EUROPE OR IMPOSTURE
What follows is my English translation of an article by Giorgio Agamben, published on ComeDonChisciotte.org on 24th May 2024. (All emphasis mine).
It is likely that very few of those about to vote in the European elections have questioned the political significance of their act. Since they are called upon to elect an undefined “European parliament”, they may believe more or less in good faith that they are doing something that corresponds to the election of the parliaments of the countries of which they are citizens. It should be made clear right away that this is absolutely not the case. When we talk about Europe today, the great absentee is first and foremost the political and legal reality of the European Union itself. That this is a real suppression is apparent from the fact that a truth that is as embarrassing as it is obvious is being avoided at all costs. I am referring to the fact that from the point of view of constitutional law, Europe does not exist: what we call the “European Union” is technically a pact between states, which only concerns international law. The Maastricht Treaty, which came into force in 1993 and gave the European Union its current form, is the ultimate sanction of European identity as a mere intergovernmental agreement between states. Aware of the fact that talking about a democracy with respect to Europe therefore made no sense, EU officials tried to make up for this democratic deficit by drafting a so-called European constitution.
Significantly, the text that goes by this name [the Maastricht Treaty], drafted by commissions of bureaucrats without any popular foundation and approved by an intergovernmental conference in 2004, was resoundingly rejected when it was put to a popular vote, as in France and Holland in 2005. Faced with the failure of popular approval, which effectively rendered the self-styled constitution null and void, the draft was tacitly - and perhaps one should say shamefully - abandoned and replaced by a new international treaty, the so-called Lisbon Treaty of 2007. It goes without saying that, from a legal point of view, this document is not a constitution, but is once again an agreement between governments, the only substance of which relates to international law and which they were therefore careful not to submit to popular approval. It is therefore not surprising that the so-called European Parliament that is to be elected is not, in truth, a parliament, because it lacks the power to propose laws, which is entirely in the hands of the European Commission.
Moreover, a few years earlier the issue of a European constitution had given rise to a debate between a German jurist, whose competence no one could doubt, Dieter Grimm, and Jürgen Habermas, who, like most of those who call themselves philosophers, was completely lacking in legal culture. Against Habermas, who thought he could ultimately base a constitution on public opinion, Dieter Grimm easily argued the impracticality of a constitution for the simple reason that a European people did not exist and therefore something like a constituent power lacked any possible foundation. While it is true that constituted power presupposes constituent power, the idea of a European constituent power is the great absentee in the discourse on Europe.
From the perspective of its purported constitution, the European Union therefore has no legitimacy. It is then perfectly understandable that a political entity without a legitimate constitution cannot express a policy of its own. The only semblance of unity is achieved when Europe acts as a vassal of the United States, participating in wars that in no way correspond to common interests and even less to the will of the people. The European Union today acts as a branch of NATO (which itself is a military agreement between states).
That is why, not too ironically echoing the formula Marx used for communism, one could say that the idea of a European constituent power is the spectre that hovers over Europe today and that no one dares to evoke today.
Yet only such a constituent power could restore legitimacy and reality to the European institutions, which - if an impostor is, according to dictionaries, “one who forces others to believe things that are untrue and to operate according to that credulity” - are at present nothing more than an imposture.
Another idea of Europe will only be possible when we have cleared the field of this imposture. To put it without pretence or reservation: if we really want to think about a political Europe, the first thing we have to do is to get the European Union out of the way - or at least be prepared for the moment when it, as now seems imminent, collapses.
Originally published on Quodlibet on 20th May 2024.
Something to consider...