When all we seem to hear nowadays in this country are attacks on the EU, it was nice to read something good about it. The German newspaper Der Spiegel have an essay which I thought gives a bit of balance and puts the opposite point of view. It's quite long, 4500 words - about a 20 minute read - but well worth the time. The piece is by Ullrich Fichtner and is titled: How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century. There is a lot of stuff in there which I confess I didn't know.
The sub-title is: Despite its long list of crises in recent years - including the most recent vaccine snafu - the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms.
I already knew that the EU was a regulatory superpower and the essay quotes from Dr Anu Bradford who wrote a paper in 2012 about what she called The Brussels Effect and which I posted about a year ago. This is essentially how the EU accidentally became the world's regulator. Dr Bradford has now published a book about it which is available on Amazon.
Fichtner acknowledges the recent problems - the Greek debt crisis, immigrations, and the vaccine issue but says:
"That the situation has since become less fraught is not least due to the fact that Brexit, by not destroying it, has actually saved the EU for the time being. The London circus and the back and forth of the Brussels negotiations also had the effect of making many Europeans realize, perhaps for the first time, how tightly entwined their countries are with the EU. An otherwise abstract entity became concrete, and as amusing as all the parliamentary bleating in London may have been at times, it was just as crazy that the British really believed they could get by in the world better on their own than as part of the European alliance."
Brexiteers always play down the EU as almost nothing, and accuse it of being weak, slow, constantly on the edge of collapse and so on but the essay pushes back:
"In terms of the EU and its 27 members, it doesn’t really matter which metric you apply: It always ranks among the top three in the world by all criteria. It is even ahead of the United States in many fields and will be able to outperform China in many respects for decades to come."
And what about these figures:
"The EU is the most important export market for the U.S., India, South Africa and Russia. It is the second-largest market for China and Brazil and the third largest for Japan and South Korea. Three-quarters of South African exports of fruits and nuts go to the EU, 87 percent of U.S. pharmaceutical exports, 51 percent of Brazilian coffee traded on the global market, 45 percent of Indian textile exports and 40 percent of toys made in China for the world market. These figures speak of a European market and purchasing power that is mind-bogglingly big.
"Europe - not China - is the largest partner of the emerging African continent. By far. A third of all African exports go to the EU, and 40 percent of the foreign investment in Africa comes from the EU. Investors from the 27 EU member states were active in Africa with 222 billion euros in 2017, while the Americans had only 42 billion invested and the Chinese 38 billion."
If only the remain side had been able to compile these sorts of statistics so the EU had more of the feel of an international powerhouse, rather than a decrepit organisation staggering to inevitable ruin. For all the Brexiteers talk of other markets what about looking at per capita income? Consider this:
"GDP per capita in the U.S. is around $65,000; in Germany, it is about $54,000, and an average of $47,000 across the EU. China’s GDP per capita is calculated at $16,700. In India, that figure is $7,000."
The EU has a lot of wealthy customers, China still has a long way to go before it catches up with Europe or the U.S. And the next point is I think crucial. The UK has applied to join TPP, the Pacific Trade Partnership and we hear of the 'fast growing' Asian market. But the essay says this is only the world coming back to balance.
"Around the year 1800, when industrialization was just starting to take off in Europe, half of the world’s population lived in Asia. And, consequently, half of the world's economic output was generated there. But by 1900, Asia’s share of the world economy had fallen to just one-fifth, precisely because of Europe’s new technological lead. Harvard researcher Joseph Nye, to whom we will return later, thus suggests that we cease talking about the rise of Asia and China, preferring the term "return" instead. From that point of view, we're not witnessing an upheaval, but rather a protracted normalization."
The rapid growth will not continue for ever. In a world where the Asian half is just catching up with the west, the point about the EU and its regulatory superpower status shouldn't be overlooked. Countries the world over are adopting European standards:
"Every day, miraculous things are happening around the globe of which most Europeans take no notice. Technology companies in California build their devices according to EU regulations. Cocoa producers in Ghana and Ecuador are transforming their operations to meet European standards. In Argentina, Israel and Russia, plaintiffs are suing internet companies and invoking the "right to be forgotten” that was formulated in the EU. Regional blocs of countries in South America are organizing themselves along the lines of the EU. Laws drafted in Europe are adopted almost verbatim into national law in countries around the world.
"Fast food chains like McDonald’s, Subway and Wendy’s are taking chemical additives out of their products because the EU doesn’t allow them. The Brazilian company Citrosuco, the world’s largest producer of orange juice, strictly adheres to European regulations, even in countries where they do not apply. Adidas, Nike, and Zara are changing the composition of the plastic in sneakers around the world to make less toxic, EU-compliant goods. It’s a tremendous list, and it is very long."
What this is leading to says Fichtner, is the spread of European values or, as he quotes from a respected British publication The Economist , it is the "Europeanization" of the world. Britain is leaving the EU but I cannot see that we can escape the effect if places from California to Cameroon cannot.
The EU "sets standards and criteria worldwide based on scientific findings and equipped with recognized scientific, legal and also moral competence – even in areas where, by law, it would actually have no say. It’s not a stretch to say that the European Union makes the world a little bit better every day, a little bit cleaner, a little bit healthier, safer and more sustainable."
Quoting Anu Bradford he says:
"EU laws determine how timber is harvested in Indonesia, how honey is produced in Brazil, what pesticides cocoa farmers use in Cameroon, what equipment is installed in dairy factories in China,”
Finally, one of the things the UK has always feared is the rise of a military superpower on its doorstep but listen to this:
"If 2019 military spending is used as a basis and the UK, which has since left the bloc, is ignored in the analysis, the countries of the EU together account for around 12 percent of global defense spending. This puts them far behind the U.S., whose share is around 39 percent, but ahead of China, with 10 percent, and well ahead of Russia’s 3.5 percent. China's share may well grow, but these figures show that Europe, often accused of impotence in foreign and security policy, would actually be on par with the major powers in military terms if it succeeded in uniting its nationally fragmented "hard" power into a European one."
Fichtner doesn't call for an EU army but sooner or later, others will.
