Willy Brandt: the Life of a Statesman, Part 10 of 12
To the extent that we should want pragmatism, we should want those architectural ideas that themselves internalize a certain calculation of pragmatism
A good architectural idea is powerful and powerfully pragmatic. 20 years of writing software has convinced me that great architectures are profound. To the extent that we should want pragmatism, we should want those architectural ideas that themselves internalize a certain calculation of pragmatism. For instance, some architectures are less expensive than others, so where price is a consideration, one should chose the architecture that accounts for the real circumstances, the real limit of resources, of the situation. But two great mistakes need to be avoided: don’t pick an expensive architecture and then try to save money by only implementing half of it, and don’t ever convince yourself that no architecture is needed.
Nowadays, the European Union is in crisis. Britain left after Brexit. Hungary and Poland have both given up on democracy. The EU is uncertain how it should defend itself. The current problems are because of rotten foundations. That is, not enough thought went into the architecture of the system. An avoidance of difficult decisions was deemed “pragmatic” when of course the opposite is always true.
Consider this, Brandt’s attitude to the creation of the increased integration of Europe:
But after the enthusiasms of his youth, he was no longer drawn towards grand, complex structures or the creation of a supranational state; in other words, as he explained to Pompidou: ‘neither to institutional perfectionism, nor to integrationist abstracts’. What was needed was pragmatism, and the provision of the necessary tools to make the alliance of European states function.
Here is the root of the EU’s current problems. A false pragmatism lead to weak foundations, which have allowed the current problems to arise. Creating a unified Europe requires “grand, complex structures.” It requires careful thinking. It requires agreement about “integrationist abstracts.” Avoiding these difficult conversations in the 1960s and 1970s put the project of further integration onto weak foundations. Especially crippling has been the assumption that the conflict between workers and capitalists was the main source of social tension in modern life, and therefore, so long as that conflict was moderated, a happy society free of tension could be achieved. Especially in the 1970s, outside of Ireland, it seemed that religious intensity was a thing of the past. But religious traditionalism has had a resurgence in recent years, especially in Eastern Europe.
The Social Democrats, in every nation, suffer from one appalling failure of thought: the ongoing belief that a few specific policies, such as universal health care and strong labor unions, are enough to ensure a vibrant civil society. In fact, only careful thought about the contest of all elite factions, combined the contest of all mass factions, internally and with each other, and also on the international stage, whether in the government or in the private sector, whether artistic or commercial, religious or secular, must be part of the calculations used to devise the overall architecture of the system. We have explored these themes on this weblog, and will continue to do so.
Willy Brandt
Life of a Statesman
By Hélène Miard-Delacroix, 2016
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Page 136-138
In 1969 his project was still a union of European states. But after the enthusiasms of his youth, he was no longer drawn towards grand, complex structures or the creation of a supranational state; in other words, as he explained to Pompidou: ‘neither to institutional perfectionism, nor to integrationist abstracts’. What was needed was pragmatism, and the provision of the necessary tools to make the alliance of European states function. In his view, such an alliance should certainly open its doors to the United Kingdom – no more arguing with the French. In Paris, he thought, they must surely appreciate his honesty; as his involvement in European affairs was directed primarily at gaining Pompidou’s agreement for Ostpolitik, he would not also insist on British participation. From the beginning of the 1950s, the SPD had made the case for Great Britain’s role in the great European project. Brandt himself, like Schmidt, wanted to include Great Britain because of the long-standing links between Germany and the great power of northern Europe, and also because of Britain’s long democratic tradition and the model of its welfare state, which had become part of European identity.
Unlike the French, Brandt did not foresee the difficulties that would follow. In Paris, the general view was that the British would delay political integration and would want to transform the great European project into a simple free trade zone. Eventually, Pompidou yielded to the pressure exerted by other members of the European Economic Community (EEC) and agreed to open negotiations with the United Kingdom and the other candidate nations, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. The French decision to abandon de Gaulle’s position was motivated by the new configuration of power relations, particularly in the economic sphere, and especially by the desire to reinforce Western Europe so as to diminish the harmful consequences of opening up to the East. The idea was to make Europe stronger in order to resist the Soviet Union more effectively, and to protect Germany from the dangers of neutralism. When the French President suggested holding a summit of heads of state and government to discuss the triptych of ‘completion, deepening and enlargement’, Brandt supported him and increased bilateral communication in order to prepare for the summit, which finally took place at The Hague on 1 and 2 December 1969. The leaders managed to arrive at a compromise that satisfied all parties: in exchange for a guarantee of permanent financing for the Common Agricultural Policy that was so important to France, Pompidou agreed to extend the EEC and to open negotiations with the candidate countries. The negotiations took place over the summer of 1971 and resulted in the acceptance of three of the four candidates on 1 January 1963, taking the total number of members to nine. In their referendum in September 1972 the Norwegians voted against joining, disappointing Brandt, who would have loved to see his adopted country in the EEC.
At the start of the 1970s, European integration was progressing on two fronts. The first was in the economic and monetary sphere, where there was nevertheless doctrinal disagreement between the two principal partners, France and Germany. On the French side, the ‘monetarist’ consensus was that the shared European currency should be introduced as quickly as possible in order to force a convergence of economic practices. German economists, in particular at the independent Bundesbank, held the opposed, ‘economist’, view that economic differences needed to be reduced before attempting to create an interdependent European entity, of which the shared currency should be the finishing touch. As far as Brandt was concerned it was a chicken or egg question, and he worried that the economists would endlessly be at each other’s throats over it. His openness to Jean Monnet’s influence led him to favour a pragmatic approach, that a start had to be made somewhere before any progress could be made. In March 1971, the six founding member states of the EEC partially accepted the recommendations of the Werner Plan, presented in October 1970, which suggested gradual progress towards economic and monetary union via several stages. The first stage, which aimed to reduce fluctuation margins between the various European currencies, involved the adoption in the spring of 1972 of a restrictive measure designed to encourage economic coordination: the ‘currency snake’. This ran in parallel with developments on the second front of the European project: political integration.
While Pompidou’s triptych was taken very seriously in Bonn, in Paris he was opposed by a Gaullist majority, led by Michel Debré, who were strictly ‘souverainiste’, wanting to retain national independence rather than being subordinated to a supranational entity. Nevertheless, in October 1970, he managed to establish the European Political Cooperation, which was the mechanism through which foreign ministers could consult each other. The aim was to coordinate foreign policy and approach a political union - at the time thought to be achievable by the end of the 1970s. What form would such a union take? Like Pompidou, Brant was sure that the first step towards greater coordination should be to organise summits of European leaders, but he wanted to go even further than the creation of a permanent secretariat that would organise intergovernmental meetings. Gradually they came to an agreement and decided in November 1973 to hold regular meetings between the various heads of state and government, in private and without agenda. It was the European Council as Jean Monnet had imagined it, revived by his successors. The French President refused Brandt’s other requests, such as more power for the Commission and for parliament in the processes of consultation and decision-making. Brandt also agreed to drop his demand for the European Parliament to be elected by universal suffrage, despite the wishes of the smaller member states and strong public opinion in Germany demanding democratisation in Europe.