Burke and a Tory Europe

This Tory lot are said to be the most pro-European in a generation. But there are still a lot of eurosceptics in the party. There is still a fight to be fought over the party’s soul. There are philosophical questions: what does it mean to be a Tory? Is Toryism compatible with Europeanism? Are they fundamentally opposed? Let’s leave out the economics; you must be able to define conservatism without reference to capitalism. (And concomitant issues such as the single market, or excessive regulation) At least that is what a lot of Tory philosophers have done – and no one has ever complained.
Edmund Burke is one of the great Tory philosophers of course, and a Tory wet can actually mine the 18th century statesman for support for this thesis that Europe, as it has turned out, is a good thing. Burke was an aristocrat, believing in an aristocracy of merit. But what isn’t the current EU but an aristocracy – oligarchy, same thing. The commission has entry competitions; second, the European parliament isn’t beholden to its electorate; but neither was the pre-United Kingdom Irish parliament which serves as Burke’s model for the ideal legislature; in both the EP and the 18th century Dublin ideal, legislators voted with their consciences, and the party whip was weak Burke believed in the balance of power, the checks and balances of a council of 27 member states, (with veto rights), commission of 20,000 civil servants and European parliament of 732 independent MEPs, produces moderate, considered compromises – exactly the kind of “action and counteraction whose reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe” that Burke was saying the revolutionary French (his arch enemies) rejected when the National Assembly was set up comprising a swelling, singular popular will.
Burke belivges i9n an evolutionary polity; well, today the European Union turms fifty, and the whole point about Europe is that the EU builds on its own illustrious heritage, while at the same time embracing the Lisbon process to become the world’s top knowledge based economy by 2010; so the political project proceeds on the “principles of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement”
He argued that revolutionary governments were simple governments, concerned about fulfilling a single agenda regardless of the neglect of the goals of the whole polity. The House of commons, drawn from people with experience of all areas of life, and the Lords, of people with vast estates and experiences of rule, was a guarantee against such a single, revolutionary agenda. He wrote in his most famous book, Reflections on the Revolution in France:
“Simple governments are fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them. If you were to contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes of polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer its single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to attain all its complex purposes. But it is better that the whole should be imperfectly and anomalously answered than that, while some parts are provided for with great exactness, others might be totally neglected or perhaps materially injured by the over-care of a favourite member.”
Translated for the modern era: national governments and their acquiescent parliaments have simple agendas, taken up by national media drawn from people of the same class, upbringing and general attitudes. But these are moderated and modified in those growing areas covered by European legislation, at least, by the wills of other nation states, leading to an imperfect and anomalous pan European solution that is able to answer the whole imperfectly – but is better for it, as Burke would surely say.
And anyone who doesn’t worry about the fifty years of two steps forward and one step back would be pleased to know that Burke writes that “The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience”. He endorses muddle, multilateralism, building on success, evolutionary development, leadership of elites – and not necessarily populist democracy - all leading to general progress. Sounds like Burke, as well as describing 18th century England, was also describing the modern EU. And – Tory principle par excellence – it pasts the empirisicm test. For And who can say that Europe, which enjoys peace and prosperity, and an enviable quality of life, and is higher rated in a global poll as an enviable political entity than any single nation state - is not successful? It is a triumph both of Europe and or Burke’s ideas – and Burke was of course a European
Toriy wets have a powerful argument that modern Europe, in all its muddle and confusion, its oligarchic pretensions, is actually one of the Tory movement's idol's perfect heroes. Who would have thought that?

Report from an EU summit

The policemen, in caps, were huddled on a hill at
the head of the valley. They were later to shoot a
handbag thief in what became briefly known on the
press center information screens as the incident de
rue saint Stevins. This caused some excitement among
the bored, waiting journalists. As one Dutch
journalist waiting with me later in the press bar
during one of the many interminable negotiating
sessions between ministers told me: "We don’t care
what happens – we don’t even care about the future
of Europe. We just want something to happen."

It was raining and the three sentinels flanked by
beetle like armoured cars stared you down as you
approached the blocked off rue de la loi, Europe’s
Whitehall, normally racing with traffic from the
rondpoint schuman, around which many Eu buildings
cluster, down towards the city centre. There was
anti riot fencing and, inside a large block of rue
de la loi in front of the Justus Lipsius building, a
sealed area accessible only to officials with their
black Mercedes and parked TV vans, with satellite
dishes on the roof and carrying the livery of
various TV stations.

