Arnold Dreyblatt: Last Europeans?

3 lenticular transparent prints
Berlin 2022

An Installation for the Jewish Museum Munich.
With texts in German, English and Esperanto by: Agnes Heller, Ludwik Zamenhof, Bernard-Henri Lévy, André Glucksman, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Jaques Derrida / Jürgen Habermas

Arnold Dreyblatt: Last Europeans?
Photo: Eva Jünger

Daniel Cohn-Bendit
We are still in a phase of overcoming the nation state. Basically, it took us five hundred years to conquer the nation state and the cultural identities that emerged with it, with all their contradictions—revolutions, terrible historical moments—and to transform them into something new. Against this background Europe is a unique project.The question is not whether, but how quickly we accomplish the necessary transfer of national sovereignty to the European level. And how we shape this democratically.For the first time many people are realizing that there is not only their nation state and that the EU is not an abstract playground in the far distance. People are realizing that Europe has a very concrete impact on our everyday life. For the first time we have a European public. This is a decisive step towards a European democracy.

André Glucksmann
The crisis of the European Union is a symptom of its civilization. It doesn’t define itself based on its identity but, rather, on its otherness. A civilization isn’t necessarily based on a common desire to achieve the best but, rather, on excluding and making the evil taboo. In historical terms, the European Union is a defensive reaction to horror.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/philosopher-andre-glucksmann-a-dark-vision-of-the-future-of-europe-a-851266.html

Jacques Derrida / Jürgen Habermas
Today we know that many political traditions, which in the semblance of their naturalness demand authority, have been “invented.” In contrast, a European identity born in the light of the public would have from the beginning a feeling of something constructed. But only something constructed arbitrarily would bear the stigma of arbitrariness. The political-ethical will, which is expressed in the hermeneutics of self-understanding processes, is not arbitrariness. The distinction between the heritage we take on and the one we want to reject requires as much circumspection as the decision on the reading in which we appropriate it. Historical experiences are candidates only for a conscious appropriation, without which they do not acquire an identity-forming force.

Today’s Europe is scarred by the experiences of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century and by the Holocaust—the persecution and extermination of European Jews, in which the Nazi regime also implicated the societies of the conquered countries. The self-critical debates about this past have brought to mind the moral foundation of politics. A heightened sensitivity to violations of personal and bodily integrity is reflected, among other things, in the fact that the council of Europe and the EU have made renunciation of the death penalty a condition of membership.

Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas, “Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas”, FAZ, Mai 31, 2003 (excerpts)

Ludwik Zamenhof

I call patriotism or service to the fatherland only service to the welfare of all my compatriots, regardless of their origin, language or religion. I must never call patriotism the service to particularly the non-Jewish interests, language or religion of that population which constitutes the majority in the country. In accordance with the principle that citizens—even if they constitute a larger majority in the country—have no moral right to impose their language or religion on other citizens, I must advocate that in my country every people has the right to establish schools and other institutions for their members with their language and their religion if they so desire, but that in all public institutions, which are not exclusively for one people, only a neutral human language and neutral human or state stability should prevail. As long as this is not possible, I must work to ensure that there are schools and other institutions in my country with a neutral human language for those subjects who do not want or cannot use institutions with this or that vernacular; and from all mutual struggles of tongues or religions for supremacy I must abstain, for it is only a struggle between one wrong and another.

I am aware that in countries where the population is more or less ethnically homogenous the injustice that lies in the domination of one language or religion over others will not be understood for a long time, and the population will fight with all means against equal rights for all languages and religions and will persecute and sling mud at those who advocate equal rights. But I will never let myself be confused by this persecution and remember that I am fighting for absolute truth and justice, that no people can know what will happen to them tomorrow, that equal rights for all languages and religions will eliminate the cause of all wars and conflicts between peoples, that any action against the principle of “the empire for the citizens” and violence among citizens will always remain violence, even if committed by an overwhelming majority against a marginal minority, and that lasting happiness for mankind is only possible on the condition of equal and absolute justice for all people and countries, regardless of place and time and strength, and when in every empire there will be only human beings, only citizens regardless of their ethnicity.

I call my nation the totality of all people who live in my homeland, regardless of their origin, language or religion. But to my nationality I must always add the words “human being” to show that I do not count myself among my nation in a chauvinistic sense. The multitude of all people who have the same origin as me I call my people. I must not call my nation by the name of any people, I have always to call it—at least in conversation with like-minded people—by the neutral geographical name of my empire or country. If my interlocutor wants to know not only which political-geographical, but also which ethnic group I belong to, then I name to him my people, my language, my religion etc. separately. Example: Swiss individual, Petersburg individual, Warsaw individual.

Ludwik Zamenhof, Hillelismus, 1901

Ágnes Heller
Nationalism’s victory came in 1914—against the internationalism of the working class and the cosmopolitanism of the bourgeoisie. Europe’s “original sin” was the ugly child of nationalism. All previous empires began to break up into nation states. This trend is being continued to this day.

The exclusionary character of nation states is best illustrated by the history of European Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries and the history of the two world wars. Modern antisemitism (as opposed to earlier anti-Judaism) is a product of nation states. The shift from nationalism to racism was no accident, as the aspect of racism is inherent to ethnic nationalism.

After the devastation of the Second World War, some European states drew the consequences from the dark side of being nation states and established the European Union. The importance of this grand design should not be downplayed. Member states are obliged never to even start a war among themselves. Nonetheless, a sense of European identity has not, to this day, gained the same strength or significance as the national identities of the member states.

