Is an Independent Europe Possible?

Britain has been called Washington's Trojan horse in the EU. The thinking is that without Britain, the EU would be freer to chart its own course. But as Alexander Mercouris explained here, Obama bypasses London to call German Chancellor Angela Merkel directly with his demands. Still, removing Britain's voice from the EU, though more crucially not from NATO, opens space for more independent voices in Europe to emerge.

"I worry that we will have less clout on our own: In the future we won't have as much influence on Europe's response to Putin's transgressions, Iran's nuclear ambitions, or the E.U.'s foreign and security policy," Peter Westmacott, until January Britain's ambassador to the United States, told The New York Times. "And we will be less able to ensure it is U.S.-friendly."

If German leaders conclude the United States is pushing Europe into a disastrous war with Russia, could we see a Charles de Gaulle moment in Berlin? Merkel doesn't seem to have it in her. Three days after Steinmeier's remarks she told a news conference she favored increased German spending for NATO to counter Russian "threats."

Instead it will require a revolt by an awakened citizenry against the EU and elected European governments that refuse to stand up to Washington, mostly because it benefits their own class interests to the detriment of the majority.

The Future of the EU

European social democracy had been probably the best social and political system ever devised on earth, maybe the best that is humanly possible. Europe could have been a model for the world as a neutral power committed to social justice. As late as 1988 Jacques Delors, then president of the European Commission, promised the British Trades Union Congress that the EU would be a "social market."

Instead the EU allowed itself to be sold out to unelected and unaccountable neoliberal technocrats now in charge in Brussels. European voters, perhaps not fully understanding the consequences, elected neoliberal national governments slavishly taking Washington's foreign-policy orders. But Brexit shows those voters are getting educated. Unity is a great ideal but EU leaders have refused to accept that it has to benefit all Europeans.

The EU's Lisbon Treaty is the only constitution in the world that has neoliberal policies written into it. If it won't reform--and the arrogance of the EU's leaders tells us it won't--it will be up to the people of Europe to diminish or dismantle the EU through additional referenda. That would give liberated European nations the chance to elect anti-neoliberal national governments, accountable to the voters, which can also chart foreign policies independent of Washington.

The danger is that the right-wing sentiment that has driven a large part of the anti-Establishment movements in Europe (and the U.S.) may elect governments that grow even closer to Washington and impose even harsher neoliberal policies.

That is a risk that may need to be taken in the hope that the anti-Establishment left and right can coalesce around shared interests to put an end to the elitist European project.