, seems to be the very opposite of the nasty medicine so far prescribed for Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Germany and France itself. A statist, neo-Keynesian, tricolour flag is being raised – admittedly, a small one – against the prevailing European orthodoxy. Most people in France probably want that flag waved very vigorously, in the faces of the European Central Bank and Angela Merkel. They like the idea of France as leader of the awkward squad, putting itself forward as international leader of the forces of progress.

This is an old republican/patriotic vision, last seen when France stood up to America and Britain at the time of the Iraq invasion. This time the enemy is the unholy alliance of globalised ‘Anglo-Saxon’ capitalism, bankers, and conservative (German) politicians. Yet the small print of Hollande’s announced policy is little different from that of Sarkozy – he intends to eliminate France’s deficit a year later than his predecessor. M. Hollande’s supporters, and not only in France, expect much more: in effect, to lead an international revolt against austerity, plutocracy, and globalisation. But every educated French socialist is aware of the warnings of history: Léon Blum tried something like this in 1936; Mitterrand again in 1981. In both cases they were forced into U-turns.

Britain’s principal relationship with France concerns defence, security – and shared aircraft carriers. Both countries are alone among European states in their ambition to play a great role in the world, as was recently seen in the Libyan intervention. Both know that in the present political and financial circumstances, they need each other to give this ambition credibility. They might ideally prefer other partners, but no one else is willing, and consequently, their budding ‘special relationship’ will continue.

Europe is a more complex matter. If Hollande seemed to have pushed Europe away from austerity, it would obviously increase pressure on the British government to follow suit. On the other hand, if the French could induce the Germans to agree to more expansionary policies, it would suit Britain’s interest by increasing demand in Europe for its exports. But even the hint of disagreement between the Eurozone’s ‘big two’, and uncertainty about their policy, seems to be aggravating a crisis of confidence and bringing forward the general Euro crisis that has started in Greece. Many commentators predict that there will be a quick Franco-German compromise, and this does indeed seem indispensable. But will compromise be enough now to prevent a panic when decisive action is required? And on whose terms will it be?

If M. Hollande appears too easily satisfied, his new-found popularity may prove short lived. ̽��ֱ��crisis has strengthened extremes of both Right and Left, creating problems for a centrist like Hollande. ̽��ֱ��Right-wing Front National has increased its vote, including among young voters and even established ethnic minorities. ̽��ֱ��forthcoming parliamentary elections are therefore unusually important and unpredictable. ̽��ֱ��most sensational contest will be a head to head clash in a Pas-de-Calais constituency between Marine Le Pen, head of the populist eurosceptic Front National, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Communist leader of the scarcely-less-populist Parti de Gauche – a bold but dangerous showdown sought by the latter.

However, all this is being overshadowed by the sudden Eurozone crisis, which leaves M. Hollande suddenly facing one of the most daunting prospects of any new French president since the 1950s.

*Robert Tombs is Professor of History at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. His research is in 19th Century French political history, and especially popular political culture. Recently he has been concerned with the history of the cultural, economic and political relationship between France and Britain from the end of the 17th Century to the present day. He will be speaking in a debate on Britain’s relationship with Europe with Professors Christopher Hill and Brendan Simms on 9 June at 5.30pm as part of the Cambridge series at the Hay Festival.

As Francois Hollande takes up his seat as President of France, will he be able to live up to the huge expectations of those who voted for him or will his reputation for indecision be his undoing, asks Robert Tombs.

Many commentators predict that there will be a quick Franco-German compromise. But will compromise be enough now to prevent a panic when decisive action is required? And on whose terms will it be?

Robert Tombs, Professor of History at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Benjamin Boccas from Flickr

Hollande

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