Nation-States and the Future of Europe

Recently I spent two months in Europe, mostly in Hungary. While prior to going there I was reasonably well informed about the prevailing mood there, I was still surprised by what I encountered. Below here I summarize my impressions and reactions.

1) There I encountered two somewhat interwoven major topics of conversation, the European Union (EU) and the migration crises.

2)  I have given thought to these matters for some years. I can imagine a successful resolution of the European migration crises only through a strong EU. Today’s migration is only the beginning of a new mass migration of historic dimensions into Europe. (Notes 1.) We can anticipate in the course of the next half-century the migratory motivation and possible movement of a billion people from the regions surrounding the EU into the EU. This mass movement is driven by the fundamental demographic and economic forces of depopulation versus overpopulation and relative enrichment versus impoverishment (Note 2.); furthermore, climate change is also a continuously growing important contributing factor. - -  I imagine the solution of this growing crisis could/must come through a dual pronged EU-wide coordinated effort that includes a broadly accepted policy of assimilation/integration of large numbers of legally admitted migrants and the deployment of an effective border protection system. European birth-rates are below that needed for maintaining its current population, thus without assimilating immigrants the aging European society would either slowly die out, or most likely collapse before dying out. Without effective border protection that controls the human inflow, the EU would be unable to assimilate the large influx of migrants arriving at accelerating rates in numbers that would overwhelm its absorption capacity.

3) Europe must unify or it will die. For me the unification of the United States of America is the fundamental model, where the outcome of the Civil War (1861-65) decided that the USA is not a loose association of independent states, but it is the centrally coordinated and directed economic and political non-negotiable (you can’t exit) union of the states. – Furthermore, while the immigration policy of the USA is imperfect, it is functional: there is no depopulation, the non-Hispanic whites are not multiplying and thus are now in minority (the combination of the other ethnic groups together now form the majority), nevertheless the country continues to function and in a global perspective continues to do rather well.

4) There are many in Europe, who believe that the USA is not a meaningful example for Europe to follow, because Europe comprises nation-states with histories going back centuries and millennia.

5) The concept of independent states living in nominal peace side-by-side was born in the World first time at the Westphalian peace in 1648. The notion of the nation-state assumes that the state has a homogeneous population that speaks a common language and shares a common culture; this came much after the birth of the state concept.

6) In East-Central-Europe the national consciousness of the various linguistic and ethnic groups started to rise strongly during the decades preceding the European continent-wide revolutionary movements of the 1840s. This growing nationalism was to a large extent fueled by an erroneous (and as it turned out suicidal) activity by the Habsburgs, who imagined to use national rivalries for balancing the power structure within their Monarchy. – During the millennium that preceded the 20^th century, this region was organized into various empires ruled by Russian, Prussian, Austrian, Hungarian, and Turkish kings, emperors, czars, and sultans.

7) The East-Central-European independent nation-states first came into being after 1920 as a result of the Trianon Peace Treaty, breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, creating Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and enlarging Romania. (Romania became an independent state in 1878.) This was the time when many multi-ethnic families lost their regional unifying identity and became “pure” Czechoslovaks, Yugoslavs, Poles, Hungarians, etc… Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1990, additional nation-state purifications took place. Czechoslovakia broke into the Czech and Slovak nation-states by the end of 1993. Yugoslavia broke up into seven nation-states as a result of a protracted conflict that started in the early 1990s, it included war and genocide, and finally ended in 2006.

8) Till the First World War the bloodiest war among White-Caucasians was the American Civil War. - -  Both World Wars resulted in casualties far surpassing the Civil War. In both World Wars Europeans killed Europeans on the battle fields and off thereof, with thereto unknown cruelty and in thereto unknown quantities.

9) The outcome of both World Wars was determined by the USA. All Western-European and East-Central-European countries lost both of these wars. - -  Europe has suffered badly as the result, both morally and economically.

10) The EU was born after Europe woke from the horrors of the Second World War. It was the result of the common desire shared by the then rebuilt Western progressive democracies in 1993 and it succeeded the European Economic Community (EEC) that was established in 1957 by the treaty of Rome, whose signatories included Europe’s historical arch rivals, France and Germany.

11) After the collapse of the Soviet system, the ex-Soviet satellites eagerly sought admission into the EU, hoping for significant economic benefits and also looking for protection against possible Russian expansions. Unquestionably, these hopes have been realized (though many would wish for more and differently administered benefits).

12) Now in several East-Central-European countries the new political invention is that they are illiberal nation-states with histories reaching back a millennium, who must join forces against the West (especially the EU bureaucrats in Brussels) and for developing closer ties with the Russians.

13) The EU is far from perfect. Its recovery from the Recession of 2007-09 still incomplete. The common currency, the euro, has not been well conceived, it is not used by all EU countries, and it does not appear to the benefit all who use it. There are the growing number of Eurosceptics. The Brexit movement is significant, no matter its outcome. Some feel that Germany, the de facto leader of the EU, exerts too much influence and its influence is much of the time self-serving. And the list of imperfections and complaints goes on. - - Nevertheless, the EU is the best thing Europe invented in many centuries, the best replacement for war in managing intra-European conflict, replacing conflict with mutual help and collaboration. And all countries on its borders, from the Ukraine through Turkey to tiny Montenegro, would like to join it.

14) The common task that all European leaders should focus on is to figure out how to solve the EU’s problems and evolve a stronger, more united European Union. Europe needs statesmen, not bickering populist politicians clothed in outdated and still dangerous nationalist demagoguery that led to so much suffering in the past. World War II must not be forgotten, even though there are only a few of us alive who are old enough to have actually experienced and can still remember it now in 2016. (Note 3.)

Notes

1. The Europeans as we know them today are the results of a series of mass migrations during recorded history. The major immigration waves include the Germanic tribes’ mass migration between the years 300 and 500, the Slavs between the 500 and 700, and the Hungarians arrival into and their occupation of the Carpathian basin between the late 800s and 1000.

2. In 2015 the EU population was 514 million people and the World total was 7,228 million. In the age group of 1-24 years old, the age group that will be procreating in the next decades, we have 27% of the EU’s and 42% of the World’s population. In the age group of 55 yers and older, the group that either already needs or soon to be needed to be supported by the working age population, 32% of the EU’s and 17% of the World’s population. As a consequence of this age distribution, the expected population by 2050 are 507 million in the EU and 9,408 million Worldwide. Thus in the course of the next three-and-a-half decades the EU population is expected to shrink, while Worldwide more than 2 billion people need to be provided for. Much of the Worldwide population growth is coming from the poor regions of Africa (1,134 million additional people) and of Western and South-Central Asia (774 million additional people). - - The GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in the EU is $37,800, while in Eritrea (a high population growth rate African country already sending many migrants to Europe) it is $1,300 and in Afghanistan (a high population growth rate South-Central Asian country already sending many migrants to Europe) it is $1,900.  - - Population data source from the website http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php , and GDP data from the website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ .

3. The Second World War ended in 1945, 71 years ago. Assuming that we retain realistic memories from age five years and older, 8% of the EU population today may have memories of the horrors of the Second World War and for 92% it is abstract history. - - For population data source see above Note 2.