Q. How could the EU stop thinking in terms of less integration or more integration, which is a criticism you make in your book?
This question goes way beyond my book and it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time, which is that a lot of these discussions about European integration, especially when they take place in Brussels and among the pro-Europeans, takes place entirely through the prism of “do we have more or less integration.
This is a very linear way of thinking and the assumption is: more integration is good, disintegration is bad. So Brexit is obviously bad. Whereas I always thought, long before writing this book, “well, maybe some integration is bad and some disintegration is good?” »
Regarding what I mentioned earlier about the depoliticization of economic policy, if you constitutionalize the right-wing economic preferences, then, from the left’s point of view, that is bad European integration.
I fundamentally think the EU’s problem lies with democracy, and in particular the way it depoliticizes economic policy. So I think the crucial question for the EU is not: “Do you have more Europe or less Europe?” Are you integrating or disintegrating? This is how we deepen democracy in Europe, period. Therefore, the key policy question should be: “Does this make Europe more democratic or not?”
Q. As someone who once identified as pro-European, would you like to share your story about how your perception of the EU has changed?
I think part of my perceptions and interest in some of these issues has to do with my own background. I was born and raised in Britain, a country known for its semi-detached relations with Europe. On top of that, I have two parents who immigrated to Britain. My father was Indian and my mother Dutch. In other words, I have one parent from an EU member state, which in some ways has made me feel more European than many Brits who only have two parents British and one from a country outside Europe. I had a certain feeling of being European, but not entirely.
It began as a view of Europe from a slightly peripheral perspective, then emerged when I was working at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a pro-European foreign policy think tank, between 2009 and 2015 approximately. there, I was rather pro-European and I thought I understood the EU. In retrospect, I didn’t.
It was while working there that I learned more about the EU and began to conclude that much of what I thought I knew about it, particularly its history, was actually a myth created by the EU about itself. For example, the story I told you earlier about colonial history was completely written from the story that pro-Europeans tell about themselves. My former colleagues at ECFR had no idea about this story until I told them – and these are people who are experts on the EU.
Two years ago I wrote an essay in the New Statesman, a British magazine, which Euroblancheur expands. What inspired me to write this book were the reactions to this essay. My former boss at ECFR, Mark Leonard, wrote a response to the essay arguing that the EU is a postcolonial project. At ECFR, they didn’t know this was the real story; which shows, as I said, to what extent the EU succeeds in mythologizing itself.
The more conversations I have about the book, I realize that a lot of what I write in the book is much clearer to people outside of Europe than to people in Europe. For example, if I say that Europeanness has something to do with whiteness, I think for most people outside of Europe that’s obvious, but it’s horrifying for a lot of people in Europe. They are outraged when you even try to connect the two things.
This is why the title of the book angers many people. Part of the reason I insisted on this title was precisely to say that there is a connection between Europeanness and whiteness, and I want us to talk about it. Most people don’t want to do that, at least within the pro-European bubble in Europe.
Q. Do you think the EU is still on a civilizing mission?
Polish academic Jan Zielonka, who studied at Oxford for many years, analyzes the EU’s civilizing mission in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of the enlargement process, which he calls a “post-modern civilizing mission “. I think he’s absolutely right.
But I remember, for example, having this discussion with my former boss at ECFR when I worked on Euroblancheur a few years ago, and he said that when pro-Europeans talk about a civilizing mission, it is ironic. Well, that’s not the case. It is a true civilizing mission.