You showed your special summit press pass – everyone
in the Eu always has pass around their neck, but
this was a dedicated one for the two day
intergovernment summit – and your bonjour was
greeted in kind if the policeman was a Bruxellois,
by a curt Hello in English if the policeman was
Flemish. They had brought reinforcements from afar
for this summit. In contrast, the EU buildings are
normally guarded only by an unarmed security guard
or two, who will stand in front of the apron of
steps of buildings unprotected by concrete blocks or
riot fencing. But then, it is not every day that
one of the victors of Iraq comes to pay a visit.

Then you passed through metal detectors into the
courtyard of the Justus Lipsius building, a giant
ten story marble cube devoted to where the real
power in Brussels lies: ministers f the nation
states who meet here every few months. There were
25 flags arranged in a circle today, because in six
months’ time ten new members states will join the 15
who are currently members. Clustered in small
groups, linked by shouted hellos of recognition
across the courtyard to new arrivals, carrying TV
equipment or laptop briefcases, stood men in
cashmere coats, talking into mobile phones.

You arrived inside, picked up a hundred-page
photocopies press review of pre summit articles in
the world’s press, and watched the screens
everywhere provided by the European Broadcasting
Union that monitored the various VIP areas and
summit press briefing rooms. There was nothing, and
so you repaired to your bar after reading in the
press guide booklet that refreshments and non
alcoholic drink were provided free.

Journalists privy to the secrets of the negotiations
noted that
politicians at these summits always negotiated under
signs
that said "Please do not smoke", but whose
organisers had anyway thoughtfully provided ashtrays
which were liberally used by various heads of
governments. "Which shows nation states’ attitudes
to European regulation." In the bar, the most
crowded area of the entire summit, were also signs
advising visitors not to smoke – if you could read
them through cigarette caused fug. Journalists were
taking trays with three or four coffees at a time,
piles high with baguette de fromage and croissants,
not always taken out on behalf of others.

Some journalists had already picked up their gifts
from the Italian presidency, a blue goody bag which,
it was soon revealed, contained a pannetoni cake and
a bottle of asti spumanti. "I am only taking this
because my wife wants it, "said one British hack
emerging from level 01. These bags went very
quickly, as evidenced by looking at how an edge had
been cut off journalist press cards who had already
been given their gift. In the course of about three
hours, the number of snipped cards went from none to
very high – maybe 70% - and yet you saw few hacks
actually carrying the bags. I left my pannetoni
behind the door; I drank the asti in the toilets.

Suddenly something happened: Signor Berlusconi, the
Italian president, and responsible for holding the
summit, had arrived. We crowded into the lobby, and
saw him pass: a small, grinning orange faced man
moving fast, flanked and surrounded by young
carabinieri quickstepping men in reservoir dog
suits. ("Oh, the Italians are always like that,"a
Polish stagiaire told me later.) This sense of purpose
suggested that the excitement built up in my mind, as
a first summit visitor, of seeing the policemen, the
armoured cars, the men in suits talking into mobiles,
would continue: the summit would be long, gruelling
(not a problem for me) but thrilling. One of the
shortest summits in history ended unspectacularly,
however, the next afternoon.


The British took the usual pragmatic view.
A single, unitary, closerr Europe would happen,
it would evolve - maybe, probably
perhaps over fifty years. but, with the incipient
defence treaty "Look at it!", Blair had set the ball
rolling. After they had experienced enlargement the
next step could commence. But put everything on hold.
Wait a year, for the experiences of enlargement to
happen. Above all - all of Europe moving, and
eventually coalescing, as one. And then he grinned.
And with a flash of bulbs his conference was over. You
basked in the British government's collective
sanguineness.

I waited outside the French room – attended by the
huge posse of clannish French journalists Chirac always
keeps in tow, lit in blue lights like a fashion show,
the French press conference was impossible to get
into – Katerina came out and
started talking volubly.

"He wants a two speed Europe. A closer one and an
outer one."

"Well he is not going to get it. We have got this
Nice treaty. They can’t."

"They want to and they will. They will still have
the Nice treaty but they will go beyond it."

We went to the Czech press room where I talked to
the Czech foreign minister. To my amazement he
confirmed that if a closer core Europe went ahead,
his country would be part of it.