The European Union was founded on the decision to uphold certain values. However, even among those values chosen there are contradictions. First and foremost, because the Union is a union of nation states. As a Union, the value of solidarity must prevail; as a Union of nation states, on the other hand, it has to respect national interests due to a nation’s values, so nationalism will usually be stronger than solidarity.

Ágnes Heller, Paradox Europa, Wien 2019

“Libération” / Bernard-Henri Lévy
“Enough of ‘building Europe’!” is the cry. Let’s reconnect instead with our “national soul”! Let’s rediscover our “lost identity”! This is the agenda shared by the populist forces washing over the continent. Never mind that abstractions such as “soul” and “identity” often exist only in the imagination of demagogues.

Europe is being attacked by false prophets who are drunk on resentment, and delirious at their opportunity to seize the limelight.

Europe as an idea is falling apart before our eyes.

For those who still believe in the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe and Comenius there will be only ignominious defeat. A politics of disdain for intelligence and culture will have triumphed. There will be explosions of xenophobia and antisemitism. Disaster will have befallen us.

Our faith is in the great idea that we inherited, which we believe to have been the one force powerful enough to lift Europe’s peoples above themselves and their warring past. We believe it remains the one force today virtuous enough to ward off the new signs of totalitarianism that drag in their wake the old miseries of the dark ages. What is at stake forbids us from giving up. Our generation got it wrong. Like Garibaldi’s followers in the 19th century, who repeated, like a mantra, “Italia se farà da sè” (Italy will make herself by herself), we believed that the continent would come together on its own, without our needing to fight for it, or to work for it. This, we told ourselves, was “the direction of history”. We must make a clean break with that old conviction. We don’t have a choice. We must now fight for the idea of Europe or see it perish beneath the waves of populism.

Copyright: “Libération” / Bernard-Henri Lévy (signed by: Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Elfriede Jelinek et. al., 25.01.2019)

Photo: Daniel Schvarcz

Esperanto:

Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Ni daŭre estas en fazo de lukto por superi la nacian ŝtaton. Fakte ni bezonis kvincent jarojn por venki la nacian ŝtaton kaj la kune kun ĝi disvolviĝintajn kulturajn identecojn kun ĉiuj ties kontraŭdiroj – revolucioj, teruraj historiaj momentoj – kaj transformi ilin en ion novan. Antaŭ tiu fono Eŭropo estas unika projekto.

La demando ne estas ĉu, sed kiom rapide ni efektivigos la necesan transiron de nacia suvereneco sur la Eŭropan nivelon. Kaj kiel ni aranĝu tion demokratie.

Por la unua fojo multaj homoj konsciiĝas, ke ne nur ekzistas ilia nacia ŝtato kaj la EU ne estas abstrakta ludejo en fora malproksimeco. Oni rimarkas, ke Eŭropo tre konkrete difinas nian ĉiutagan vivon. Unuafoje ni havas eŭropan publikecon. Tio estas decida paŝo al eŭropa demokratio.

André Glucksmann
La krizo de la Eŭropa Unio estas simptomo de ĝia civilizacio. Ĝi ne difinas sin per sia identeco, sed, multe pli, per sia alieco. Civilizacio ne devige baziĝas sur komuna deziro akiri la plej bonan, sed, multe pli, sur la volo ekskludi kaj tabui la malbonon. En historiaj terminoj, la Eŭropa Unio estas defenda reago al hororo.

Jacques Derrida / Jürgen Habermas
Hodiaŭ ni scias, ke multaj politikaj tradicioj, kiuj en sia ŝajno de natura deveno postulas aŭtoritaton, estas „inventitaj“. Male eŭropa identeco, naskita antaŭ ĉies okuloj, dekomence surhavus ion konstruitan. Sed nur io arbitre konstruita portus la makulon de ajneco. La politik-etika volo, kiu montras sin en la hermeneŭtiko de procezoj de memkomprenigo, ne estas arbitro. La diferencigo inter la heredaĵo, kiun ni akceptas, kaj tiu, kiun ni volas refuti, postulas samkvantan diligenton kiel la decido pri la interpretado, per kiu ni alpropriigas ĝin. Historiaj spertoj kandidatas nur por konscia alpropriigo, sen kiu ili ne atingas identec-formigan forton.

La nuntempan Eŭropon karakterizas la spertoj de la totalismaj reĝimoj de la dudeka jarcento kaj de la Holokaŭsto – la persekutado kaj pereigo de la eŭropaj judoj, en kiun la NS-reĝimo implikis ankaŭ la societojn de la konkeritaj ŝtatoj. La memkritikaj konfrontiĝoj al tiu pasinto rememorigis la moralajn fundamentojn de politiko. Kreskinta sentemo pri lezoj de persona kaj korpa integrecoj inter alie speguliĝas en tio, ke Eŭropa Konsilo kaj EU rangigis la rezignon pri mortopuno je membriga kondiĉo.

