If Sparta and Rome perished”, asked Rousseau in his Social Contract, “how can any state hope to live for ever? The Body Politick, like the body of a man, begins to die as soon as it is born; it contains the seeds of its own destruction.” The histories of Europe’s numerous extinct states testify to this truth. Early examples come from the five Kingdoms of Burgundy or the Crown of Aragon, a recent one from the Soviet Union, which evaporated in 1991.
Yet states continue to vanish; sooner or later, all human institutions fall apart. The German Democratic Republic merged with West Germany. Czechoslovakia broke up when Czechs and Slovaks agreed their velvet divorce. The federation of Yugoslavia was torn asunder between 1991 and 2006. The map of Europe has repeatedly been transformed by state dissolution and EU expansion. Speculation spreads about which state will be the next to fall. Some say Belgium, others Italy.
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Most recently, the demise of Euroland came into view. It is not a sovereign state, but it is a body politick of sorts and subject to the same vagaries of fortune afflicting everything else. Launched only a dozen years ago, it may join the long list of organisations that have died young. It lacks viable organs of fiscal management and political governance; by general consent, it must reconstruct itself rapidly or break up. “The eurozone is doomed”, its critics argue. Britain’s Foreign Secretary describes it as “a burning building with no exits”. George Soros warns of possible “meltdown”.
The prospect of a conflagration, puts fear into europhile hearts and a smug sense of schadenfreude into eurosceptic minds. The former hope that the international fire brigade will intervene, the latter that the whole dastardly caboodle will blow up.“How marvellous” they chortle in the Tory clubs; “the busybodies of Brussels are meeting their come-uppance. After all, those ghastly Greeks who cooked the books to enter Euroland in the first place are sure to be cooking them again with an eye to ever larger bail-outs.” Euro summits, the argument goes, are just talking shops. Orderly default is a pipedream. The eurozone rescue fund is an underfunded piggy bank. The European Central Bank is toothless. There’s no central European treasury, and the German courts are obstructing remedies. Politicians are forever quarrelling and kicking the boite down the piste. Greece will push French banks down the chute first; but German banks won’t avoid it, and together they’ll finish Italy off. “With luck, Italy will suck Spain into the abyss; Portugal will follow Spain, and Ireland Portugal. Just think of it! Those Irish traitors from 1922 will get their deserts! Terrific!”
Then continental banks lock their doors and the cash machines dry up. Minestrone kitchens appear on the streets of Rome. Spanish bullrings house the destitute. The bridges of Paris fill with rough sleepers. Weeks and months pass free of money. Europeans relearn the art of barter. When the cash flow stutters back, machines distribute drachmas again, the franc nouvel and the peseta nueva … Yet Britain’s latterday Blimps will still not be satisfied. They hanker for the whole hog; before we pull up the drawbridge, they say, the EU itself must vanish.
As history books will explain, the disintegration of Euroland caused deep political rifts. Historians agree that the rejection of a constitution for the enlarged union had caused paralysis. When Greece defaulted and defected without warning in April 2012, a Committee of European Salvation met in Luxembourg and suspended all treaties; it quickly subordinated Brussels’ secretariats. It was headed by the dynamic Polish premier, Donald Tusk, aided by ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had retired to her mother’s hometown of Sopot. Gaining the support of 16 of 27 EU members, they claimed to be acting democratically. “We’ve seen systems fail before,” said Mr Tusk, “we won’t let it happen again.” Presidents Barroso and Van Rompuy disappeared. Within a week, a self-styled Committee of Free European States was convened in London by William Hague, vowing last ditch defiance. Each committee denounced the other’s claims to legitimacy. The long process of splitting up Europe gathered speed. Two single markets arose, three Schengen-style border-free zones, and 20 currency regimes.
And the French and the Flemings pulled up the drawbridge. The Channel Tunnel was blocked at Coquelles; ports and airports under CES control impounded British freight. Britain’s pleas to the IMF for a rebate on her £75bn contribution to Ireland’s third bail-out fell on deaf ears. Economic life in the south east ground to a halt. The lorry queue at Dover stretched to Birmingham. The National Grid crashed. Fuel ran out. Riots far more violent than those of the previous year wrecked London. Barclays Bank HQ was torched; Sir Freddie Godwin was dragged from his Bentley and lynched; and Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were last seen rowing hard out of Heysham Harbour. Hunger stalked England’s pleasant land. After a shot-gun election, the British PM, Nick Clegg, declared unilaterally that a valid EU no longer existed and that British membership thereby ceased. Of course, the CES had not really abandoned monetary union or plans for European integration. As a gesture to national feelings, the euro name was dropped and members were permitted to re-name the common currency within their own countries, but only on condition that strict parity was maintained. The Constitutional Convention resumed.
What is more, on the day Britain left the EU, Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, returned from a tour of Warsaw, Berlin, and Luxembourg, celebrating undisclosed financial guarantees. Prior to the Great Depression of 2012-14, he had seemed to be settling for extended autonomy. Now he reverted to the SNP’s original proposal for a referendum on full independence. “Brave Scots!”, he began on reaching Edinburgh, “Europhiles! Citizens of Ecosse!” “Do you choose to stay under London’s heel in the company of Greece, Sicily and Latvia?” Then, drawing breath: “Or is it your choice to revive Scotland’s historic mission, and as partners of the majority of European nations, to join their union as a proud, free and sovereign kingdom?”
The writer’s latest book is Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, publ, Allen Lane
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