European integration has proved phenomenally successful. The whole thing had just one decisive shortcoming, forced upon it by history: it was not the whole of Europe, but merely its free part in the West. For fifty years, the division of Europe cut right through Germany and Berlin, and on the eastern side of the Wall and the barbed wire, an indispensable part of Europe, without which European integration could never be completed, waited for its chance to take part in the European unification process. That chance came with the end of the division of Europe and Germany in 1989/90.
Robert Schuman saw this quite clearly back in 1963: “We must build the united Europe not only in the interest of the free nations, but also in order to be able to admit the peoples of Eastern Europe into this community if, freed from the constraints under which they live, they want to join and seek our moral support. We owe them the example of a unified, fraternal Europe. Every step we take along this road will mean a new opportunity for them. They need our help with the transformation they have to achieve. It is our duty to be prepared.”
Following the collapse of the Soviet empire, the EU had to open up to the east, otherwise the very idea of European integration would have undermined itself and eventually self-destructed. Why? A glance at the former Yugoslavia shows us the consequences, even if they would not have been so extreme always and everywhere. An EU restricted to Western Europe would forever have had to deal with a divided system in Europe: in Western Europe integration, in Eastern Europe the old system of balance with its continued national orientation, coalition constraints, traditional interest-driven politics, and the permanent danger of nationalist ideologies and confrontations. In the long term, a divided system of states in Europe without an overarching order would make Europe a continent of uncertainty; and in the medium term, these traditional lines of conflict would shift from Eastern Europe into the EU again. If that happened, Germany in particular would be the big loser. The geopolitical reality after 1989 left no serious alternative to the eastward enlargement of European institutions, and this has never been truer than now in the age of globalization.
In response to this truly historic turnaround, the EU consistently embarked upon a far-reaching process of reform: In Maastricht, one of the three essential sovereign rights of the modern nation-state – currency, internal security, and external security – was made the sole responsibility of a European institution for the first time. The introduction of the Euro was not only the crowning-point of economic integration; it was also a profoundly political act, because a currency is not just another economic factor but also symbolizes the power of the sovereign who guarantees it. A tension has emerged between the communitarization of the economy and the currency, on the one hand, and the lack of political and democratic structures, on the other, a tension that might lead to crises within the EU if we do not take productive steps to eliminate the deficits in political integration and democracy, thus completing the process of integration.
The European Council in Tampere marked the beginning of a new far-reaching integration project, namely the development of a common area of justice and internal security, making the Europe of the citizens a tangible reality. But there is even more to this new integration project: common laws can be a highly integrative force.
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