- 2018-11-27
The EU's "Saar Dilemma"
"My grandfather has never been out of Saarbrücken in his entire life. In this village of tens of thousands of people, he has changed five passports, one is French, another is German, and another is Saar." This is A story often mentioned by Congressman Joe Lane from Saarland. "But with the establishment of the European Union, we no longer have to worry about whether we are German, French, or Saar. In the final analysis, we have all become Europeans."
Saarland is located in the Alsace-Lorraine region of Europe, at the junction of Germany and France. Historically, it has been a battleground between Germany and France. The Kingdom, the Saarland Autonomous Government, the Third French Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany have been administered. Therefore, the residents of the Alsace-Lorraine area are often both German and French native speakers. The background of the "Last Lesson" that is familiar to the Chinese is also set here, although Dude can not describe all of the history of the Al-Lorean region. The original state, but this kind of conflict between countries and the constant impact of personal belonging is indeed the deep feeling of every European family. Peace has therefore become Europe's biggest demand after World War II. In order to achieve and maintain peace, it is necessary to break the traditional boundary consciousness between countries and gradually transition to a supranational system. The first step is to Europeanize the Saar area, an important production area for steel and coal: on the one hand, the predecessor of the European Union, the European Coal and Steel Community, was born here; on the other hand, the European Community also intends to establish Saarbrücken. For the capital.
It seems that this is the challenge faced by Saarland, but in essence it reflects the core of the challenge faced by the entire EU. I call it the "Saar Dilemma" of the European Union. Below we will analyze the challenges faced by the EU from three dimensions: economic conditions, political power structure, and the role of the EU in the context of globalization.
Thrall's Dilemma: Challenges to Economic Recovery
In September 2017, European Commission President Juncker delivered an alliance speech in front of all members of the European Parliament, clearly pointing out that what the EU needs to ensure most is economic growth. Ensure the principled policy of "taking trade as the core channel, promoting growth and safeguarding peace". An alliance organization that promotes regional integration internally and promotes international free trade externally.
As one of the world’s largest economies, the EU’s prosperity comes from the firm implementation and implementation of this policy; its pivotal position in the international trading system and the birth of the euro reflect the strategic correctness of this policy; and the EU’s commitment to multilateralism The esteem also reflects the confidence in the values conveyed behind this.
However, economic recovery does not mean economic recovery. What the EU needs to face directly is the inertial thinking challenge of the "Saar Dilemma": that is, when the original advantageous industries are challenged by emerging economies or are replaced by new industries, how to avoid the disconnection between changes. When the development of traditional superior industries-from agriculture to coal and steel industry to heavy industry-suffers bottlenecks, how to overcome the inertial thinking caused by past successful experience, effectively adjust development thinking, and follow the "market". What needs to be considered at the moment is: in the face of the digital upgrade of the global economy, how to overcome the EU society’s fear of digitization, how to maximize the development of artificial intelligence and big data research and development in combination with the original industrial advantages of the EU, and how to maximize cooperation Space and field to ensure the steady progress of the EU's digital development process.
Thrall's Dilemma: The Dilemma of Decision-Making Structure
The EU’s political decision-making is known for its “time-consuming” and often takes 2-3 years to complete, because it is a process of multi-party compromise: from the EU level, it involves the European Commission representing the interests of the EU and the members’ own interests. A tripartite game between the European Council and the European Parliament, which represents the public opinion of European citizens; at the national level, it first involves the vertical game between the EU and its member states represented by Brussels, and secondly it involves the core EU countries and the later joining member states. , The horizontal game between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe; from the civil society level, it involves decision makers and different interest groups (including companies, banks, NGOs, schools, etc.), as well as networks between interest groups. A multi-point game. This multi-dimensional decision-making system determines that the EU’s policy must ultimately be a consensus reached after various stakeholders compromise.
This is the challenge of the decision-making structure in the "Saar Dilemma" faced by the EU. To get out of this predicament, what Brussels needs to change is the combination of soft and hard thinking in the past, and return to the essence of the goal of compromise-multi-win cooperation. The EU needs to create a turning point, carry out in-depth structural adjustments, rebuild the confidence of all parties in the EU system, and strive to make internal friction again the axis of the dynamic balance mechanism.
The Dilemma of Thrall's Globalization and Integration
The EU’s role in the political, economic, cultural, and social multidimensional game of globalization has undergone a fundamental change: from a strategic level, from a value-builder of the game to a follower; at a tactical level, from an active attack to a follower. Passive defense; mentality level, from the beneficiary to the "victim".
The main reason behind this is that EU philosophy and globalization logic are essentially contradictory. After the introduction of the Single European Act in 1986, the European Union decided to make the cohesion policy of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor as its first major policy, and the expenditure determined for this accounted for more than 32% of the EU's total budget. The EU hopes that through investment in improving infrastructure such as road construction, enhancing regional complementarity, and optimizing the industrial division of labor across the alliance, the EU hopes to achieve the effect of promoting the coordinated development of different regions. For example, in the early accession of southern European countries such as Portugal, Spain, and Greece, the EU set the role of manufacturing plants in Europe for them, and it is hoped that these countries can form their own comparative advantages.
However, this idea was soon challenged. On the one hand, various production factors within the EU continue to circulate freely, infrastructure is gradually improved, transportation costs are reduced, and economies of scale continue to be highlighted, triggering a process of self-reinforcing in an originally economically active region, and continuously absorbing surrounding resources. As a result, it has accelerated the imbalance between regions and caused the loss of resources in the originally economically backward areas. This has led to a net inflow of talents in Germany and Nordic countries, while a net outflow of talents in southern European countries. On the other hand, globalization is borderless, and the EU has to face more cruel global competition, especially price competition from emerging economies.
This is the problem of globalization and integration of the EU’s “Saar Dilemma”. The core is the issue of EU values: the choice between the utopian logic of “equal wealth” and the market’s logic of “survival of the fittest”. Time is not on Brussels' side, and hesitancy will not bring benefits to EU society.