Ludwik Zamenhof
Patriotismo aŭ servo al la patrujo mi nomas nur la servadon al la bono de ĉiuj miaj samregnanoj, de kia ajn deveno, lingvo aŭ religio ili estas; la servadon speciale al la gentaj interesoj, lingvo aŭ religio de tiu loĝantaro, kiu en la lando prezentas la plimulton, mi neniam devas nomi patriotismo. Konforme al la principo, ke unuj regnanoj, eĉ se ili prezentas en la lando grandegan plimulton, ne havas moralan rajton altrudi sian lingvon aŭ religion al aliaj regnanoj, mi devas penadi, ke en mia lando ĉiu gento havu la rajton fondi por siaj membroj lernejojn kaj aliajn instituciojn kun sia lingvo kaj sia religio, se ili tion ĉi deziras, sed ke en ĉiuj publikaj institucioj, ne destinitaj sole por unu gento, regu nur lingvo neŭtrale-homa kaj festoj neŭtrale-homaj aŭ regnaj. Tiel longe, kiel la atingo de tio ĉi estos ne ebla, mi devas penadi, ke en mia lando ekzistu lernejoj kaj aliaj institucioj kun lingvo neŭtrale-homa por tiuj regnanoj, kiuj ne volas aŭ ne povas uzi instituciojn kun tiu aŭ alia genta lingvo, kaj de ĉia reciproka batalado de lingvoj aŭ religioj pro regado mi devas teni min flanke, ĉar ĝi estas nur batalado inter unu maljustaĵo kaj alia.

Mi konscias, ke en tiuj landoj, kie la loĝantaro estas pli-malpli unugenta, ĝi longan tempon ne komprenos la maljustecon de regado de unu lingvo aŭ religio super la aliaj kaj ĝi per ĉiuj fortoj batalados kontraŭ la egalrajtigo de ĉiuj lingvoj kaj religioj, kaj la defendantojn de tiu ĉi egalrajtigo ĝi persekutados kaj superĵetados per koto. Sed mi neniam konfuziĝos per tiu ĉi persekutado, memorante, ke mi batalas por absoluta vero kaj justeco, ke nenia popolo povas scii, kio fariĝos kun ĝi morgaŭ, ke la egalrajtigo de ĉiuj lingvoj kaj religioj forigos la kaŭzon de ĉiuj militoj kaj malpacoj inter la popoloj, ke ĉia ago kontraŭ la devizo „la regno por la regnanoj“ kaj ĉia perfortaĵo de unuj regnanoj kontraŭ aliaj restas ĉiam perfortaĵo, eĉ se ĝi estas farata de grandega plimulto kontraŭ malgrandega malplimulto, kaj ke fortika feliĉo de la homaro estas ebla nur tiam, kiam por ĉiuj popoloj kaj landoj ekzistos justeco egala kaj absoluta, dependanta nek de loko, nek de tempo, nek de forto, kaj kiam en ĉiu regno ekzistos nur homoj kaj regnanoj kaj ne gentoj.

Mia nacio mi nomas la tutecon de ĉiuj homoj, kiuj loĝas mian patrujon, de kia ajn deveno, lingvo aŭ religio ili estas; sed al mia nacia nomo mi devas ĉiam aldoni la vorton „Homarano“, por montri, ke mi alkalkulas min al mia nacio ne en senco ŝovinista. La aron de ĉiuj honoj, kiu havas saman devenon kiel mi, mi nomas mia gento. Mian nacion mi ne devas nomi per la nomo de ia gento, mi devas ĉiam nomi ĝin – almenaŭ en parolado kun homaranoj – per la neŭtrale-geografia nomo de mia regno aŭ lando. Se mia interparolanto deziras scii ne sole al kiu politike-geografia, sed ankaŭ al kiu etnografia grupo mi apartenas, tiam mi aparte nomas al li mian genton, lingvon, religion k.t.p. Ekzemploj: Sviso-Homarano, Peterburgia Homarano, Varsovilanda Homarano.

„Libération” / Bernard-Henri Lévy
„Sufiĉe de ‘konstrui Eŭropon’!“ estas la krio. Anstataŭe ni rekonektiĝu kun nia „nacia animo“! Ni remalkovru nian „perditan identecon“! Jen la komuna agendo de la popolismaj fortoj, kiuj inundas la kontinenton. Ne gravas, ke abstraktaĵoj kiel „animo“ kaj „identeco“ ofte ekzistas nur en la imago de demagogoj.

Eŭropo estas atakata de falsaj profetoj, kiuj estas ebriaj pro rankoro, kaj deliras pro sia ŝanco okupi la spotlumon.

Eŭropo kiel ideo disfalas antaŭ niaj okuloj.

Por tiuj, kiuj ankoraŭ kredas je la heredaĵo de Erasmus, Dante, Goethe kaj Komenio, estos nur hontiga malvenko. Politiko de malestimo kontraŭ intelekto kaj kulturo estos triumfinta. Estos eksplodoj de ksenofobio kaj antisemitismo. Katastrofo estos trafinta nin.

Nia fido estas en la grandioza ideo, kiun ni heredis, kiun ni kredas la sola forto sufiĉe potenca por levi la popolojn de Eŭropo super ili mem kaj super ilia militema pasinteco. Ni kredas, ke ĝi restas la sola forto aktuale sufiĉe virta por kontraŭstari al la novaj signoj de totalismo, kiuj kuntrenas en sia kil-ondo la malnovajn mizerojn de la mallumaj epokoj. Tio, kion ni riskas, malpermesas al ni rezigni. Nia generacio eraris. Kiel la adeptoj de Garibaldi en la 19-a jarcento, kiuj mantre ripetis „Italia se farà da sè” (Italio faros sin mem), ni kredis, ke la kontinento kuniĝos memstare, sen nia bezono batali por ĝi, aŭ labori por ĝi. Jen, ni diris al ni mem, „la direkto de la historio“. Ni devas fari klaran rompon kun tiu malnova konvinko. Ni ne havas alternativon. Ni devas nun batali por la ideo de Eŭropo aŭ vidi ĝin perei sub la ondoj de popolismo.

