What the Hell is Europe?

This tweet, and this short blog response, have got me thinking about Europe, and what we mean when we talk about Europe. For me, when you say the word, I instinctively think of the EU. Some people, not so much. But how you define Europe affects the way you think, and so I’m just going to float some ideas which hopefully will get you thinking.

Europe as a continent/geographical area

This one is on shaky ground from the start, as the Eurasian land mass doesn’t have a particularly neat line between Europe and Asia. To the south-east, does Europe ‘stop’ at the Bosphorus? Are Turkey and Cyprus part of Europe? Slightly further afield, how do you deal with Russia, which spans a huge swathe of territory. What about Armenia? Azerbaijan? Looking north-west, is Iceland really part of Europe? There are no clear cut answers here.

Europe as a political-economic entity

Here, the EU is part of the equation – Europe is basically a group of capitalist democracies of various persuasions, and that’s about it. But past that, any further clarification is problematic. Are the Eurozone countries ‘more’ European than those outside? What about Switzerland and Norway, who remain outside the EU despite fitting the general ‘conditions’ outlined above? Even between similar countries, political and economic differences can be vast (eg France and the UK; Italy and Spain). Is Russia a ‘true’ democracy? Can any democracy claim it is a ‘true’ incarnation of that ideal?

Europe as values

Perhaps Europe is defined by values – a kind of ‘compassionate capitalism’ (though that term makes my Marxist blood boil), less brash and confrontational than that seen across the Atlantic in the US. But once more, there are problems. Using this definition, why restrict ‘Europeanness’ to a geographic area? Plenty of South American countries fit the mould. Why not allow them EU membership? (And yes, I am aware certain non-EU countries have observer status in various areas)

Europe as no-man’s-land

Across history, Europe has been a battlefield, both literally and politically. Throughout the Cold War, Europe was a political battlefield between communism and capitalism, even if the armed struggles were generally conducted elsewhere on the globe, where life was cheaper and infrastructure less important. Europe, where cultures clash and mix, where geopolitical conflicts are decided. But this has faults, too. The Cold War was global, even if the decisive final stroke fell in Eastern Europe, and advances in technology and communication have made the world smaller, reducing Europe’s strategic importance.

What do you think? Do you think of Europe in any of the ways mentioned above? Is Europe impossible to define without clarifying the scope of the question? Do you think of Europe in a completely different sense?

At the end of all this, I’m certainly no closer to answering the question in the title. What the hell is Europe?

An Ominous Announcement From Hague

I meant to blog on this yesterday, when I first read it on the BBC Website, but events have conspired to delay it until now. The article is taken from an interview in the FT with the Shadow Foreign Secretary.

The Great Waffler, William Hague, has said that under the Tories Britain would pursue “close” ties with the US, and expressed concerns about the EU’s direction. Now, I have my own reservations on the EU’s direction, but I suspect that myself and Mr. Hague have slightly different thoughts on the matter.

The inference that the Conservatives have made what he calls a “strategic decision” not to pick a fight with Europe from the off suggests that they would love to indulge in a little Euro-bashing, but can’t afford to given the political landscape.

He blames the financial crisis for diminishing the UK’s infuence in the world, conveniently sidestepping one of the major events which opened the nation to criticism from all quarters, namely the country’s support for the invasion of Iraq. Of course, it’s sheer coincidence that the Tories supported the invasion too, invalidating it as a political bat with which to beat Labour. Economic policy, on the other hand, is a favourite line of Conservative rhetoric at the moment, even if they are hopelessly confused about specifics.

The reason that the UK’s economy is suffering is because we have moved away from being an economy that produced things, and become an economy that relies too much on The City to use financial jiggery-pokery to make it seem as though the economy’s growing, whereas in fact the only growth is in share prices. Dr. Paul Cockshott has published an excellent critique of the current financial situation over at Though Cowards Flinch (the comments sections of the two posts on Keynes are particularly enightening).

However, Hague pins the blame on Labour’s over-borrowing while its been in power. While this has impeded any government attempts to intervene in the current situation, it is not a cause of the economic situation. Germany has functioned reasonably well with a sizeable budget deficit for years now, and Greece would have been fine  if its credit rating had not been downgraded, thereby increasing the cost of borrowing.

Hague maintains that if Labour triumphs, Britain will be taken “backwards towards a Seventies-style model” in terms of economic policy, but his refusal to cooperate with Europe will move Britain back to a foreign policy which hasn’t been seen since the 1930s – obsessed with international prestige and a global superpower status despite the challenges it faces, to the detriment of other, far more important issues.

Britain, as a nation of 60 million, has vast disadvantages just in size when it comes to competing economically with the big boys, but the Tory obsession with maintaining the UK’s place in the sun could lead to a Britain that is isolated from Europe, and overly-reliant on a United States that, economically and politically, is increasingly marginalised on the international scene.