European unity - EU solidarity now facing a huge test

Ireland assumes the presidency of the European Union in just over a month but it is fair to say that the European project has not faced greater challenges or been more uncertain since the Treaty of Rome, the foundation document of the European Economic Community precursor of the European Union, was signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany in 1957.

Some months ago it looked as if our next whirl in the president’s office would be dominated almost exclusively by economic matters but now a renewed interest in self-determination by some countries and even regions, ironically because of flat-lining economies, has broadened that agenda. This widening front must be managed by the Irish presidency even as domestic issues become, if this is possible, even more fraught. The crisis facing the world economy, and specifically the crisis facing the 17 eurozone countries, has rejuvenated nationalist sentiment and aspirations.

In Spain that development will, as Sunday’s elections have shown, lead to continuing instability.

Catalonia’s voters did not give the secessionists of Convergència i Unió, a centre-right Catalan nationalist coalition, the overwhelming mandate they had sought, one which would have led to a referendum on separation from Madrid. However, they did win enough seats to keep the issue at the forefront of Catalonian and Spanish discourse. The result will also play on the minds of those who may have to finance a multibillion-euro bailout for Spain.

This is bad news for Mariano Rajoy Brey who, not yet a year in office, must contend with this internal crisis while preparing for what seems like an inevitable bailout and the strictures that would bring. He must too deal with growing social unrest provoked by frightening unemployment figures and considerable austerity. These are difficult times for Spain and they will reverberate throughout an EU where solidarity is already stretched by efforts to rescue bankrupt member countries. This tension was apparent as Europe and the International Monetary Fund reached a deal early yesterday morning to patch up damaging divisions over the next phase of the Greek bailout.

As continental Europe struggles to support bankrupt societies through measures that might be accepted by taxpayers in solvent economies, eurosceptic UK Conservatives intensify their campaign to put an in-or-out referendum to the British people. Though these high Tories are opposed by the Liberal Democrats, the Labour party, an important number of senior Conservatives, the vast majority of business and the vast majority of trade unions their jingoism and dangerous insularity may well add to the Little Englander-like momentum spreading through Europe’s straitened economies.

Then there is Scotland, seemingly determined, at least the Scottish Nationalist Party and its followers are, to plough an independent, blue-and-white furrow. Ironically, the very Tories who wish to leave the EU are probably the very politicians who will most vehemently oppose any move towards Scottish independence.

The European project was once about peace and solidarity. Now it is more about building the kind of power base that can have a positive influence in world trade and development. How tragic it would be if economic collapse, stagnation and the ensuing social unrest made it necessary to revisit the EU’s founding principles.