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Europa — ein neuer Anfang Identität, Kultur, Dialog
by Rocco Buttiglione
Heiligenkreuz, Austria: Lehmanns, 2023

Enkindling the Desire To Be European

In his new book, Europe: A New Beginning; Identity, Culture, Dialogue, (published in German under the title Europa — ein neuer Anfang; Identität, Kultur, Dialog), Rocco Buttiglione presents his vision for the future of Europe in the midst of crisis and globalization. One image serves to illustrate the core problem: a bridegroom who has lost his bride on the way to the altar and is now desperate to find her. The question is: where is this bride that the groom (a metaphor for the European Union) has lost?

“Never war in Europe,” was the motto of his youth, recalls Buttiglione. This saying effectively served as his guiding political principle for decades. Yet, once more, war has broken out again in Europe. For Buttiglione, the source of the current European crisis is Europe’s failure to produce a European Constitution based on Christian values. He points specifically to the Treaty of Lisbon, which failed to cover the “edifice of Europe” with a proper “roof.” The events between 1978 and 1989 presented the best opportunity to unify Europe around common cultural values—but it’s a chance that’s in the past, begging the questions of whether European unity can still be recovered.

In the first chapter, Buttiglione recalls the revitalizing efforts of the European project in the last quarter of the 20th century. In the second chapter, he gives an overview of the current crisis, given the continent’s position in world politics. In the third chapter, he illustrates mistakes and failures, missed chances, as well as new possibilities. In the fourth chapter, he proposes a method to interpret history and politics in Europe, as ideologies end and the imminent danger—a consequence of its current, aimless politics—begins.

The main revitalizing efforts of the European projects from 50 years ago arose from a mindset that had two persistent convictions: that the world was divided, and a nuclear war would destroy humanity. The victors of World War II had ceded half of Europe’s countries to the Soviet Union’s totalitarian, Communist bloc. The new dividing lines could only be breached by another war, which would be catastrophic for mankind. This ‘status quo’ was broken unexpectedly by the most unlikely person: Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II embodied the rise of a new Europe. His historic appearance in Poland set the ball rolling in what would eventually lead to the fall of Communism in the West. With his peaceful revolution of conscience and his insistence on truth—totalitarian regimes need the lie to justify themselves—he appealed to the minds and hearts of the Polish people, who peacefully rebelled against their government. And the government caved. John Paul II’s vision for a united Europe became a reality. His vision was clear: to execute a successful project, the West should contribute its experience on how to build an economy that focused on people and states under the rule of law, and the East would contribute its sense of Christian values. “The victory over totalitarianism was a moral and not necessarily a political victory. In this fight, Europe had regained its soul,” writes Buttiglione.

Along with John Paul II, Helmut Kohl and Otto von Habsburg were key figures in the consolidation of Europe: first with the reunification of Germany, then the Paneuropean Union, and specifically the Picnic of Freedom at the Austrian-Hungarian border on August 19th, 1989.

The great failure in the larger context of the battle for a united Europe was the failure to establish a European Constitution that reflected the common roots of European civilization. Christian values failed to become the central foundation upon which Europe ought to have flourished. “Christian values” were not intended to be a confessional creed, but rather the combination of Judeo-Christian anthropology, with input from Roman law, Greek philosophy, and Jewish-Christian revelation. “Those who do not know Jesus nor Socrates, are no longer Europeans,” Buttiglione asserted.

The missing Judeo-Christian dimension enabled illegitimate power grabs from various institutional forces—in other words, the current crisis in Europe came about against the background of Necessitas non habet legem (Latin for ‘in a case of emergency, there is no law’): The financial crisis of 2008 was countered by the European Central Bank, which operated against the European Constitution; COVID-19 and, most recently, the war in Ukraine, have led to a further deterioration of unity and have given rise to a new sense of sovereignty of individual nations against the European Union.

As Buttiglione see it, the deeper problem consists of Europe’s rejection of a common nature as a people, a common identity built on Christianity—to Buttiglione, an exercise of the will by the demos, a condition met by the Greeks, the Romans, and more recently, the Americans. To foster the will, there must be enthusiasm to drive it. Enthusiasm, Buttiglione argues, is always rooted in something blessed since it leads to the sacred. If Europe wants to share a common brotherhood, then it needs to recognize a common father. A common people is based on a common culture and common values.

