# Transcript

Paul Lewis

I can go part of the way along with that argument but doesn’t the social project then come up against problems of economic cost.

Hugh Starkey

Well yes, but given that it is a democratic system the leaders have to take the people along with them, and maybe they would want to go faster, but there has to be an education programme and there has to be the social and cultural programmes that will convince people that they want to voluntarily go along with this project and the social cost is part of the price that has to be paid for the economic project.

Mark Pittaway

Well I think you have to have a little more than persuading people that this is in their interests. I think giving loyalty to a state or to a political system is very much about a gut feeling of loyalty. It is about sharing a feeling of a of a kind of common culture a common set of principles and having a sense of patriotism about this thing called ‘Europe’. And at the moment I think that the subdivisions particularly the national subdivisions command so much more loyalty that it is going to take a prolonged programme of education to actually combat that.

Hugh Starkey

To put it very simply that democracy needs a demos you know, where is the people that support this democracy. Amongst the most popular cultural activities there are of course sporting activities, and we notice in things like European football championships and so on, quite I would say radical changes. I mean, in this country with none of our teams going forward to the final stages people were nonetheless watching the competition and being interested in the competition, in their millions, because they felt part of that competition. It’s the same with go for athletics championships and so on, that this is part of the cultural project for building Europe’s sport.

Paul Lewis

Robert.

Robert Bideleux

I would beg to differ from both Mark and Hugh in a sense that by downplaying the democratic character of the European project and the entities being created, what has been created is much more like the nineteenth century Liberal conception of a constitutional state, that of the rule of law, limited government. Nineteenth century liberal elites were actually rather fearful of democracy and of the masses, and looked on with apprehension as the franchise was extended to more and more people in the late-nineteenth early-twentieth centuries, and some Liberals took the view that all the horrors of fascism, extreme nationalism, communism, were in large measure related to the development of mass politics and mass democracy. And in a sense, whether consciously or not, what the legal order that the European Union has created, is to take us back to the mid nineteenth century, when politics was to be conducted within the legal framework which is very constraining, which is not particularly democratic, involves elements of indirect representation and consent, but essentially it is based on negotiation of frameworks within which we can all co-exist peacefully and profitably. But it’s negotiation by elites not based on mobilisation of strong loyalty or attachment to the new entity that’s being created, and indeed I would go further. As a Liberal I’m actually rather fearful of the attempt to build a Europe analogous to the nation state, to try and create a European country or a European nation, because that would run the risk of reproducing all the horrific consequences of the European nation state system and European national identities which have contributed in such a major way to the two world wars that nearly destroyed Europe in the twentieth century.

Paul Lewis

Mark.

Mark Pittaway

I just feel that if that is what is created I wonder whether we would end up creating a kind of twenty-first century version of the Hapsburg monarchy, something which in its time is a very well-functioning concept between different nation’s regions, and ethnic groups, characterised by tension. But when inevitable pressures arise for people to take control over their own government and form a demos which can actually act as a constraining factor, a constraint on the state, I just wonder whether the whole thing will be blown apart by the winds of change and social forces beneath.

Robert Bideleux

I would simply point to the longevity of the Hapsburg monarchy and its ability to adapt to changing conditions. It’s lasted much longer than any democratic state has lasted, even the United States, which has a very long continuous history as a democracy.

Paul Lewis

So perhaps Winston Churchill was right when he wanted to restore the Austrian – Hungarian empire at the end of the Second World War, as an alternative project for Europe. Well I’d like to thank you very much for that stimulating talk and I think what it’s left us is a quite distinct sort of views to ponder. Like Rabbi Lionel Blue perhaps I’d like to leave you with a thought for the day really, the particular thought that struck me the quotation from Arthur Schnitzler, a well known Central European writer, who said that the things that are often talked about most actually in effect don’t exist at all, so you know one might then ponder well why do we talk about Europe so much if perhaps it doesn’t exist anyway. I’d like to thank you very much Robert Bideleux, Mark Pittaway and Hugh Starkey, thank you.