Europe Without America? …John Palmer [1988]
[Editor’s Note: This is a review of two publications in what Desmond Greaves termed the “war of ideas” over the future of the supranational European construction. One was John Palmer’s book, “Europe Without America? – the Crisis in Atlantic relations” (Oxford University Press, 1988). The other was “The New European – Quarterly Review, No.1, Vol 2.” The review appeared in the February 1988 issue of the “Irish Democrat” under the headline “Traditional, Unreconstructed Atlanticist…Ahoy!” John Palmer was a leading member of the International Socialists, a Trotskyite organisation, from 1959 to 1975. He was European Editor of “The Guardian” newspaper from 1977 to 1997, and later Director of the European Policy Centre, Brussels, and a member of the Governing Council of the Federal Trust. He was Irish national radio RTE’s leading guest commentator on EU affairs from the 1970s to the early 2000s.]
Traditional, Unreconstructed Atlanticist…Ahoy!
John Palmer is the European editor of “The Guardian”. Both are pro-Common Market and most of the time use the word Europe as being synonymous with the European Community (EC), or the EEC as it was formerly called. Because of the editor’s privileged position any ideas stemming from his typewriter appearing in “The Guardian” will gain currency by virtue of the fact that if something is said often enough, it will stick. This does not necessarily constitute correct analysis.
The major thrust of Palmer’s hypothesis is: “The economic, military and political world of the Atlantic Alliance … is visibly crumbling.” The alliance is portrayed as being between the USA and Western European allies in NATO. This time Europe is not the EC, as Norway is outside the EC but is in NATO, and Ireland is in the EC but is not in NATO; or rather, the six counties is kept for NATO by Britain. The term “Alliance” is also faulty because France takes no part in the military command of NATO.
Even the terms “Western European” and “Atlanticism” hide the facts. Greece is a member of NATO but geographically is situated in Southern Europe. Turkey has applied to join the EC, is in NATO and at odds with Greece. Some alliance, especially when most of Turkey is in Asia and neither country has an Atlantic coastline!
The term “Western” was coined to mean the “free” West, the capitalist countries, as opposed to “The East” behind the “Iron Curtain”. This has caused even Japan in the Far East and New Zealand in the east of the southern hemisphere to be classified as “Western”. “Western” was then tacked in front of “European” to mean the capitalist countries of West Europe. After the EEC was formed came a propaganda victory in which the EEC became known as plain “Europe”. This latter term leaves out most countries in continental Europe including Sweden and Austria which are capitalist, in Western Europe and neutral.
What John Palmer fails to do is to separate on paper the economic, political and military spheres by taking into account nation states and the subjugation of capitalist states to US domination in the era of modern imperialism. The three imperialist centres, Japan, the USA and the EC, compete economically with no quarter given. In the military sphere they are allies in retaining their subjugation of the developing world and limiting the influence of the socialist countries. The USA, the richest nation state in the world, is prepared to give a little in the economic field as long as it keeps a political and hence military upper hand. The USA is the policeman of the “Western” world, where Japan and the EC rely on the United States to keep the “free” part of the world divided amongst themselves.
In the last chapter, ‘After Atlanticism – Agenda for a New Europe”, all but one path forward is examined. Possible paths range from a socialist United States of Europe through to a fully integrated supranational state. In avoiding the case for keeping nation states intact with sovereignty and democracy, the author avoids opposition to the main aims of driving the capitalist states towards a European Union and omits to point out one major object: to turn the EC into a military pact which has the full support of the USA. Part of this pact is the loss of Ireland’s neutrality and NATO’s continued military presence in Northern Ireland.
It can be no coincidence for this chapter to be called “Agenda for a New Europe”, and the title of the first issue of a periodical to be “New European. It will also be interesting to see what the title of a proposed TV series on the future of Europe will be for which Palmer is a policy consultant.
Although unclear, the actual message carried in the “New European” seems to be supportive of the case for the reform of “Europe” to bring about “European cooperation”. Confusion reigns because various contributors and the editorial use the term “Europe” in even wider terms than Palmers’ book. For instance TV personality Ignatieff suggests that Europe stops at Vladivostok!
It would not have been surprising to find the periodical had been published by the European movement instead of it being edited by someone who has been in the leading ranks of the anti-Marketeers and a former press officer of the British Anti-Common Market Campaign. The Single European Act and the question of disassembling nation states with the loss of sovereignty and democracy is hardly hinted at, except in a contribution by French Premier Jack Chirac!
This provides the key to the reason for publishing this periodical. Chirac, who is not exactly known for being against the EEC, says: “The integration theory which implied the disappearance of the nation states … and a European framework from the (then) existing states of affairs, have been overtaken by events …Today… the European Community and the Single European Act are the basis of the important economic solidarity of the countries of Europe.” In addition Chirac states that the military pact of the Western European Union “must gain increasing powers in the realm of defence”.
The qualitative change wrought by the Single European Act, causing Ireland to relinquish her neutrality, all Members States to surrender yet more sovereignty and democracy, and to turn the EC into a military bloc with its own armed forces, is buried in banal calls for co-operation and reform.
These publications are broadsides in the war of ideas over what is being wrought in Western Europe and are aimed at dissipating the anti-Common Market struggle. The slogan “New Europe” is an attempt to replace such tarnished terms as “Atlanticism
and “Alliance”, as well as to upstage “EEC”, “Common Market” and plain “Europe”. All are cover to continue under new guises the old object of the drive to a supranational European state which will exist for the benefit of transnational companies that want an end to national states. This would be a supranational state perpetuating capitalism, removing the right of nation states to decide their own form of economy. The appeal for co-operation is merely code for cooperating in carrying out the aims of the EC, just as the call to support reform rather than withdrawal is code for accepting the basic structure and purpose of the EC.
After reading the book, let me know if you find out what is meant by “a traditional unreconstructed Atlanticist”.