But John Paul II and Helmut Kohl’s proposal was rejected. “In its place came the Lisbon Treaty—a terrible treaty that did not give us the political unity of Europe, but the Europe of bureaucracy and conflicts of interest. The Europe of rights without obligations had finally triumphed,” comments Buttiglione.

Afurther cause of the current crisis was the ostracisation of Russia from the European project. It is easy today to blame Russia for the disintegration of European unity and the new war. Though Putin assumes the role of the villain by invading Ukraine, he is not the only one to blame for the crisis, and Europe is not completely innocent. By only counting on the expansion of consumerism in society, while failing to live and export European values, the West has focused on an individualism that it imposed on the Eastern European countries. By doing so, it alienated those nations which could have communicated better with Russia.

Russia was abandoned to President Putin. Large companies in Russia were not integrated into the market economy but were privatized by an oligarchy with roots in the former Soviet Union. Corruption, violence, and mafia-like structures have subsequently divided Russian society. The present conflict, according to the author, was born out of the West’s refusal to make Russia a cultural, civilizational offer. Instead, Europe relied on buying cheap gas and oil from Russia thereby financing Putin’s endeavors.

Additionally, Europe today faces the challenge of globalization. Buttiglione understands globalization to be a result of the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994, during which 123 nations established the World Trade Organization. Globalization became a lucrative deal for the rich and the (very) poor. Capital could flow to countries that offered the best environment in which to maximize profit.

The effects of this economic policy was felt in Western countries. Unemployment rose and many suffered lower wages. The victims of these economic shifts felt, and continue to feel, unfairly treated—fueling a new form of populism in the West. In addition, politics lost sovereignty over the economy. Witness what happens when politicians want to raise taxes to finance the welfare state or introduce stricter environmental rules: large corporations can pressure them by threatening to move to other countries with lower wages, taxes, and regulations. Globalization, according to Buttiglione, is here to stay.

According to Buttiglione, if Europe is to find its way in the globalized world, it will need an ethically-oriented policy that is willing to make the preservation of peace in the world its primary goal. This policy is a natural continuation of the social market economy which can be achieved by creating a contemporary revival of the vision of John Maynard Keynes.

This requires two conditions: first, deficit spending must be exclusively investment spending to strengthen the competitiveness and productivity of the economy. Debt incurred in the investment phase must be recouped by a return on that investment. Current expenditures must be financed exclusively by taxes. Second, the stimulus of this Keynesian policy must have a global dimension and be coordinated among the major economic powers. If the policy is global, the effects will also be global. Each economy will share in the expenditures, as well as in the revenues.

Buttiglione admits that this vision requires some kind of global power, although not through a global government, but in “global governance,” in which decisions of great magnitude must be made in consensus among the nations, and, if need be, “sovereignty must be exercised jointly.”

In the midst of the current crisis, Europeans must learn anew to “think politically,” that is, to think beyond the individual and more as members of the political community and a nation centered on the common good.

Modern philosophy has based itself on a scientific method and culminated in the construction of systems, which presented the illusion that human history was predetermined and could be anticipated accordingly. The idea of eternal progress has replaced the idea of God within this current.

Buttiglione writes that if one wishes to revive Christian values in Europe, cultural dialogue is necessary. This would require both the knowledge of one’s own culture and the encounter with other cultures. Only through the (re)discovery of one’s own cultural identity will particularization into smaller groups be avoided. In other words: politics that lose sight of the whole are reduced to a sum of diverse, partial, and sectorial individual claims that can no longer be integrated into a larger project involving common coexistence. Everyone then only regards himself as a member of a special group, which may no longer be interested in striving for general human rights, only special group entitlements. Real cultural exchange and mutual enrichment cease to exist. In turn, when there is no inner cohesion in society, the preconditions of democracy dry up.

“Today, our Western civilization faces a challenge of unheard-of proportions. Will we succeed in renewing ourselves? Will the ‘old’ values be resurrected in a new form? The future is known only to God. But we know that meeting this challenge is also—at least in part—within our freedom, and depends on our determination, our will, our convictions, and our commitment,” Buttiglione concludes.

A Europe without a common identity founded on Christian values is built on sand.

Jan Bentz, native of Germany, teaches Philosophy at Blackfriars, Oxford. He has worked in journalism for over a decade based in Rome, Italy, covering the Vatican. His academic work focuses on Thomistic Metaphysics and Medieval thought in relation to Modernity.