"But what about world war 2, what about the Sudeten
Germans coming into country and chalking signs on
their old houses. ‘We are coming back’ What about
Blair saying nothing will change from Nice. Is
Chirac saying something different,. Is this a
dialogue of the deaf."

He cocked his head, smiled and nodded.

I went out to a free coffee dispenser with Katerina
who was smoking furiously.

"Why are you doing this given your history?"

"We are pro British but we have to go with the flow
because we are a small country. "

She binned her butt in the recycling receptacle for
plastic cups, which did actually look like a tall
ashtray. A caretaker of sorts who had been staring
all day in that general direction probably did his
first thing of the day – everyone in the expat
community says "Belgium is virtually communist" –
and told her not to do it, the thing could go on
fire. She apologised.

I went to the press room, milled around for an hour.
Then I looked for Katerina but she had left. I called her
number and she said she was on her way back to Prague, on
the president's plane.
I left the emptying building in the
drizzle and walked to Matonge, the African area,
where, amid shops selling yams and call shops
advertising rates to Rwanda for only 50 cents, I
dined alone.

Profile: Sandra Kalniete

52,Latvia, former foreign minister, commissioner
without portfolio

"She is, quite simply, a smashing
PR coup," says a Latvian diplomat based in Brussels.
"Everyone in Brussels will be charmed by her. Latvia
has a pearl."
Commissioners are not supposed to be non partisan in
connection with their
countries, but inevitably they come to be so - perhaps
more truly when that country is small and a new member
state, so whose governments are relatively unfamiliar
and fail to lodge themselves in the collective
Brussels memory. One wonders whether Latvia in
Brussels could become embodied in the
person of Kalniete.
Any of the three Baltic countries could have done with
someone like her. Politics in all countries is and has
been unstable. Whatever successes Lithuania and
particularly Estonia have ratcheted up in economically
in the last decade, their governments, like Latvia's,
have tended to be short-lived. The various
economically
clever moves by a succession of youth dominated,
financially literate Estonian cabinets, who have made
Estonia the most open economy in the world, and most
successful of those, has not translated into political
endurance. Estonia has had 11
governments in 11 years, more than Italy, a fact
attributed like in the other Baltic states to
inexperienced politicians and undeveloped party
systems. This chaos for some reason seems to have
reached a peak just now, for some reason, just over
two months short of enlargement. Lithuania's president
Rolandas Paksas is undergoing an impeachment process
over allegations that his aides were engaged in
influence peddling and organised crime.
Latvia itself has just been hit by a government crisis
as the burly, rather authoritarian populist prime
minister Einars resigned after his coalition parties
left him. Estonia has been more stable recently -
although its prime minister Juhan Parts doesn't really
cut much of a charismatic figure on the European
podium. But at any rate, as insurance if nothing else,
having a charismatic figure in Brussels over the
crucial bridging period of enlargement
is an advantage. Even if the commissioner's tenure at
6 months were temporary that would be a long time in
Baltic politics.
Had Lithuania and Estonia had good commissioner
designates it might have compensated for their
political weaknesses. But finance minister Dalia
Grybauskaite of Lithuania, though able, and very
clever, and looking to shadow Pedro Solbes or Michaele
Schreyer in the finance or budgetary departments,
could disappear into Brussels, and fail to be a symbol
for Lithuania. Siim Kallas of Estonia is highly
controversial. He is one of the most qualified of all
the 10 commissioner designates, having been finance
and prime minister, and governor of the central bank.
But it is not so much his past as a communist - while
working in Estonian journalism in the 70s and 80s -
that is problem despite the fact that it excites the
newspapers and makes the European People's Party pass
theatrical but phony resolutions about banning
communists from office. Rather it is a certain odour
that attaches to Kallas, made concrete by allegations
of him having squirrelled away 10 million dollars
illegally when central bank governor in 1992. The
details are a little vague, but:
"Ten million dollars went missing from the central
bank," says one Estonian commentator. "No one knows
what happened to it." The Estonians actually talk
openly about this: as the strongest political figure
in Estonia, he is, in the words of one Estonian
commentator in Brussels: "The man everyone knows made
ten million dollars vanish and who is the man who
always gets his way. Like getting this job of
commissioner."
Kallas was cleared in Estonian court back in 1993. But
the way intelligent Estonians talk about him reflects
an unease about their own post independence politics -
an unease shared to a growing extent about east
Europe's nascent democratic politics as whole by
those in the know in the commission. An unease of
which Kallas, even a cleared of crime, is a symbol:
the unstable post 1992 politics. The bickering, the
one-man parties, the public's suspicion of shady
financial deals. Despite the reformers' success at
bringing Estonia and Lithuania to relative prosperity
and EU membership, one Latvian official said that
there was a lot of bitterness about how the drastic
free market reformers - however much their reforms
were eventually to benefit the young - destroyed
people's rouble savings overnight when converted to
the new currencies at a disadvantageous rate. This
harmed pensioners, and the move came to stand as a
symbol for all the costs that had to be paid with
reform, and the fact that there were a lot of losers
too. There is a feeling that a lot of these
technocrats benefited from exchange rate deals.
Rumours had it that some political figures shipped all
the roubles they had accumulated back to Russia and
spent them there, on cheap raw materials which they
then exported at hard currency prices - just like
Russia's notorious oligarchs, albeit on a smaller
scale.
While this has never been proved, and while arguably a
stronger figure than his Lithuanian counterpart, as
Estonia's most talented politician, Kallas could
certainly compensate for the anonymity of the always
youthful cabinet back home as representing Estonia in
Brussels. But it might not be a representation
Estonians are proud of, or even feel reflect their
image, projected with assiduousness, of Eastern
Europe's golden boys. There is too much about Kallas
that intimates either the compromises that had to be
made in the name of post independence development, or
an aura of sleaze of a country with neophyte political
traditions and a small talent pool of politicians.
Whatever good he did for Estonia, he is seen as a man
of the past. "We would like to shake his hand and see
him go. He has done his work, made our mistakes for
us, helped us, harmed us" said one Estonian
journalist.

