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The future of the European project depends not just on whether the EU can deal effectively with refugees in the Mediterranean, but also on whether it can find a way to reconcile diverging conceptions of what Europe should be. [...]
three competing visions have emerged. The first is Merkel’s idea of a “competitive” Europe. Under her “leadership” since the euro crisis began in 2010, the EU has increasingly become a vehicle for imposing market discipline on member states. It is in the name of this idea of a competitive Europe that, led by Germany, austerity has been imposed on debtor countries in the eurozone. In other words, although it is expressed in pro-European terms and involves further integration, it is essentially a neoliberal vision.
The second vision is the French president Emmanuel Macron’s idea of a “Europe qui protège”, a Europe that protects. Macron envisages an EU in which there would be greater solidarity between citizens and between member states. In practice, this means more redistribution and risk-sharing in the eurozone – the “transfer union” that Germany and other creditor countries fear. This is a centre-left vision of Europe – although in France, because Macron has implemented structural reforms in an attempt to gain credibility in Berlin, he is himself increasingly perceived as neoliberal.
The third vision is the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s idea of a “Christian” Europe of sovereign states. His vision first emerged in response to the attempt, led by Germany, to force EU member states to accept mandatory quotas of refugees in 2015, but it has developed into a broader critique of the European project. Orbán defines himself as an “illiberal democrat” in opposition to what he sees as the undemocratic liberalism of the EU. His vision is shared not just by the Law and Justice party government in Poland but also by far-right parties in other EU member states. [...]
The danger is that the contradictions between the three visions will make the EU increasingly dysfunctional – exacerbating the backlash against it. Last week, the new Italian government – a coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right Lega – was so frustrated by the failure to make progress on migration that it refused to sign the conclusions of the European council. “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” an Italian official said.
Italy – which is now at the centre of both the euro and refugee crises as much as Greece once was – could be the key swing state in the three-way clash of visions. There are sections of Italian society that support each. Much of the Italian centre-right – which always supported European integration and in particular the euro as a way to impose external discipline on the country – supports Merkel’s vision of a competitive Europe. The Italian centre-left supports Macron’s vision of a “Europe that protects”. Meanwhile, the Lega shares much of Orbán’s anti-immigrant vision.
Each vision is a response to the rise of Euroscepticism in a different part of the continent and an attempt to reconnect the EU to citizens. The problem is that the visions are incompatible. What it would take to reduce Euroscepticism in the south of Europe would increase it in the north – and vice versa. Similarly, what it would take to reduce Euroscepticism in the east of Europe would increase it in the west – and vice versa. The question is whether there is a way out of this zero-sum game.