32 - Exit, voice, or loyalty? The collapse of national elite consensus on Europe’s future

Summary

It is not easy to be a Europhile these days. During the early 2000s, all EU member states agreed to set up a European Convention tasked with drafting an EU Constitutional Treaty. That bold idea drew direct inspiration from the 1787 Philadelphia Convention in America. Back then, the EU was widely touted as the next superpower. The books that were written about the EU back then had ringing titles like The European Dream and The United States of Europe. Almost two decades later, it is hard to find anyone taking those ideas seriously. Instead, the EU finds itself in a period of deep introspection, still coming to terms with the fallout of its perfect storm. Multiple overlapping crises – over the euro, immigration, Russian bellicosity, democratic backsliding, Brexit, and how to deal with Donald Trump's America – have made for dire predictions. The books being published and sold these days have titles like The End of Europe and The Strange Death of Europe.

Much of the current pessimism is unwarranted, even though the EU's problems are real. While the end is not nigh for Europe, it is undeniable that Euroskepticism is on the rise, and not just on the political fringes. Over the past decade, what the EU does and how it affects citizens’ everyday lives has become fiercely politicized across the political spectrum. Euroskepticism has made significant inroads into traditional Christian and social democratic parties. With the exception of Germany, where both centrist Volksparteien, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) remain firmly wedded to the European project in its current form, most other EU member states have seen Euroskepticism creep into their political mainstream. Many center-left parties question the EU's orthodox approach to economic policy and excessive focus on market openness and free competition. Center-right parties are deeply uncomfortable with the EU's more progressive stance on questions of migration and identity.

Longstanding patterns of political party competition in much of Europe have been upended by new and old populist movements on both left and right, while centrist forces have struggled to stay in power. The multiple crises of European integration have transformed the reigning elite consensus over EU affairs into skepticism or outright opposition.