The Validity of the Social Question

Industrialization and capitalism brought profound changes to European society in the 19th century, not however to forms of government. Since the revolution of 1830, workers had been the vanguard on the barricades. Nevertheless, it was only the upper middle classes which benefited from their struggle. The proletariat began to see itself as a social class. Workers’ associations and parties were formed at the initiative of men like Ferdinand Lassalle and Karl Marx. Exploitation, illness-inducing working and living conditions, and high infant mortality motivated many Jews, such as Leon Trotsky, Eduard Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Roosje Vos, Hilda Monte, and Mire Gola, to actively involve themselves in the social democratic and communist parties—as did the Bulgarian-Greek journalist and strike leader Avraam Benaroya (1886–1979). He played a leading role in the founding of the mainly Jewish Socialist Workers Federation or, in Ladino, “Federacion” in Thessaloniki, in which Jews, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Turks were represented. It was only during the constant changes in more recent Greek history that his achievements in the struggle for the welfare state were recognized, albeit belatedly.

^ Avraam Benaroya, no date given, © E. Benaroya, www.avraambenaroya.com

< Macedonia, May 12th, 1936. Photographs of the bloody suppression of the worker’s strikes in May 1936, © Digital Archive Parliament Athens

> Greek health care employees are protesting financial cuts, 2015, © Yannis Kolesidis /EPA/picturedesk.com

In 2010, Greece had to ask the EU for help to avert financial collapse. The Troika, a consortium comprising the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, granted aid with stipulations which involved radical social cuts: The wage level in Greece is now lower than in 2010, pensions are less than half of what they were then, and hospital budgets were cut by more than 40 percent. In most EU countries, especially during the Corona crisis, the strengths of the welfare state could be seen; in Greece, however, the dismantling of the health care system resulted in an increase in police operations and the re-equipping of the police force. Cutbacks in the health care system have not yet come to an end as further economic-liberal reforms and privatization measures are supposed to be implemented. The community clinic at Helliniki, for example, where not only asylum seekers but above all destitute Greek citizens were cared for, fell victim to these measures. The greed of a real estate holding company carried more weight.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, in conversation with Hanno Loewy, on

“A European Social Union? Learning from Greece”

https://youtu.be/GKZZ_K2zxiY

President of a Parliament not yet deserving its name

European Diary, 30.6.2021: 5 years ago today, Simone Veil, the first president of the directly elected European Parliament, died. Until today, this Parliament is struggling to really become one worthy of its name: the representation of a European sovereign. We are still far from that. Simone Veil, who became President of this dream in 1979, survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp at the age of 18. At that time, her name was still Simone Jacob.
In 1944, her family had been arrested by the Gestapo. Her father and brother were deported to Lithuania and murdered. She herself, along with her mother and sister, was deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 and on a death march to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945. There, her mother died of typhus in March before the camp was liberated by the British Army in April.

In 1946 Simone Jacob, by then a law student at the “Institut d’études politiques de Paris” (Science Po), married Antoine Veil from Blamont, a student one year her senior, a descendant of Wilhelmine Löwenberg, who had emigrated from Hohenems to Blamont, France, two hundred years earlier, and whose letters to her parents, so exquisitely polite and written in beautiful Hebrew-German script, now adorn a showcase in the Jewish Museum.

Simone Veil first became a judge, then a leading civil servant in the penitentiary system, and finally as a politician she stood up for the rights of women in particular. As Minister of Health from 1974, she ensured easier access to contraceptives. In 1975, she achieved the legalization of abortion. The law on the abortion period, which she fought through after a tough battle, is still known today as the Loi-Veil (Veil Law).
In 1979, when European citizens were allowed to directly elect their parliament for the first time, she ran at the head of the UDF, the French Liberal Party, and was elected by parliament as its first president. She was a member of the EU Parliament until 1993, the last time she ran as the top candidate on the “Le Centre pour l’Europe” list in 1989, after the French Liberals and Gaullists had not, in her eyes, been sufficiently resolute in their support for European integration.
In 1998, she was to become a member of the French Constitutional Court. For many years, she was also committed to the memory of the Shoah in France. In 2008, she was finally also elected to the Académie Francaise.

A year after her death in 2017, Simone Veil was transferred to the Panthéon in Paris in an act of state and celebrated by President Macron with the following words above all as a Frenchwoman: “With Simone Veil, generations of women who created France enter here. May justice be done to them all today through her.” 15 million two-euro coins bearing her portrait and her Auschwitz prisoner number were minted and put into circulation to mark the occasion.

Somewhere Between Europe and Israel – A Conversation with Avraham Burg

European Diary, 25.2.2021: Yesterday Avraham Burg was our guest – online – in a joint event with the Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue (Vienna).

Conflicts about the future of Europe have always been linked to disputes about the role of European Jews. Their emancipation was seen as a test case of the liberal hopes of the 19th century, and their cross-border cosmopolitanism as a precursor of European unification – or as a scapegoat for nationalist ideologies. Today, the state of Israel seems to symbolically take its place – admittedly under the opposite sign, as the favorite child of right-wing populist and nationalist politicians. Avraham Burg has already crossed many borders in his life. After his political career, Avraham Burg is engaged in publishing and in various political initiatives for an ethnically and religiously neutral state of its citizens, a state that would follow the ideals of the European Union. While these ideals are admittedly coming under increasing pressure in contemporary Europe. In a recent interview with the newspaper Haaretz, he explained why he no longer wants to carry the entry “Jewish” as a “nationality” in the Israeli civil registry.

