IS EUROPE EVEN RELEVANT?

Foreign Policy On-line has an interesting little entry from David Rothkopf’s Davos Diary:

"An old Davos hand with whom I had breakfast pronounced the theme of this year’s meeting to be Europe’s growing irrelevance. I mentioned this to a former senior Bush Administration official and his response, “That’s a comment only a European would make, because only a European would even care. The only people more irrelevant than Europeans are Canadians."

"But the old Davos hand had a point. The steady drumbeat of events at this meeting underscored the growing sense that Europe is behind the power curve and falling further and further back. It’s not just that the theme of this year’s Davos has ostensibly centered on China and India.. Nor is it just that the Chinese hardly bothered to attend which sends a strong message about just how important they think this “institution” is to their prospects for future growth. (Certainly they view the announcement of a WEF representative office in China more as a sign that the WEF needs them rather than the other way around.) The mournful tolling for Europe could be heard in countless ways throughout the event. It could be heard in the warnings German Chancellor Angela Merkel got in her side meetings about her country becoming too dependent on Russian oil. It could be seen in the cover story of Time Magazine that depicted a Germany divided not by a wall but by economic and social divisions. It could be heard in the comments of a French minister that Europe’s lack of growth for the past decade has been unacceptable. It could be seen in the cancellation of the session scheduled for this afternoon called “Does Europe Have a Foreign Policy?” It was a rhetorical question obviously. It doesn’t. But worse, no one seemed to care. (Though there was some unease expressed by Iran experts with whom I spoke about Europe’s lack of resolve and reports Merkel said she does not want to confront the Iranians...that she would rather “engage” them.)"

"Perhaps in the most practically resonant way it has been seen in the mini-drama that has taken place in and around the WTO related discussions between the EU’s Peter Mandelson, the U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and others over trying to break the impasse over agricultural subsidies that is currently stagnating progress on the Doha Round of global trade negotiations. You would think that the fact that the EU position was what the pivot point of the round was a sign of the continent’s relevance. Rather, their intransigence on the issue, their clinging to a Common Agricultural Policy that is widely regarded as among the most protectionist trade measures in force anywhere in the world, is really a sign of the desire among powerful political groups in Europe (such as farmers) to cling to an artificially competition-light past that is unsustainable and also a sign that the EU’s Brussels leaders are unable to act over the opposition of strong members such as France. The French, of course, can’t embrace or even seriously consider real near term reform because a move in that direction would have their farmers in the streets while the memory of the rioting of frustrated immigrants in the Paris suburbs was still redolent. So the world waits, frustrated at the inability of the leading voice for community and fair play (the EU stance when they thought it leveled the playing field between them and the dominant U.S.) now adopts a stance that is very much akin to "the rest of the world be damned." And of course, they complain that it is the rest of the world that is being unreasonable."

"In the end, a key problem for Europe is that even were they willing to act on critical issues like Iran (where their stance has been anything but helpful) is that they have in their structure traded flexibility and speed for union (and its unwieldy nature). Whether they learn and adapt will ultimately determine whether they can regain relevance globally...and as a distant corollary of tertiary significance at best, whether the World Economic Forum can be hosted year after year in the Swiss Alps when the economic center of gravity of the planet is moving ever more rapidly eastward."

As if to prove the point about metaphorical gravitional shifts, in the French case, it is southward in almost every respect. The FT has the following story on its front page Jan 31st:

France would remember the "indelible stain" of slavery in a national day of commemoration on May 10, Jacques Chirac said on Monday. The anniversary will be the first of its kind in Europe.

The preternaturally flatulent Chirac really surpassed the Guinness world-mark gasbag records he has amassed in the past with the following emission:

The president described the date, which marks the day in 2001 that the French senate passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity, as a chance to "show the way" to other countries by exhibiting France’s "glory and strength".

This terminal case of political fatuity and cowardice should "show the way" and exhibit "glory and strength" by letting go of the Common Agricultural Policy threatening to ruin the Doha Round, but that won’t happen.

"The grandeur of a country is to assume all its history. With its glorious pages but also its more shady parts," said Mr Chirac in a speech designed to cool the racial tensions caused by last year’s riots and defuse a bitter debate over French colonial history.
He promised to fight modern forms of slavery by allowing companies that knowingly used forced labour in any country to be prosecuted in France. He also proposed a European or international initiative to force companies to respect basic worker rights in poorer countries.
Slavery is a thorny issue for many rich countries. African states and African-American groups in the US have long pushed for a formal apology. Although George W.?Bush, US president, during a 2003 visit to Senegal, called slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history" he stopped short of apologising.
Tony Blair, UK prime minister, has promised a memorial day next year commemorating the bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade in British colonies on 25 March 1807, as demanded by the New Nation newspaper and Anti-Slavery International, the London-based pressure group. Slavery was not fully abolished in the British empire until 1834.
Mr Chirac recalled France’s role in banning slavery – it ended in 1794, was re-introduced by Napoleon in 1802 and outlawed for good in 1848 – declaring: "The [French] Republic can be proud of the battles it has won against this ignominy"

Christiane Taubira, the Guyanese MP behind the 2001 law, said she was happy May 10 would become a symbolic date. But she called for the anniversary to be made “an essential event” that would write itself "into the French memory". Not everyone in France welcomed the move. Historians are upset about the government’s repeated attempts to dictate how history should be taught in schools.

The "French memory" is very selective, of course and recent history demonstrates French selectivity in choosing its battles. It's a safe bet we won't see China dragged into French courts because of its well-documented forced-labor factories.