Prague, June 28 (CTK) – Brexit is an immense failure of the EU which has always boasted of being a guarantee of peace and cooperation in Europe, Pavel Kohout writes in Lidove noviny (LN) on Tuesday and asks whether it is possible to find an optimal compromise between the imperial system and national states.
Kohout writes that British Prime Minister David Cameron, who suffered a political defeat in the Brexit referendum last week, immediately resigned, while European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, whose political defeat is even much worse, has not obviously been started considering his departure. On the contrary, he warned that this will not be a friendly divorce.
At the moment when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, faithful to her typical empathy, convoked a meeting of the six EU founding members, the propaganda claiming that all member countries are equal was buried, Kohout writes and adds that Juncker and Merkel showed people the real face of the EU.
The European Union is nothing but an attempt to materialise the old dream of a European empire, based on the mentality of the 19th and 20th centuries: a larger country is better than a small one, more power is better than less power, more money in the hands of the state is better than less money, Kohout writes.
He writes that the euro was not introduced to facilitate trade, but as a step on the road to imperial taxes and an imperial budget. Gradually, everything, including foreign policy, the military and police, was to be centralised.
The Habsburg Monarchy was probably the closest parallel to the European Union, a comparison which was made by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1992 already, Kohout writes.
Austria-Hungary was such a diverse entity that it was not possible to create a stable government for a major part of the existence of its parliament, Kohout writes.
The designers of the EU took a lesson from this and proposed a system which will be more stable, but at the cost of democracy. However, lack of democracy means the absence of feedback, Kohout writes.
He writes that when one speaks with a high EU official, they have the feeling that this is a creature from a different planet which has no idea of the problems of the inhabitants of the earth.
Kohout writes that there are only two solutions: either the termination (of the EU) out of the will of the citizens of the subordinate territories, or an empire kept alive artificially with threats or even violence.
The British empire gradually disintegrated after the metropolis, weakened by World War Two, was unable to keep loyalty. But more importantly, the inhabitants of the colonies wanted to have their own elected governments instead of a governor forced on them by London, Kohout writes.
The fact that in many cases the former colonies’ own governments were worse than the rule of appointed governors is another thing, he adds.
However, the empires were also beneficial in some respects. Neither the Austro-Hungarian nor the British empire only brought violence, but also free trade within their borders, Kohout writes.
When the old Austria broke down, Czech firms had problems with the new customs barriers. The once large common market all of sudden unpleasantly shrunk, Kohout writes.
He writes that it is a question of what will follow Brexit, whether an optimal compromise between the imperial system, whose advantage is free trade within a large territory, and national states, whose advantage is a higher degree of democracy and a greater closeness between the government and the people.
The European Union for the 21st century should include free movement of goods, capital and people. On the other hand, the member countries should be able to deny certain social benefits to the citizens of other countries, which is a problem that Britons often deal with, Kohout writes.
On the contrary, the EU should not try to create a centralised government because the British referendum and mounting considerations of departure in a number of other countries, including the Czech Republic, has been its sole achievement, Kohout writes.
A modern European Union for the 21st century should do without the meaningless institution, the European Parliament (EP), and the “acquis communautaire,” which is a mass of 170,000 pages of directives, Kohout writes.
Less than one percent of the quantity would be enough for the functioning of the common market. The rest is administrative dead wood on which lobbyists and clerks live, Kohout writes.
He writes that it will take at least several more successful referenda on leaving the EU before this changes.