Avraham Burg was born in Jerusalem in 1955. His Dresden-born father, Josef Burg, was a rabbi, leader of the National Religious Party, and minister in twenty-one Israeli governments. Avraham Burg, on the other hand, linked his political involvement with the Peace Now movement and the Labor Party. Between 1995 and 1999, he was chairman of the World Zionist Organization, then president of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for four years. In 2004, he left politics after publicly calling for Israel to choose between democracy and discrimination against the Arab minority.

„The patriarch Abraham discovered God outside the boundaries of the Land of Israel, the tribes became a people outside the Land of Israel, the Torah was given outside the Land of Israel, and the Babylonian Talmud, which is more important than the Jerusalem Talmud, was written outside the Land of Israel, the past 2,000 years, which shaped the Judaism of this generation, happened outside Israel. The present Jewish people was not born in Israel.”

Veto and no Sputnik Shock?

European Diary, 20.11.2020: The cabal was to be expected. The fact that the majority of EU members now want to get serious about tying EU funding to compliance with constitutional standards has led to the announced veto by Poland and Hungary against the EU budget, and thus also against the 750 billion in aid to cope with the economic, social and health policy consequences of the Corona crisis. Yesterday’s special EU summit did not change anything about the blockade of the EU budget by Poland and Hungary.

An EU rule-of-law procedure under Article 7 of the EU Treaty is already underway against both countries due to numerous and growing restrictions on freedom of the press and opinion, the independence of the judiciary and the sciences. Hungary and Poland leave out few opportunities to repeatedly sound out how far they can go with this.
Viktor Orban now claims that in reality the EU is trying to force Hungary to accept migrants and receives applause from the FPÖ in Vienna.

Both Poland and Hungary are indeed suffering from rampant emigration – well educated young people leaving Hungary and Poland to seek their fortune elsewhere. The expulsion of the Central European University from Budapest is only one link in a long chain of discouraging events that accelerate this bloodletting.

The EU, on the other hand, is not least concerned about the rampant corruption, which can no longer be fought by an intimidated judiciary. And the lack of public control of corrupt government action in the face of a press landscape that, in Hungary for example, is already almost entirely in the hands of Viktor Orban and his followers.

The laboriously negotiated compromise between the Council, the EU Commission and Parliament provides that a qualified majority of 15 states in the Council, representing at least 65% of the population of the EU, can block EU funds if there is a threat that the use of these funds is no longer subject to democratic, constitutional control. This is at least a first signal to the governments in Warsaw and Budapest, probably also to others who may feel that they are meant here.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa is now also attacking the German Council Presidency for wanting to implement the compromise negotiated in the Council only a few days ago with Slovenian approval. Jansa himself, of course, does not threaten to veto it. Probably because he does not really know what he is getting himself into.

The veto of Poland and Hungary could turn out to be a boomerang. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is already threatening to continue the regular EU budget as an emergency budget and to adopt the Corona Fund as a bilateral agreement between the other 25 states, with Poland and Hungary then going away empty-handed. In the meantime, Poland and Hungary are practicing war rhetoric. They are waging a “freedom fight” against “slavery”. This is not badly received by the Polish population. Hungary, on the other hand, ignited the next stage of escalation.

Viktor Orban demonstratively relies on the Russian vaccine Sputnik V in the fight against Covid-19, although the EU states have agreed on a joint distribution of vaccines approved in the EU. Russia’s space probe Sputnik 1 triggered the Sputnik shock in the West in 1957, because Russia had succeeded in launching the first artificial earth satellite, even before the USA. Sputnik 1 transmitted a short wave signal and finally burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere after 92 days of beeping. The Sputnik V mission was already a test for manned space flights. On board were two dogs, 40 mice and two rats, which landed safely back on earth one day later. A second Sputnik shock is certainly not to be expected. Russia will have enough to do to protect its own population. At the moment the number of corona deaths in Russia is also increasing dramatically. The waiting for the Sputnik miracle is still going on.

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek spoke with Professor Andrea Petö on 10 September 2020 in Vienna about “illiberal democracy” and the situation of the constitutional state in Hungary, about the situation of women between corona and right-wing populism – and about the emigration of the Central European University to Vienna.

The Moment of the European Commission – the Persistence of the European Parliament

European Diary, 12.11.2020: Within a week, good European news comes from Brussels and Strasbourg. After the cleverly launched news of the breakthrough in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine by the German company Biontech the tabloids worry about whether “we” (i.e. mainly us and not the others) will get enough of the vaccine. So it becomes clear what would happen to all of us if competition, power and corruption alone decided on the supply of vaccines. Meanwhile, the EU Commission has concluded treaties to ensure an even distribution of resources in Europe. And this on a large scale. One may be curious to see what kind of troublemakers will emerge in the process. But Brussels seems determined to finally get its hands on the ball.

Meanwhile, the German-Turkish community is particularly happy about the good news. Back in April, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper ran a report on Biontech with the ironic headline: “We are vaccine”. And revealed to the astonished readership who is behind the company and its current success: the founder Uğur Şahin and the medical director Özlem Türeci, both of whom are Turkish migrant children.

Even the European Parliament is now tired of being the toothless tiger in Strasbourg. The cutbacks in European projects in the fields of education and health, with which the Council and the Commission wanted to sweeten the expenses for the large Corona “aid package” in order to calm down the stingy Austrians and their consorts, have now been at least partially reversed. The real breakthrough, however, lies in the fact that the EU can actually take on debt together now and jointly generate revenue through its own taxes. This is exactly what all national chiefs have tried to prevent so far. For this is finally a further step towards shared sovereignty. And it also means an effective commitment to common standards under the rule of law.

