On European Citizenship:Replies
Miller, David
ALTHOUGH Seyla Benhabib, Michael Rustin, and I seem to occupy contrasting positions on the European question, I am not sure how deep our differences really are. We agree that the EU is an...
...I believe that much enthusiasm on the left for further installments of European integration is inspired by fear of global capitalism, by the increasing difficulty national governments have in regulating movements of capital and pursuing redistributive and labor-friendly policies in the face of international competition...
...DAVID MILLER teaches political theory at Nuffield College, Oxford...
...The other view is that we should subsidize a lower level of employment (part-time work, earlier retirement, and so on) by providing people with income not linked to their employment status (a universal and unconditional basic income is one version of this...
...But that can happen only if national governments have sufficient latitude in economic and social policy, and the centralizing tendencies of the EU are curtailed...
...We are then confronted by the following dilemma: we need high-level political institutions to control global capitalism, but it is correspondingly harder at that level to create the kind of political consensus and political will needed to make the control effective...
...Which strategy is best...
...Certainly there are basic rights that every state should respect, but beyond that, nations should be free to pursue policies that reflect their own cultural and political traditions...
...In my article I expressed strong doubts about whether democracy on a European scale was possible, and Benhabib's response to this is to concede that currently there is a serious democratic deficit and then to say that it would be a good thing if we could overcome it...
...There is currently in ARGUMENT Europe a broad division over how best to respond to unemployment caused by technical change...
...DISSENT /Fall 1998 n 113...
...So we should aim instead for strong forms of citizenship within nation-states and collaboration between states where they have interests in common...
...So this is not a battle between reactionary nationalism and progressive internationalism...
...The EU, so the argument goes, has much I I2 n DISSENT / Fall 1998 greater leverage here, simply because of the size of the market it can control...
...How far should the harmonization of social rights and social policy throughout Europe proceed...
...These are the real issues, not to be sidestepped by simple oppositions...
...I also doubt whether harmonization of social policy across states is necessarily a good thing...
...How far is it desirable to have a single monetary and fiscal policy across Europe (neither Benhabib nor Rustin declare their hand on the question of the single currency...
...And should we be trying to create a real (not merely nominal) form of European citizenship that will eventually displace national citizenship as the primary form of political membership...
...We don't know, and we will find out only if each of them is tried in different places...
...One view is that we should be seeking to make people more employable by spending more on education and vocational training...
...We agree, too, that national identities in this region are becoming more complex and multilayered than they once were...
...He is the author of On Nationality and is working on a book on social justice...
...One may have doubts about this claim (because the European market represents only a slice of the world market, firms can still put pressure on EU member states by threatening to move their operations outside), but let's suppose it is broadly true...
...Of course it would, but my point was that there are severe obstacles—especially cultural and linguistic divisions—that make the emergence of genuine European citizenship very unlikely...
...We agree that the EU is an important new departure in transnational cooperation, one that can help to counteract the worst excesses of global capitalism...
...Diversity has much to recommend it here, not least because countries can learn from one another's experiments...
...Our disagreements are more subtle than that, more to do with the shape of the new Europe and the balance to be struck between national politics and European cooperation...
Vol. 45 • September 1998 • No. 4
