Europe is used to dealing with crises. In fact, what we now call the European Union is a result of one of the biggest crises in modern history. But there is something different about the crises that Europe faces today: they are all happening at a time when solidarity within the EU is weaker than ever before. From the Eurozone crisis to the migration crisis to the rise of right-wing extremist groups and recent terror attacks on the continent, Europe has her hands full, trying to balance conflicting national interests and uniform policy response.
Jean Monnet, a founding father of European unity, once said, “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” It seems more and more unlikely that the sum of the solutions to current issues will leave Europe stronger and more unified than before. Sir Michael Leigh, former Director General for EU Enlargement at the European Commission, says, “EU unity has been challenged by almost a decade of low growth and high unemployment […] Europe needs to find new motivation and new incentives if it is to move forward.”
The European sovereign debt crisis that started with the collapse of Iceland’s banking system in 2008, was a game-changer. By the end of 2009, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus were stuck in unsustainable situations, unable to pay off high amounts of government debt and bail out failing banks. The crisis caused fierce debates between creditor nations, like Germany, and debtor nations, like Greece. Many of those countries are still feeling the pain of requisite fiscal tightening in exchange for bail out money, and the Eurozone, as a whole, has yet to recover from economic collapse.
This has broken the appearance of solidarity within the EU both in terms of policy response and unified values, making subsequent crises more difficult for the EU to manage and opening a door for the rise of right-wing Eurosceptic parties. Front National in France (FN), Alternative für Deutschland in Germany (AfD), UK Independence Party in Britain (UKIP), and Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko (LSNS) in Slovakia have all recently made huge gains at the polls. The latest terror attack in Belgium is giving these parties more fuel. Already, UKIP leaders like Nigel Farage and Mike Hookem are criticizing the Schengen area, which allows freedom of movement for most EU citizens, and using the attack as a further justification for a British exit (“Brexit”) from the EU.
An “out” vote for Britain is starting to look like a real possibility. UKIP – which received about 13 percent of the votes cast in the May 2015 general election – and the Democratic Unionist Party are in favor of a Brexit, as well as a sizeable portion of Conservative and Labour Members of Parliament. As former Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund’s Policy and Development and Review Department, Desmond Lachman explains a Brexit would mean global economic catastrophe, because the UK is running an enormous current-account deficit, at nearly £17.5 M as of the third quarter in 2015. A Brexit would cause that deficit to grow, by inducing outward capital flows caused by a lack of uncertainty surrounding UK economic restructuring post-Brexit. In fact, the uncertainty caused by the referendum, set for June 23rd, is already causing some large corporations to question current and future planned operations in London.
The ability of destabilizing right-wing parties to gain political power in democracies is what Director of European and Eurasian Studies at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Dr. Erik Jones, describes as the “ultimate problem” with democracy: people living under the system can take advantage of it, precisely because they have the freedoms that democracy allows. In using the system against itself, people can polarize society, instead of unifying it. This is what we are seeing not only with the Brexit debate, but also with Europe’s migration crisis.
Right-wing party leaders, like FN’s Marine Le Pen, base much of their political platform on being anti-immigration and, maybe more threatening to European unity, anti-Islaminization. In fact, Germany’s PEGIDA party stands for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islaminization of the West.” The EU and Turkey came to an agreement last week intended to curb the flow of illegal immigrants to Europe. In return, Turkish nationals have been promised access to the Schengen zone by June, with a re-ignition of talks on Turkey’s bid to join the EU by this July. Although the deal is supposed to keep illegal migrants out of Europe, rest assured Europe’s far-right parties are not pleased with the prospect of visa-free travel for Turks, many of whom are of the Islamic faith. The Belgium terror attack, which ISIS has claimed responsibility for, adds more ammunition to the right-wing extremists’ anti-Islaminization proclamations.
Many of the extremist parties that are exacerbating fragmentation within Europe are closer to Russia than they are to the U.S., according to Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Andrew Tabler. If these parties continue securing power, there will be major implications on two situations that directly affect the U.S.: the crisis in Ukraine and NATO presence in eastern Europe. “The United States needs strong allies in Europe,” says Jones. “The United States also needs European unity.” The question is, how can a continent that is suffering from an extreme lack of solidarity in the midst of crises on multiple fronts be reunified?
Kaitlin Lavinder is an International Producer with The Cipher Brief.