In the debate on procedures under the rule of law, Parliament has now reached a compromise with the Commission and the Council, which at least sends a clear signal that violations of the rule of law, such as those now commonplace in Poland and Hungary, should actually be punished in future. And this would be the case even if the misuse of EU funds were a possible consequence, and not only when this has already happened (as the half-baked German compromise had proposed in between). Consequently, this would also mean: if the legal conditions in a member state would no longer guarantee democratic control over their use. Of course, the decision would still not be taken by the parliament, but by a qualified majority in the Council of 15 states (representing 65 percent of the EU population). So it remains to be seen whether the parliament has finally found its teeth. For basically the conditions for democratic control have already been largely dismantled in view of a press that is already largely controlled by the Orban regime in Hungary and a judiciary that is already under heavy influence by the ruling parties in both Poland and Hungary. And thus there is a need for action.
Poland and Hungary, on the other hand, continue to threaten to veto the budget and the “aid package”. Money from which they themselves would of course benefit disproportionately. So things remain exciting.

The Hour of the Parliament

European Diary, 6.10.2020: Yesterday the European Parliament debated the present report on the dismantling of legal principles in some member states. A turbulent discussion.
For months, the European Parliament and the Commission have been struggling to find a clear line towards those European states that abandon the rule of law on the way to “illiberal democracy”, i.e. states without a free press, without an independent judiciary, without protection of minorities from arbitrariness, discrimination or incitement, without the political corrective of an alert civil society – states in which the people are only called to the ballot box to confirm their leaders in office, who in any case announce even before the elections that they will not resign if they lose.
At the end of September, the European Commission published its first EU-wide report on the situation of the rule of law in the individual member states, which, as expected, is worrying. The report points not only to the growing state “control” of the press and judiciary in countries such as Hungary and Poland, but also to considerable deficits in areas such as fighting corruption or the separation of powers, including in other states such as Bulgaria, Malta, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia and Romania. Commission President von der Leyen made every effort to remain diplomatic. “Although we in the EU have very high standards with regard to the rule of law, there is a need for action at various points. One would “continue to work on solutions with the member states”. Vice President Véra Jourová had already become clearer in a previous interview with Spiegel, describing Hungary as a “sick democracy”, which immediately prompted Orban to demand her resignation.
In the course of the EU Commission’s 1.8 billion euro deal, which aims to revive the European economy and in particular the most severely affected states after the Corona collapse, the Commission and Parliament had also promised an effective mechanism to demand compliance with the rule of law. Poland and Hungary made it clear from the outset what they thought of this – and threatened to block economic aid in the Council. Admittedly, they themselves would also benefit greatly from such aid. A week ago, the German Council Presidency presented a compromise proposal that looks more like a toothless tiger. Cuts in EU financial aid would thus only be possible after it had been established that violations of the rule of law also have a direct impact on how EU money is handled. The EU Commission wanted to take a tougher approach and make access to funding generally dependent on compliance with the rule of law. But even the German compromise proposal, which would probably remain completely ineffective in case of doubt, naturally fails due to the veto from Budapest and Warsaw.
But the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Finland also vote against the German mediation. For them, the proposal understandably does not go far enough.
And so the EU Parliament is now finally getting ready to get involved in this issue.
Katarina Barley, the German deputy president of the EU parliament, explains to Deutschlandfunk radio that the EU does not want to be blackmailed by Hungary and Poland and their threat to blow the entire budget. “If we give up the rule of law now, then we will have conditions in the EU for the next seven years that our citizens do not want either, because our tax money will then go to regimes like Orbán’s and Kaczynski’s, which above all shovel money into their own pockets but convert their countries into democracies that no longer have anything to do with the values of the EU.” After all, Hungary would be financially dependent on the EU.
In yesterday’s parliamentary debate the Slovakian member of parliament and parliamentary rapporteur on democracy and the rule of law Michal Simecka gave a moving speech. Hungary is no longer a democracy, and Poland is on the way to that. Bulgaria is also on a dangerous path, he said, where people have been protesting unsuccessfully for three months against the rampant corruption of the government. He himself had already experienced before 1989 what it means when people are arbitrarily arrested or lose their jobs because they speak their minds. The image of the EU as a “guarantor of democracy” was severely damaged, he said. Only “better monitoring” as demanded by the EU Commission was not enough. The “rule of law” must also be able to be enforced. The governments criticized in the report reacted differently. While Bulgaria and Romania announced further reforms in line with the EU recommendations, Poland and Hungary attacked the EU head-on and rejected all criticism.

Tomorrow the report will be voted on in the Parliament. A broad agreement is expected. Then it will become clear whether the Parliament will stand firm against the European Council, in which countries like Poland or Hungary threaten with their veto right against the aid budget.
On the Internet, the most loyal friends of Orban’s “new democracy” are already on the move, above all Henryk Broder, who is allowed to make fun of the “dominatrix” Barley in the right-wing blogger paradise “Axis of Good”. Sexism must not be missing in this male association.

“like a ship bringing the plague to Europe”?

European Diary, 3.10.2020: In Catania, the trial against the Italian ex-Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini for deprivation of liberty begins today with the hearing of the radical right-wing leader, who is now in opposition. In July 2019, Salvini had refused a ship of the Italian coast guard entry into the port of Augusta in Sicily. The ship carried 131 boat refugees rescued from maritime distress. The competent court in Catania considered this a crime of deprivation of liberty, punishable by a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. In February, a majority of the Roman Senate voted to lift Salvini’s immunity – when the coalition between Salvini’s right-wing Lega Nord and the Five-Star Movement was already history. Salvini, who crashed in the polls in the wake of the Corona crisis, is in any case using the process for his permanent election campaign. For days he has been mobilizing in Sicily with flaming speeches and Verdi arias from the tape. “Vincerò” – “I will win”. He had only defended the borders and the honor of Italy by taking 130 people hostage in his right-wing extremist politics. A conviction of Salvini is nevertheless considered unlikely – and so the trial will probably also help him to work on his comeback.

