Europe’s cauldron of crisis

By Matthew Karnitschnig

vThe Paris attacks add another possible crack to the EU foundation stone.

ANTALYA, Turkey — The Paris terrorist attacks have left Europe’s future in a familiar spot: hanging in the balance.
What’s at stake in the wake of the attacks are the defining elements of contemporary European identity, from open borders to freedom of movement to the Continent’s joie de vivre.

Will the crisis spur members to strengthen their union around those common ideals, or will fear drive them further apart?
Europe’s elites have long argued such moments are essential for the EU’s evolution. Only in the cauldron of crisis, be it the fall of the Berlin Wall or the near collapse of the euro currency, does the European mind reach a state of clarity, they say.
Yet that narrative, replete with heroic tales of make-or-break all-night summit meetings, is more legend than reality. What European officials declare as progress is usually little more than a stopgap that preserves the status quo without resolving the underlying problem.
Exhibit one: Greece with its three bailouts in five years. Exhibit two: the recent (still unresolved) dispute over allocating refugees across the region.
“The crises don’t help the Europeans move forward, they just help them reach a consensus that they need to move forward,” said John Kornblum, a former U.S. State Department official and ambassador to Germany.
In other words, if neither the euro crisis nor the refugee influx could unite Europe, why should Paris?
“Is this the moment where Europe comes together? No,” said Ulrike Guérot, director of the Berlin-based European Democracy Lab, a pro-European think tank. “We are too divided and are moving apart.”
For some European leaders, the solution to the crisis lies in Syria.
Despite the growing talk of “war,” both in France and Germany, Europe isn’t going to send troops to take on the Islamic State anytime soon. France renewed airstrikes on Islamic State targets Sunday, but Europe has neither the resources nor the will to pursue an all-out war.
Indeed, even those calling for war don’t seem to agree on what it means.
“Are we going to protect values, or people?” Guérot asked. “If war means that we are going to build a police state and arm to the teeth, then I’m against it.”

The return of borders

Europe’s ties were fraying even before the attacks. One country after another, including Hungary, Slovenia and Austria had begun to build or unveiled plans to erect border fences. Sweden reinstated border controls, following Germany’s lead.
If anything, the attacks will spur those efforts. The killings have robbed many Europeans of a sense of security. The most obvious way for the region’s leaders to try to restore that confidence — and fend off the march of right-wing populists — is to enforce national borders.
The EU country with the tightest borders — the U.K. — hasn’t suffered a major attack in a decade.
Some see Angela Merkel as Europe’s best, perhaps only, hope. The German chancellor is the only European leader with the standing and credibility to shepherd Europe out of the morass created by the refugee crisis, they argue.
Yet Merkel is having difficulty rallying her own country around her cause. To many Germans, her oft-repeated declaration of “we can do it” has begun to sound like a threat.
Some Germans doubt claims that the refugees will help resolve Germany’s demographic problems by injecting millions of young workers into the labor force. They’re more worried about what a large influx of Muslims will mean for their culture and society.
Merkel’s open-door policy on refugees — heralded just weeks ago as a rare act of political courage — has sent her approval ratings into a tailspin. Her conservative party, which at the beginning of September was polling above 40 percent, has slipped to 34 percent, according to an Insa poll last week.
If Merkel has a broader strategy for how Europe can overcome the crisis, she has yet to share it. In Turkey for the G20 summit on Sunday, she reiterated her call for the EU to secure its external borders, which include 48,000 km of coastline and about 10,000 km on land. She offered no detail on how to achieve that aim.
What Merkel lacks in vision, Europe’s leaders lack in stature. European Council President Donald Tusk and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker dutifully expressed their horror over the attacks. The problem is few Europeans were listening.
Any effort to gather Europe around a strategy to take on the terrorists and deal with the refugees would have to be driven by the capitals. So far, there’s no sign a plan is coming.
So is Europe about to fall apart? Recent history suggests it will continue to limp along. But more and more dyed-in-the-wool Europhiles are beginning to wonder if that’s a good thing. Ultimately, it may be necessary to destroy the EU in order to save it.
“Something needs to break for something new to come,” Guérot said, quoting the German philosopher Hegel.