European Union Celebrates Its 70th Anniversary Amid an Existential Crisis
70 years ago, on May 9, 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, presented the Schuman Declaration on the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, which was the first of a series of European institutions that would ultimately become today’s “European Union”.
“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries,” the Declaration reads among others.
The Declaration was a precedent for what would later be a block of 28 Member States fighting for the well-being of their citizens and stable world peace.
Built from the ruins of the Second World War, in a bid to establish peace through economic collaboration, the original six-member EU grew to include 28 countries, over the years, and only one of them has left so far, the UK.
Despite that coming up with the idea of such a community and its establishment may seem the most challenging period of these 70 years, in fact, keeping the EU alive and going, was the trickiest. Economic challenges, migration crisis, unemployment, and a growing nationalism that wants out of EU in several of the member states are only some of the challenges that the block has faced throughout the years.
The most recent challenge is that in the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic, which forced the EU to shut its borders to all foreigners, what has not ever happened in its 70 years of its existence. Adding the pandemic challenge, to growing nationalism and anti-EU movements amid a not-so stable economy across the whole block, the 70th anniversary has found the EU in an existential crisis like never before.
The EU: A Story of Challenges and Success
The accomplishments of the EU are many. From the very start, the European community has worked hard to facilitate the life of all its citizens and bring them closer to each other, in order to avoid any possible disturbance of the peace.
Its fundamental values remain respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law. These values unite all the EU countries, but despite that the block claims no country that does not respect these values can belong to the Union, in the recent years more than a few of the member states have violated these values.
Despite these, the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 as the Nobel committee asserted the EU had “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”.
Indeed, one of the highest accomplishments of the European Union is the freedom of movement, one of the main principles of the EU’s common market. It grants 500 million people the freedom to live, study or work anywhere within the block.
Europe’s single market is one of the world’s biggest, which has facilitated doing business and provided a significant economic boost by stimulating competition and trade, improving efficiency, raising quality, and helping cut prices.
The block had abolished the death penalty as of 1983 when the European Convention on Human Rights was updated with a new protocol make the penalty illegal. This means that no country can join the Council of Europe unless it ends the death penalty first.
It has one of the best programmes of environmental legislation in the world, which established standards for swimming water, forcing many beach resorts to tackle sewage.
Through its climate-energy packages, the EU has also established the first major carbon market and reached a deal on ambitious emission reduction, energy efficiency, and renewable energy targets.
In 2015, the EU took in over one million migrants arriving from Syria, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, fleeing war or famine.
EU’s Proudest Achievement: the Schengen Area in Turmoil Amid COVID-19
The borderless Schengen Area is undoubtfully the proudest achievement of the European Union, and its leaders have never hesitated to say it.
The Schengen Agreement signed on June 14, 1985, is a treaty that led most of the European countries towards the abolishment of their national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as “Schengen Area”. Signed in Luxemburg, initially by only five EU countries, the agreement remains one of the world’s biggest areas that have ended border control between member countries.
The Schengen Area covers most of the EU countries, except Ireland and the states that are soon to be part of – Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus. Although not members of the EU, countries like Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein are also part of the Schengen zone.
Since the agreement on its establishment was signed 35 years ago, the Schengen Area has never been closer to being suspended.
With the sealing off of the external borders and reintroduced border checks by most of the 26 Member Countries, the novel COVID-19 has turned out to be the greatest challenge that the EU has faced regarding its “proudest achievement”, the borderless zone.
Despite that at the beginning of the outbreak, the EU tried hard not to let the Schengen Area slip off its hands, insisting that internal border checks were not necessary, and the outbreak could be contained with other measures, time showed such assumptions were wrong.
By the time the World Health Organization announced that the EU was no longer an infected area but rather an epicentre of the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, several of the Schengen countries had already introduced border checks, many barring from entering citizens of most non-EU but also some EU countries.
In an attempt to stop the spread of the virus and to avoid economic difficulties in the block the EU Commission has moved on to take several measures, all of which have taken the block a step closer to what would be called “Schengen Suspension” despite the heads of the most important EU institutions still in denial that something as a suspension of the agreement is not possible.
Some of the Member States have gone to extra lengths, introducing 6-month extended border controls, due to fears of another wave of Coronavirus infections, caused by outside.
Increasing Right-Wing Nationalism within EU
Right-wing nationalism has always been present in Europe. Minimizing its impact has been one of the main goals of the EU from the beginning. However, a recent boom in voter support for right-wing and populist parties in the last years seems worrying.
In several Member States, voters frustrated with the political establishment and concerned about globalization and immigration have turned to nationalist movements.
The nationalist AfD is currently the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag, while in Spain, Vox, a party with similar views on the EU, is now the third-largest force in Parliament.
In Hungary, Victor Orban is now in its third term in office mostly by presenting himself as the defender of Hungary and Europe against Muslim migrants.
Whereas in France, Le Pen’s party which is opposed to the euro and blames the EU for mass immigration, came second in the 2017 elections.
On a higher level, in the Parliament of Europe, there is now a new bloc called Identity and Democracy (ID) which has been formed by nine far-right parties. It holds 73 of the 751 seats in the newly elected Parliament, which makes them the fifth largest group just behind the Greens.
However, nationalism is not something new for Europe. The continent, in particular the countries participating in the EU, have long struggled with it, including the last 70 years.
In the last years, some of the EU leaders that have raised their voices against nationalism include the Former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the Former President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani.
Brexit
The ongoing Brexit saga has been a headache and a heartache for many Europeans, in particular for the negotiators from the EU27.
Since 2016, when a referendum held in the UK resulted that Britons did not want to be part of the EU any longer, Brexit has been dubbed as both, a failure of the EU and a failure of UK, and thus created a clash of opinions.
The former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker had called Brexit a “tragedy” and a “failure of Britain, not the European Union,” and that the Britons had only ever been “part-time Europeans”.
However, British politicians claim they left because they wanted sovereignty and to be able to “take their own decisions for their own country.”
With only a few months left until the UK is finally out of the European Union, and no possible extension of the transition period in sight, the European Union will have only 27 members as of 2021.