European Diary, 3.10.2019: The captain of the sea rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, Carola Rackete, today gave a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels, at a hearing of the Committee on Home Affairs – and received a standing ovation from part of the MEPs. The Austrian Broadcast ORF reported in detail about this unusual event on the same day:

“‘I was received like a ship bringing the plague to Europe,’ Rackete said on Thursday in the Parliament’s Committee on Internal Affairs. ‘It was hard to be an EU citizen these days. I was ashamed.’

Rackete’s hearing took place on the sixth anniversary of the Lampedusa refugee tragedy in which 366 people died. While the deputies commemorated the tragedy with a minute’s silence, Rackete stressed that not much has changed since then.

The German activist vividly described her experiences as a rescuer at sea, for example when her ship hit a wreck around which bodies were floating. Some had held each other in their arms as they died, ‘the bodies inseparably connected’. She also saw three children ‘holding the body of a baby in their arms. Then some sang for this baby and rocked it as if it was still alive.

None of these experiences were as bad as the ‘frustration’ of spending 70 days with rescued people on the Sea-Watch 3 in the Mediterranean ‘and explaining to people that Europe didn’t want them, Europe, the symbol of human rights’. In this context, Rackete once again defended her decision to go to the port of Lampedusa. This was not a provocation’, said Rackete. ‘I should have done it much earlier’, said Rackete, referring to the protection of human life. ‘Yes, I would do it again any time. People die every day, of course I would do it again,’ she later replied to a corresponding question.

When she landed in Lampedusa against the will of the Italian government, she received ‘a lot of unwanted attention’, Rackete told the MPs. But where were you when we called for help through all possible channels, where were you when we asked for a safe place? If we are really concerned about torture in Libya, Europe must stop cooperating with the Libyan coast guard,’ Rackete demanded, to the applause of the MEPs.

Six years have passed and instead of avoiding similar tragedies, the EU has externalised its responsibilities and delegated them to Libya in violation of international law. But there is ‘hope’, namely the actions of civil society organizations.

Rackete called for a radical change in the way migration is handled. A reform of Dublin is ‘long overdue’, she said, and humanitarian corridors and safe and legal routes to Europe are needed. A landing of rescued persons must be in accordance with the law and must not be left to ad hoc negotiations.

‘After my arrest, there was great interest in sea rescue. I hope that this will be reflected in the deeds. I hope for real progress and not that it will become even more difficult for me and many organizations,’ said Rackete. ‘We must be careful about what is negotiated in the coming weeks and make sure that our demands are enforced,’ she urged MEPs.

At the hearing, representatives of Frontex, the EU Commission, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and Italian coast guard captain Andrea Tassara made it clear that the rescue of refugees in the Mediterranean should not be criminalized. However, differences emerged during the debate. Conservative members of parliament insisted on putting a stop to the smugglers. Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri repeatedly avoided the question of whether he considers Libya a safe third country.

The Director for Migration of the EU Commission, Michael Shotter, pointed out that since June more than 1,000 people have already been able to land and have been distributed to other member states and Norway in ad hoc actions. ‘We now need a reliable and continuous search and rescue operation instead of ad hoc actions,’ said Shotter. It is therefore ‘important’ that after the Malta agreement, other member states participate and show ‘solidarity’.

The chairman of the interior committee, Spanish Socialist Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, also insisted on clear rules that prevent the criminalization of sea rescue. The committee will draft a resolution on this issue, which will be adopted at the next plenary session of the European Parliament.

MEPs from right-wing populist parties, such as the Slovakian Milan Uhrik, who himself suggested that Rackete himself should leave for Africa, countered this. I can only identify with Salvini, who says you should be in prison,’ said the member of parliament for the ‘People’s Party – Our Slovakia’. The German right-wing populist Nicolas Fest followed up by asking Rackete if she considers it part of her mission to ‘endanger the lives of Europeans by infiltrating torturers and terrorists’. In the debate, ÖVP delegation leader Karoline Edtstadler voiced little veiled criticism of the activities of the sea rescue workers. I simply wonder how we are going to end this business if the rescue is still the ticket to Europe,” said the former state secretary on the question of the ‘pull factor’ of rescue operations. The EU should not allow itself to be ‘divided into good and bad states’, Edtstadler demanded the establishment of a system ‘that does not play into the hands of the wrong people’.

SPÖ MEP Bettina Vollath demanded an end to the criminalization of sea rescue workers. It can never and under no circumstances be criminal to help people in need, but it is a moral and legal obligation,” she emphasized in a statement referring to current figures of the United Nations, according to which this year already more than 1,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and since the beginning of 2014 more than 15,000 people. ‘Legal entry routes, fast and legally secure procedures and local help are needed to combat the causes of flight’, she stressed.

Monika Vana, head of the Austrian delegation of the Greens, wants to launch an EU sea rescue programme. ‘The Mediterranean is a mass grave for those in need of protection, that is a disgrace for the entire EU’, Vana told ORF.at. She is in favor of legal and safe entry into the EU. The trade of smugglers must be stopped and safe escape routes must be created. The EU-Council has to agree to the Frontex-Fund ‘Search and Rescue’, which was proposed the day before yesterday by the budget committee of the European Parliament, demanded Vana.

