What price European unity?

At a forum organized by the European Parliament last Friday, anthropologist Ranier Fsadni - one of a number of panelists, alongside MEPs Prof. Edward Scicluna and Simon Busuttil, as well as Prof. Henry Frendo and Dr Anna Maria Darmanin - at one point made a very telling observation.

The European Union that Malta joined in 2004, Dr Fsadni observed, is not the same European Union that Malta is experiencing as a member state in 2011. On one level, he was referring to a very direct and palpable change affecting the actual shape of the Union as a whole: which subsequently grew by means of an additional enlargement, absorbing Bulgaria and Romania to become a bloc of 27 member states.

But on a much more subtle level - and with the benefit of hindsight, that was up to a point denied to us in 2004 - there has also been (and still is) an ongoing process of change affecting policy direction, and also the administrative structures that bind the whole enterprise together.

In a nutshell, the Union has manifestly grown less united, and the differences between entire families of disparate member states - disparate not just in cultural identity, but more significantly in prosperity levels, and therefore economic power - have become infinitely more pronounced.

Unfortunately, it is a change which imperils the entire future prospect of a unity based on equality and shared principles: in other words, the positive values on which the European dream (so to speak) was originally sold to Malta in the 2003 referendum 

Following the 2004 enlargement, the European Union can be demonstrated to have spiralled into two quasi-separate entities: on the one hand, a central bloc comprising Germany and France, as well as the Benelux, Scandinavia and the UK; and on the other, the 'peripheral' member states, including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and many of the former Iron Curtain countries.

At a glance there is an inescapable (and in a sense also tragic) irony underpinning this growing detachment between the 'two Europes'. It is after all paradoxical  that Greece - arguably the origin of European culture and hegemony, and certainly the culture which first gave Europe its name - is now considered 'peripheral'... whereas countries deemed 'barbaric' up until Roman times are now presented as the very epitome of European identity.

But this is just a passing observation: history is after all made up of precisely such ironies, and there is little to marvel at in such an otherwise remarkable reversal of fortune.

The real problem is less symbolic and far more practical in its implications. Ultimately it concerns governance at the highest level of the European Union; and this in turn has a direct bearing on the future well-being of each individual member state... including Malta.

Already  there is a discernible indication, staring us all in the face, of how inherently divisive the 'Union' has become. The current eurozone crisis, gripping 17 out of 27 member countries, has already effectively split the EU along lines that make concerted action difficult (though so far, not impossible).

Against this divided backdrop, decisions that urgently need to be taken to salvage the euro now have to rely on the co-operation and ultimately benevolence of countries like the UK and Sweden... which are not in the eurozone, and have to date shown no interest in joining.

So far, their co-operation has been forthcoming, true; but there is a limit to how much the taxpayers of ostensibly uninvolved countries will be willing to make sacrifices in future, for the benefit of countries which have arguably defrauded the system in the past.

Besides, even if no such problems arise in future, and consensus is reached on the package of measures to salvage the euro... even so, Malta will already have been caught up in the currents that threaten to pull the Union apart at the seams.

In their attempts to shore up the eurozone economy, the central authorities in Brussels are in the process of enacting legislation to tax the profits of financial services - a move that will undeniably have serious implications for the Maltese economy (a substantial portion of which now directly depends on precisely such services operating out of Malta).

Among the countries to have traditionally opposed such measures on principle is the UK: but - not being a member of the eurozone, and therefore not directly effected by this measure - the UK has so far kept out of the discussion.

Malta has therefore been isolated in its opposition to this tax; and quite frankly there is no hope whatsoever that Malta can successfully prevent it from being introduced.

The uncomfortable lesson to be drawn from this set of facts is that, when push comes to shove, Malta's voice has indeed been lowered, rather than amplified, as a result of EU accession; and as the divisions persist, we can only expect our national level of bargaining power to decrease even further, as more drastic measures are required to stave off imminent financial collapse.

Ultimately, the unfolding crisis has exposed the precariousness of individual member states' national sovereignty - which, in extreme cases such as Italy and Greece, have in fact already been technically supplanted by the imposition of undemocratic governments.

On a more positive note, the crisis has also shown that European nations can, at a stretch, make necessary, individual sacrifices when faced with a threat to their collective survival as a united whole.

Whatever the outcome of the eurozone itself, then, the upshot of the current crisis is that Europe will now have to bend its thoughts towards preventing further fragmentation, consolidating the fundamental principles upon which the Union was founded, and exploring ways of enhancing pas-European governance without losing sight of the norms of democracy.

Malta, the smallest and arguably most vulnerable of the 27 members, cannot afford to be absent from this discussion.