A Borderless Europe, but which Borderless Europe?

Lille 14 November – Just five days ago I witnessed the 20th birthday of the fall of the Berlin Wall on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. With that grandeur the French are so fond of, a giant light show on stately facades visualised the history of the Cold War, accompanied by 23 violoncellists from as many European countries playing a tribute to Rostropovitsjs’ solo on the ruins of the former fence between East and West, just after that fence had given way. When the show drew to an end, the heroic choruses of Beethoven’s 9th symphony took over and Europe’s borders faded, to be replaced by a giant star speckled European flag.

I felt uncomfortable.

Horse trading

Sure, when the Wall crumbled down and the Iron Fence was torn, one important barrier to a unified Europe was removed. But many remain. Among the most tough ones are those within the political system. Even the Green parties, the most outspoken advocates of Europeanism, are basically national – as they prove time and again in EGP, the European Green Party that, in fact, still is a Federation. In that party, national party interests prevail and the same games of power and horse trading are played as in the European meetings of Heads of State.

European back door

How difficult it is to change these nationalist reflexes, I found out when I joined a group of grassroots (and not real grassroots) Greens that launched an initiative to counterbalance this European Party of Parties by a Party of People. We managed to create an official status for European activists – the Individual Supportership, but the supporters’ rights had to be limited in many ways to take away national party fears: supporters don’t have the right to vote, and they have to register through national parties so all possibilities that political enemies join through the European back door are eliminated.

Still, only 4 parties have started to register people and no single party actively encourages the scheme. And it took the party delegates over seven years to accept our initiative as the part of the EGP, and only on the condition that one third of the team would be nominated by the EGP executive.

To merge or Not to merge

Tomorrow we’ll decide, at least in principle, if we can go along with our merging. If it means that our original ideal – a borderless Europe of citizens, starting in the Green parties, is the price to pay for a structural role, I find that price too high and will opt for a space of our own – because we cannot expect from the EGP executive members in our board to go along with an ideal that part of the EGP members hasn’t even started to think about.

A Thousand flags

But another problem has to be tackled, that of how that borderless European party should be built. Some believe in what I call a ‘centrist’ model, in which the EGP is the centre of gravity, just like the European Union should be the centre of gravity to build a borderless Europe from – the Europe of the European flag and anthem. Others believe in a ‘decentralised’ development in which, facilitated by fading borders, all sorts of cross border links grow, not only vertical links between citizens and Brussels/Strasbourg but also horizontal ones between citizens of different nations, and in which the initiatives are not only top down but also bottom up ad crisscross, and in which there is no big stately flag to replace the national symbols, but in which a thousand flags float in unison.

Both models are represented in our group. In a couple of hours we’ll find out which prevails.