According to MEP Erik Marquardt of the German Greens, ‘humanitarian aid became part of a political game’: ‘The EU should send ships to the Mediterranean to save people. This is not only a responsibility of the Commission, but of each member state. It is not only the people who are drowning in the Mediterranean, but also our European values’, said Marquardt.” (Source: https://orf.at/stories/3139594/)

The Parliament Rehearses the Uprising

European Diary, 7.9.2020: The EU is facing a serious “power struggle”. The European Parliament, the only European institution with European democratic legitimacy, does not want to bow to the dictates of the heads of government. The 750 billion euro economic stimulus package to curb the consequences of the Corona pandemic, which the EU Commission negotiated in July, was under bad luck right from the start: the agreement of the Commission majority with the stingy four, then five EU states around Austria and the Netherlands was bought at the expense of massive cuts in the EU budget elsewhere.
The EU parliamentarians of many factions do not want to resign themselves to this. For example, the “EU4Health” program of all things, which is intended to protect against cross-border health risks and make affordable medicines more readily available, is to be cut from 9.4 billion to 1.7 billion euros. Joint programs for research, education, climate protection and digitization are also to be cut. And so the scope for cross-border cooperation will be restricted rather than expanded. MEPs from the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and also the conservative People’s Party from various countries are quite prepared to make use of Parliament’s right of veto. The Green MEP Rasmus Andresen brings into play the possibility of passing only the aid package, but not the budget in this form, in order to increase the pressure now in the other direction. This includes including in the budget execution more serious sanctions against those member states that violate constitutional standards. The EU parliamentarians also demand that the EU’s own revenues should finally be increased seriously, through an effective plastic tax, through digital taxes or the taxation of cross-border profits of the technology giants.
The EU Parliament and Commission still have difficult negotiations ahead of them. The need of the EU Parliament to be pushed around by the “thrifty” heads of government is ending. Even the “turquoise” MPs from Austria have not shown much enthusiasm in the past about the anti-European line of their own Austrian government. But it remains to be seen whether the words of Othmar Karas, for example, will be followed by actions.

Moritz Julius Bonn

Moritz Julius Bonn was born on June 16, 1873 in Frankfurt am Main as son of the banker Julius Philipp Bonn and Elise Brunner of Hohenems. Following studies in Heidelberg, Munich, Vienna, Freiburg, and London as well as research visits in Ireland and South Africa, he started his successful career as a political economist. In Italy, he met Theresa Cubitt, a native of England and married her in London in 1905. That same year, he completed his habilitation on English colonial rule in Ireland. From 1914 to 1917, he taught at various universities in the USA. As a political consultant, he took part in numerous postwar conferences, wrote on the topics of free trade and economic reconstruction, and drafted critical studies on colonialism as well as European democracy, which he considered viable only if based on pluralism and ethnic diversity. As rector of the Berlin College of Commerce and head of the Institute of Finance, founded by him, he eventually became one of the leading economic experts of the Weimar Republic. In the wake of the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, Bonn was forced to emigrate, initially to Salzburg, then London, and finally to the USA where he began his autobiography Wandering Scholar (German: So macht man Geschichte). After the war, he permanently settled in London where he passed away in 1965. Moritz Julius Bonn had spent his childhood summers at his grandparents’ in Hohenems and also

Moritz Julius Bonn, So macht man Geschichte, 1953: Education of a liberal and synagogue service in Hohenems

Moritz Julius Bonn, So macht man Geschichte, 1953: Multicultural diversity in “Felix Austria”

Moritz Julius Bonn, So macht man Geschichte, 1953: Memory and Return from Exile?

Union Europe?

Installation Union Europe? Photo: Dietmar Walser

The European Union started out as an economic community after World War II. Its history dates back to 1952 when its predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community, was founded. Today, the EU is also a political community. The only directly elected body since 1979 is the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Its first president was the French politician and Auschwitz survivor Simone Veil (1927–2017). In addition, that same year, the French champion of women’s rights Louise Weiss (1893–1983) became an MEP for the Group of European Progressive Democrats. Already during World War I, she had founded the peace-oriented journal L’Europe Nouvelle and kept publishing it throughout two decades. Despite being highly vulnerable as the daughter of an Alsatian Jewish mother, she was active in the Résistance during World War II. Her efforts toward a united, democratic Europe were honored by appointing her the first Oldest Member of the European Parliament and by naming the parliamentary building after her. Indeed, Louise Weiss understood that the concept of the Union was limited in scope to economic aspects, and early on, she pointed to the lack of a European community of solidarity by stating: “The Community institutions have produced European sugar beet, butter, cheese, wines, calves, and even pigs. They have not produced Europeans.”

Also delegated to the European Parliament in 1979 was Stanley Johnson—grandson of the last interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Kemal. As MEP for the British Tories, he belonged to the same group as Weiss. In 1992, he vehemently endorsed the Maastricht Treaty, which endowed the European Union with its current form. Now, his son Boris Johnson is leading the United Kingdom out of this Union. Do the grandchildren of the World War II generation regard Europe as nothing more than a sentimental and obsolete peace project? Hostilities against the EU are also triggered by parties on the Continent. Are the demands for more national autonomy symptoms of a growing right-wing nationalism? At the same time, exit demands are multiplying also in countries at the edge of Europe that find themselves—despite all the lip services paid to a European community of shared values—confronted with Europe‘s de-facto erosion of solidarity. Is it thus already possible to consider European integration as having failed? Is this the beginning of the end of Project Europe?