© Photo: Christophe Delory

What do you consider to be the main reasons for the political crisis of the EU-27?

It is a commonplace to say that the eastward expansion of the European Union has pushed it to its functional limits and that the successive rejection of treaties by the French, Dutch and Irish has plunged it into the institutional crisis of the last few years. But are the enlargement of the Union and these rejections at the ballot box really the cause of the problem, or are they rather the effect of a pre-existing situation?
In reality, if the structure of the Union seems to be shaky, this is due primarily to uncertainty about its foundations, which people have not taken the trouble to explore in sufficient depth. By this I mean the set of fundamental ideas concerning Europe, in its political, social, economic and spiritual aspects. The majority of European citizens desire peace and have clear democratic propensities, but rejection of foreign imperialism also plays a leading role in their national identities. Their desire for unification is thus tempered by wariness, which puts them in a dilemma concerning the Union: what, in their judgement, is its nature and true purpose? This question leads to two opposite answers, depending on whether they view the Union as a new, ideal reality or as a repetition of past errors.
To move beyond these questions, the framers of the Constitutional Treaty (2005) and the Lisbon Treaty (2007) deliberately emphasised the “European” values of peace, democracy and prosperity. In so doing, however, they seem paradoxically to have rekindled the fears of Euro-sceptics by giving them the impression that this discourse was mere camouflage aimed at concealing the true intentions of the Union. The enlargement to 27 members only complicated matters by adding to the mix the cultural imaginations of new countries that are marked by the experience of Soviet hegemony and, in south-eastern Europe, by centuries of Ottoman rule.

How will it be possible to pursue European political integration without running afoul of national particularities or insurmountable ideological differences?

Politics in the European Union is necessarily a matter of consensus and compromise, requiring constant attention to ensure that each member feels it is given sufficient consideration. This has given rise to a rather complicated set of common conventions and social codes whose role is precisely to defuse particularist reactions. The subsidiarity principle, considered as a rule of good manners, is also part of this culture.
It is undoubtedly not easy to learn this forma mentis of constant dialogue, but here the historian has a role to play, because countries' different attitudes towards Europe can be explained by looking at the past, and not necessarily the recent past.
More generally, our conceptions of the European order and the desire for contractual relationships between states were first put into practice at the time of the Congress of Vienna. It is worthwhile to re-examine certain moments in history when a strong European sentiment crystallised among the representatives of a number of countries: examples include the spirit of Vienna in 1815, the spirit of Geneva at the time of the League of Nations, and, after the Second World War, the movement that led to the foundation of the first European Community institutions. This “spirit” of dialogue between countries, which existed only intermittently in the past, has gradually become a constant political necessity. This is the theme of my research project at IAS-Paris, “Enlarged Europe: from the Holy Alliance to the Lisbon Treaty” (see box).