FEATURES / EU referendum I

Europe: aplace of

Fl OR 1,5oo yeaxs the inheritors of the

f1 -Roman

Empire have been fightingfr with one anotherand in so doinghaveI built a shared history and a sharedpolitical, intellectual and artistic culture thatis unique for its variety incontinuity. After194,5, they gradually resolved that what theyshared was best perpetuated not by war butby peacefirl economic and cultural interchange.

Encouraged byWinston Churchill to founda United States ofEurope, they set out on arather more cautious path, viathe prepaxatoryCommon Market/European EconomicCommunity (EEC), to the EuropeanCommunities (EC), the explicitly political

This Thursday is decision day for the UK and Europe. In the first of a special range of articles, we reflecton a remarkable creation of post-war idealism and what leaving it might mean / ny lucuolAs BoyrE

promise, notofthreat

federation that the United Kingdom joinedin 1973, and on to the European Union (EU),founded in Maastricht 2O years later.

Churchill did not expect Britain to be amember of Europe's United States becausehe still presumed that Britain's destiny lay\lrith its empire - for which, in 194O, he hadcontemplated a future lasting 1,OOO years.Thosewho nowwishthe UKto leavethe EUstill share that presumption, and they maystill invoke Churchill's authority, even though,since he spoke, the empire has been dismem-bered and swallowed up by a worldwideeconomic system that is even morecomprehensive.

THE INABILITY to reconcile themselves tothe loss ofthat past - or even to acknowledgeits hold over them - accounts for much ofthebitterness ofthe Europhobes. Unable to con-ceive of their country as no longerpresident-forlife of its own comfortableclub but an equal partner in a common anddemanding enterprise, and indulged bygovernments happy to pass on to "Europe"the responsibility for such necessary butunpopular measures as fishing quotas ortrading standards or safety regulations, theyhave infected the public discussionof European policy with a sullenresentment.

If relations between the UK andthe rest ofthe EU have been awk-ward, ifour partners have beenslow to realise the promise of thesingle market and have pressedahead with a premature currencyunion, if directives remain counter-productively over-detailed, that isall at least partially due to thefailure of the UK to articulate a

project", or, ifthere is, it is a malevolent con-spiracy by power-hungry bureaucrats; thatthe union is, or ought to be, a static tradeagreement between unchanging parties; andthat the principal concern of the UK shouldbe to resist integration (which the globalmarket will force on us anyrray) ratherthanmould it into its most acceptable form.

UK GOVERNMEMS have seemed obsessedwith opt-outs and national vetoes and haveseemed reluctant to speak positively of theunion's institutions or to publicise their work(whenwas aplenaryor committee debate inthe European Parliament last seen on Britishtelevision news?) or even to encourage thestudy of the union's languages.

So it is no surprise that UK citizens, 12.5per cent ofthe EU population, are seriouslyunder-represented in the staff of theEuropean Commission, of whom theyamount to only 4.6 per cent, or that the UKelectorate regards the European electionssimply as an opportunityfor alocal protestvote and as a result is under-represented inthe parliament as well, since a third of ourMEPs belong to Ukip, the party with theworst attendance and voting record in theunion.

The Prime Minister's recently negotiatedexemption of the UK from the principle of"ever closer union" merely gives formalexpression to what in practice has beentheUKis role in the EU for many years. Howwer,it is unlikelythat David Cameron discernedthe Kantian resonances ofthat ohrase forthose who first formulated it, since otherwisehe could scarcely have been so anxious todispense with it.

Accordingto Kant, an international polit-ical order guaranteeing permanent peace canJraranteerng permanent peace can

be only an "idea'to which in prac-tice we can get only "continuallycloser": it is a direction oftravel.not a goal whose attainment inspace and time we can fullyimagine. Far from being a blue-print for a superstate, the phraseannounces that such a state cannotbe achieved in any specifically fore-seeable future. (If the EU were tobecome a state in the same senseas its members, its budget, cur-rently 1 per cent of its GDP, would

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different vision of"ever closer union" and itsnecessary underpinning by shared policiesin defence (including border controls), foreignrelations and the democratic representationof the will of the European peoples.

INALL OFTHESE areas, successive UKgov-ernments - at least those of a Conservativestamp - have intervened or negotiated froma standpoint fundamentally at odds withthat ofall their partners and ofthe Europeaninstitutions themselves. They have assumedthat there is no such thing as a "European

have to become <1,o times bigger than it is.)

KANT'S PROPHECY is as realistic as it isidealistic and, though made more than twocenturies ago in the middle of a brutal andcynical European war, it is still capable ofinspiring those who are unaware ofits source:two-thirds of UK citizens under the age of4,o see their future in continued membershipof the EU. In that future, "European" is aterm that does not obliterate diversity butaffirms it as the distinguishing mark of anancient civilisation, while "ever closer union"

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is not a threat but a promise: a promise ofmore certain peace, wider circles of friend-ship, and more effective cooperation.

To those who have grown up in the EU andhave escaped the post-imperial identity crisisoftheir parents and grandparents, Europeoffers what it offered our ancestors before

the empires and before the Reformation: aplace in which to be English (or Welsh orScottish or Irish) alongside others, as differentbut equal parts ofa larger whole.

For the under-4,Os, the inscription"European Union" on their burgundy-coloured passports is a visa that opens up a

continent ofdifferences: the Aegean coast(and the Andalusian), French bakeries andthe sparkling laboratories of Max PlanckInstitutes, olive groves and Scandinaviantimber stands, Italian autostradas and theOpera House in Prague, vineyards andbeer-halls and pavement cafes and endlessinvincible football teams - and the freedomto move through it all, to work in it, studyin it, settle in it, marry in it.

NOWHERE ON EARTH can show within asimilar space such human variety; sub-tending it everywhere are the traces of theChristian and Jewish past that has bound ittogether; and visible through them, oftenenough, is the Roman and Greekinheritancethat has formed our invisible legal and cul-tural institutions.

The European Union is a capacious if ram-bling house that has been millennia in thebuilding, and the nations of the AtlanticArchipelago, with their own traditions ofinventiveness, commonsensicality, masteryofwords and love oftheir natural environ-ment, belong firmly within it.

Nicholas Boyle is emeritus SchrtiderProfessor of Germax at Cambridge Universitlt

This is thefout th of Professor Boyleb afticlesabout the EU referendum. To readhispreoious pieces. aisit wwu.th etabkt.co.u k