The EU is not just an economic bloc like ASEAN or Mercosur. Nor is it a mere regional umbrella organisation that seeks to promote cooperation in various fields between member states along the lines of the African Union or the Arab League. But neither is it a stage on the way to the establishment of a federal or confederated state such as the US or Switzerland. It is a political-security project that, from its inception, sought to transform inter-European relations from “conflict mode”, which had prevailed for centuries and wreaked so many conflicts and humanitarian disasters in Europe and the rest of the world, to “cooperative mode”, which had the potential to avert warfare and strife and furnish stability and the prerequisites for prosperity. Towards this end it applied an unconventional approach to regional integration that entailed a gradual and systematic process that began with the economic dimension and proceeded to the political and security dimensions. The call for a unified Europe is not new. Since the 13th century a long train of European thinkers from different parts of the continent advocated the idea. They varied considerably in their motives, justifications and the mechanisms they proposed for achieving their concept. Initially the idea was largely driven by religious motives. Proponents saw European unity as “a means to empower the Christian West against the Muslim Orient and liberate the holy lands from the clutches of the infidels,” or to “combat the infidel Ottoman Empire”. Over time, the religious factor diminished as Europe became more secularly oriented as a result of social and political pressures to separate the profane from religious authorities. Increasingly, economic, political and security justifications gained prevalence over religious ones. Moreover, at some junctures notions of unifying Europe became entwined with the personal projects of certain national leaders to assert their hegemony over the entire continent. Napoleon and Hitler are the two chief exponents of this trend. Ideas continued to fluctuate in various directions until the outbreak of World War II without succeeding in producing anything feasible and applicable on the ground. After that war the situation changed entirely. World War II marked the watershed in the history of the call for European unity. Firstly, in the aftermath of that war, the overwhelming majority of European peoples reached the conviction that unity between European states was the only way to avert the eruption of a third world war. Secondly, there surfaced new and innovative ideas and propositions for overcoming the ingrained French complex towards Germany which had long been a formidable obstacle to unification. Thirdly, the regional and international environments were now more conducive to nurturing the seeds of unity and helping them to reach fruition. In advocating the need to establish the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Jean Monnet was not solely interested in promoting a mechanism to achieve cooperation or even integration in one of Europe's vital economic sectors; he was more concerned with remedying the intractable French-German “security complex”. Coal and steel were the backbone of the military defence industries. Monnet believed that placing these two sectors under joint European authority would help prevent German rearmament and, simultaneously, help Germany rehabilitate itself and re-assimilate regionally and internationally. However, this inspiring vision could not have taken concrete form in an applicable integration project in the absence of a favourable international climate. This would indeed arise with the emergence of the bipolar world order. One of the poles, the USSR, posed a common threat to the countries of Western Europe, strengthening their incentive to become a unit. The other pole, the US, stepped forward as Western Europe's natural ally, ready and willing to bear the economic and security costs needed to reorder and consolidate the ranks of the Western camp. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the bird of European unity could never have taken flight without American wings, one of which was economic in the form of the Marshall Plan, the other of which was military, in the form of NATO. Still, the road to European integration, which began with the six-member ECSC and was crowned with the establishment of the European Union that reached 28 members, was far from smooth. Europeans had to overcome three major problems: The first concerned the relationship between “united Europe” and the effective powers of the international order and whether it could become an independent player in this order. It is well-known that the special relationship between the UK and the US was one of the main reasons why de Gaullist France wielded its veto, twice, to prevent the UK from joining the European unification project. Britain had to wait until 1973, which is to say until after de Gaulle died, in order to become a part of that project. The second problem had to do with culture and identity and, specifically, whether “united Europe” could break free from being an “exclusive Christian club” to becoming open to other cultures and civilisations in Europe. As we know, this has been a highly controversial question since Turkey officially applied for EU accession in 1987. Thirdly, there was the question of the nature and ultimate end of the European organisational structure. Could joint European institutions create an effective mechanism for regulating the relationship between their supranational authority and the sovereign authorities of member states? This question became increasingly acute as EU membership grew and disparities and lack of homogeneity between its member states became more pronounced. It is impossible, here, to discuss the impact of the three abovementioned problems on the course of European integration. However, I would like to pause for a moment on the concept of a “multi-speed Europe” as a form of a differentiated integration process as a means to resolve the dilemma of the lack of homogeneity resulting from horizontal and vertical expansion. Some felt that allowing different paces offered the necessary flexibility that would give all member states — large or small, weak or powerful, wealthy or poor — the opportunity to participate in unification course, each according to its own capacities and particular circumstances. Others, however, believed that this solution was very risky and could ultimately threaten the future of unified Europe. The unification train cannot operate on different speeds without wearing out the motor, they cautioned. There was also the inherent danger in the ambiguity purpose of confusion over the ultimate destination. In my opinion, allowing a major European state such as the UK to remain a member in the EU in spite of its refusal to join Schengen and the Eurozone was a great mistake. Europe is paying the price for this today, and dearly. In my study, “The European Union and the lessons it holds for the Arabs” (The Arab Unity Studies Centre, Beirut, 2004), I drew the following conclusions: 1. Democracy is the secret to the success of the integration experience in Europe. 2. The Arab world's lack of democracy is one of the chief reasons why its integration experience has failed. 3. The democratic mechanisms that are available in the European experience could, if emulated, ensure that the pace of the integration process in the Arab world would be regulated in accordance with the needs and tolerance levels of Arab peoples. For the above reasons I was sure that the integration project in Europe might slow down at times and, perhaps, even come to a temporary halt for the purposes of revision and adjustment, but that it would not collapse, spin in place or return to square one as has often been the case in the Arab regional integration experience. Today, however, it appears that my conclusions might need to be revised in light of the recent Brexit referendum in the UK in which the majority of the British people voted to leave the EU. The UK has not yet officially submitted its application to withdraw from the EU. But this does nothing to diminish the magnitude to the earthquake that has brought the EU face-to-face with an existential challenge. The way this challenge is handled will determine whether the EU will emerge from this crisis stronger than before or whether it will succumb to a process of disintegration that, I believe, will extend beyond the economic domain to jeopardise the essence of the peace project that inspired the launch of the European integration experience to begin with. To me, the gravest peril now is that Europe could gradually slide back into the mode of relations that had prevailed before World War II. This spectre is not at all farfetched in view of the rapid growth of fascist and racist trends and movements in Europe. Certainly, the realisation of such a spectre would perfectly suit Daesh's strategy and probably signal the impending fulfilment of Huntington's “clash of civilisations” prediction. The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