But Kalniete is different. It is not so much
the fact that she is a woman that sets her apart -
Latvia incidentally, has the world's best statistics
on women employed in the labour force, women employed
as professionals, and where gender income differences
are lowest. (It is also the country with the highest
ratio of women to men!.) Rather, for one, she is
untouched by domestic politics, having spent the
crucially incriminating years of the 1990s abroad:
first as the ambassador to the United Nations in
Geneva, then as ambassador to France - she is
francophile and francophone - before becoming foreign
minister in 2002. "She is untainted," said one
official. "She is above politics." She is also
separate, as an artist, from technocratic tradition:
chairwoman of the Latvian artist's union
and the author of several books an award-winning book
published in French about her parents' deportation to
Siberia and their return to Latvia, a experience
shared by tens of thousands of countrymen who were
victims of Stalins's attempts to wipe out the Latvian
nation by removing all Latvians of ability,
repopulating the country with Russians, and
extirpating all traces of Latvian culture.
The moral of her book echoes the theme of anti
totalitarianism of many of her speeches, which gives,
some say, her almost an authority of a female Havel.
"I never underestimate the evil of totalitarianism,
because in closed systems you never know what is going
on inside the country. It is much worse than you
think," she said in an interview on why she supported
the war in Iraq. "I had to really work hard to extract
the stories from my parents."
The book's last lines are: "The old lady wakes up
often and "she contemplates at length the emptiness of
the night, the time to calm herself and to understand
that she is at home. Latvia."
The French awarded her the Legion of Honour. Those who
know her says the 51 year old divorced brunette is
sensitive but made of tensile steel, with a dry sense
of humour. When the Eurovision song contest came to
Latvia last year she said dryly - not willing to show
people whether she was tongue in cheek: "I prefer the
EU".
She could be good for Europe and, compared her fellow
baltic commissioners, a good
representative for the Baltics, the least likely
figure to be just an "intern with Mercedes", as unkind
wags have called this interim team of commissioners
without portfolio. Above all, she could be a god
figure for Latvia, the languishing orphan of the
Baltics, bringing the country finally back into view.
Writing a comment on her Siberian book she notes:
"This sad exploration of the past restores life to
this little country “erased from the map and minds”.
The path that led it into nothingness belongs to our
memory from now on." ¨Latvia will soon be be emerging
finally out of its nothingness, not least with her
help, to a higher profile, as if restoring life to a
country is a task she has extended from the writer's
role to that of a
politician.