The Crisis of the European Union: A Response Paperback – October 6, 2013

In this book Habermas advances his latest visions for a new global citizenry that can transcend national borders. If you are already acquainted with his box of philosophical tools, you will appreciate seeing him putting some of these tools to use in analyzing a recent set of issues. On the other hand, if you are not too familiar with his key concepts (legitimation crisis, liberal-communitarian debate, universal morality, constructivist view of identity via communicative action, etc) but are still curious about them, this book is a good "example problem" where you can see him apply those concepts to a concrete situation.

In any case, in light of how much the Habermasian worldview changed over the years, this book may simply be a welcome update on his latest outlook (and for some, a reassuring confirmation that he has not slid too far to the right). There is even an interview in the appendix suited perfectly to just this purpose. Now in his 80s, this slim book has the weight of his entire career in tow.

How do you rate this type of book? It is dense-not easy reading, but in excellent English. Habermas methodically, oh so carefully and completely, makes his case for truly democratic Euro-wide representation to select the Euro officials. He goes on to suggest such a model for the global community. His wonderful mind makes the effort of reading his work well worth while.

the book offers an explanation of the imperative of the European project and a clarification of the concept of human dignity as moral foundation of human rights introduced in positive law both domestically and internationally.

“The Crisis of the European Union: A Response” by Jürgen Habermas, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and among the best-known living philosophers, is a collection of three or four essays, depending upon how you count, reflecting on the crisis of the European Union (EU) brought about by the euro crisis in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. The first essay, “The Crisis of the European Union in Light of a Constitutionalization of International Law” fills half of the book, 70 pages. The second essay, “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights” is 29 pages. In the Appendix, there is a three-part essay, the first of which is an interview Habermas did with journalist Thomas Assheuer for the German weekly “Die Zeit” in 2008 in which he expresses his perception of the financial crisis in the US and Europe. The second part addresses the euro’s role in the EU’s fate; in the third, Habermas laments apathy and national interest in Europe. It should be noted that the essays were written 2010-2011, as the material is somewhat dated.

Habermas’ purpose is “…to use the means at my disposal to try to remove metal blocks that continue to hinder a transnationalization of democracy.” If you’re unfamiliar with Habermas, he is an ideologue whom most people would find out of touch with how and why human societies and institutions work. He is an academic but does not shy away from commenting on the real world, so I was interested to hear his views on the EU in crisis. I’ll think better of it next time. Habermas recognizes that “the European Union has been sustained and monopolized by political elites,” and he feels they should give way to politicians who will be forthright and sell the European project to their voters on its merits. I don’t know how he expects them to do that, when he is unable to express those merits clearly himself in 70 pages.

It wouldn’t be helpful for me to comment on this essay in detail, as I am not debating Mr. Habermas here. Suffice it to say that there is to be a “sharing of constituting power between EU citizens and European peoples”, as each individual plays a dual role. There is a lot of talk of “cross-border democratic will-formation”, the “EU as a further stage in civilizing state power,” “supranational expansion of civic solidarity,” and that is before he gets to the part about world government, to which he applies the same principles. By the time he starts talking about how a world parliament, Security Council, and courts would function, his ideas have gone from being exasperatingly –and perhaps willfully- blind to being comical.

In his second essay, Habermas asserts that “human dignity” is “the moral ‘source’ from which all of the basic rights derive their sustenance,” and tries to demonstrate that. I was never entirely sure what his definition of “human dignity” is, but it is a term used in German law. In English, the phrase is so vague that it would be useless in any legal context. Habermas is including what he considers to be social, cultural, and civil rights, in addition to what most people would think of as “human rights.” He does acknowledge that military action in the name of human rights “reinforces the suspicion that the programme of human rights consists in its imperialist misuse,” but I don’t think he is actually against military intervention, so long as it goes through the proper democratic process. This essay is tangential to his comments on the European Union.

Habermas believes that the Eurozone crisis is in some ways fortuitous, because it prodded Europeans who had been apathetic to become more engaged in European affairs. He hopes that the euro crisis can bring about “a cross-border awareness of a shared European destiny.” It is primarily in the second part of the Appendix that he discusses the Eurozone. It is evident that Mr. Habermas follows European politics closely, but he has no economic expertise and is poorly qualified to comment on the viability of the euro. He gives no hint how nations of disparate industrial capacity, practicing different forms of free market economy, and chronologically at different stages of social, economic, and political development might successfully use a common currency to their advantage.

As for the other subjects, Habermas quotes Kant a lot and speaks of democracy in terms that I might have expected from the United States’ Founding Fathers more than two centuries ago. Enlightenment terms. Our Bill of Rights notwithstanding, most of those ideas were repudiated in the 19th century. In the 21st century, democracy tends not to be viewed favorably in the developing world on account of its economic mismanagement and general corruption. The challenge is to find a better and more adaptable way for the social, political, and economic contracts of any given people to be negotiated and, when necessary, codified, while keeping tyranny at bay. And this guy is still in the 18th century.

The style of the first essay is very turgid. The author tends to use fifteen words when five will do. It took much longer to read than I imagined, as I frequently had to read sentences two or three times to extract their meaning from the tortured prose. I don’t know if this is a feature of Habermas’ writing or of the translation by Ciaran Cronin. It’s possible that Cronin was put upon to preserve every detail of the meaning and sacrificed fluidity to that end. The other essays are more intelligible.

*****
Jürgen Habermas wants to get his message out loud, that's why he just wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine accusing EU politicians of turning their backs on the European ideals, "That's why he has written a book, a booklet, as he calls it, which the elite German weekly Die Zeit promptly compared with Immanuel Kant's 1795 essay; Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch."
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"In July 2011, German Chancellor and French President agreed to a vague compromise between German economic liberalism and French statesmanship." wrote Habermas, "All signs indicate that they would both like to transform the executive federalism enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty into a supremacy of the European Council that runs against the spirit of the agreement." This is what I felt, during a three weeks tour of north Italy ending in Switzerland, with an intellectual companion, and was appalled.

Upon returning home, I picked "On Europe's Constitution," the German title of his new booklet, on the crisis of the European union. In the long essay on how the European democracy has twisted under the pressure of the Euro crisis and the markets insanity. Habermas shows that power has slipped from the hands of the European people, to bureaucratic bodies of pseudo-democratic legitimacy, such as the European Council, suggesting, the technocrats have long since staged a silent coup d'éurope.

Habermas refers to the adjustment that Merkel and Sarkozy have attempted during the crisis as a "post-democracy." But he aims at the European Council, which was given a central role in the Lisbon Treaty, that he views as a 'peculiar oddity'. He describes the Council as a 'governmental body that engages in politics without being authorized to do so'. So European sovereign states are now driven by the markets. The EU exerts massive influence on the form of rescue governments for Greece, and Italy!

What he loves about Europe, and so passionately defends, has been simply turned on its head. And, while the activists of the Occupy movement deny to form even an objective demand, Habermas pronounces out clearly why his vision for Europe as a project for civilization which must not be allowed to collapse. He claims that the 'global community' is not only feasible, but necessary to reconcile democracy with capitalism. Otherwise, we run the risk that the countries will simply be driven by the markets.

"I understood that the process of expansion, integration and democratization doesn't automatically move forward of its own accord, that it's reversible, that for the first time in the history of the EU, we are actually experiencing a dismantling of democracy, I didn't think this was possible," says Habermas. That's why he seems so angry: with the politicians, and the media. "That's why I'm so involved in this debate. The European project can no longer continue in elite modus."Jürgen Habermas