En Berlín ya hablan de la "República Europea" y la desaparición de las naciones-estado:

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EU: "Der Nationalstaat wird verschwinden" |*ZEIT ONLINE

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"The nation state will disappear"
Brexit, refugee crisis, terrorist attacks - for the first time the citizens of Europe are discussing transnationally. An intermediate step before the founding of a European republic?

Europe, the battered continent and its political institutions are the life projects of Ulrike Guérot. With nothing, the 52-year-old has spent more time in recent years. Three years ago, therefore, quit her job and founded the European Democracy Lab in Berlin. The Lab is a think tank for the development of European democracy. Ulrike Guérot has invested a lot in order for this think tank to emerge. She has quasi sacrificed her life insurance to save the future of the EU.

"Why Europe needs to become a republic! A political utopia, " is the title of the current book by the political scientist. To explain it, she travels almost every week across Europe. Shortly before the interview in Berlin she was in London, Vienna, Rome, Florence. Her suitcase is still on the wooden floor of her apartment, unclear whether half unpacked or half wrapped.

ZEIT ONLINE: Ms. Guérot, why is there a blue EU passport on your closet in the hallway?

Ulrike Guérot: It was given to me by the European Committee of the Regions of Europe in Brussels. Nice advertising. If you open it, you will see different maps of the EU with socio-economic data. You can see the outline of Europe, but no longer the national borders. Intuitively, one sees that the EU is not about nation states. I agree that nationalism no longer works in the EU.


ZEIT ONLINE: Should every EU citizen have such an EU passport?

Guérot: Yes. My impression is that most citizens feel European and do not want to give up anything that Europe offers them. First and foremost the freedom of travel. But also Erasmus exchange programs for students in the EU. And the euro is pretty handy too.

ZEIT ONLINE: You still want to abolish the EU in its present form and rebuild.

Guérot: I want to make Europe better. That means: one market, one currency, one democracy. The euro is all well and good, but no currency can function without a democracy.

ZEIT ONLINE: The European Parliament is directly elected. The people who make decisions in the European Council for the EU are also elected in their home countries. The EU is already very democratic.

Guérot: I do not dispute that we already have many democratic elements. But the principle of a person's voice does not apply in Europe. We have no suffrage equality. We have an EU Parliament, which partly has the right of initiative for new laws, but in some cases not. The current European Parliament is not the representative of the sovereign of the EU.

ZEIT ONLINE: Parliament can block new laws.

Guérot: But it can not bring any laws on the way. The European Council is there together with the Commission. If Parliament wants to outvote the Council, a two-thirds majority has to come together. This systemically prevents politicization. That's why many citizens do not consider the EU democratic. Democracy also means that you can change something.

ZEIT ONLINE: All EU citizens can vote against their MEPs at the next European elections. And in their respective countries, citizens can also decide their government. The Italians did that last year.

Guérot: I'm not saying that there is no legitimacy at all. I say only: we as citizens are not the sovereign of the political system. That's why Nigel Farage kept saying during the Brexit election campaign that the citizen has no control. That's why Britain should leave the EU. He is right in principle. As a British citizen, he can not deselect all the people who rule in Brussels. The sentence: "You can always vote, but you have no choice," is in a sense true in Europe.

ZEIT ONLINE: They are the populists on the glue.

Guérot: One step back. They say EU citizens vote directly for the EU Parliament. And the national governments too. Right. But my argument is that this multilevel system does not work. Since the Maastricht Treaty that only the State Union has become a reality, the EU's lie is not the citizens' union. In other words, most decisions are taken in the European Council, that is, by the representatives of national governments. The EU Parliament can hardly overrule that.

ZEIT ONLINE: Who does not like Merkel, can choose AfD. That is also an alternative for Europe.

Guérot: But only the Germans can vote for Merkel. The Portuguese and Greeks do not. And vice versa, if the Dutch alone can bring down the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, that is not democratic. In other words, in a democratic EU there can not be a divided party. One loop further: If Brexit has implications for the whole continent, why should only the British decide on it, and not all of us together? If something concerns all the citizens of the Union then everyone must vote for it!

Ulrike Guérot has now talked warmly. She is sitting on a upholstered stool, next to her a tall bookshelf that can only be reached by a ladder. She puts her hands on her knees and wants to continue talking as a caller briefly interrupts the conversation. "No time," she says into the phone. A short break, the gaze wanders into her apartment. On a wall mirror she has written a quote from Mahatma Gandhi with lipstick: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win." The slogan looks like a life motto of the European activist.

ZEIT ONLINE: How should Europe look in the future?

Guérot: No more national referendums when it comes to European decisions. Then the European citizens should all decide together. That would be democracy. Then there would be no national we anymore.

ZEIT ONLINE: Now many French people but we feel, simply because they live together in France. And Germans are similar.

Guérot: First of all, the question is: is that true? I doubt that it comes straight to a renationalization, as many claim. I was in London three days ago. There are two camps there: either young or old, London or rural population, for or against. But who are the British now? The Europeans who were for Brexit or the others? Where is the unity of the British nation?


ZEIT ONLINE: So we are no longer influenced by the nation state?

Guérot: At least I deny that it will be the case in the future. The we-feeling that you generate by putting the national identity above the political one should be debatable. It is populism that splits countries. He has already split Austria. He will split France tomorrow and the Netherlands and maybe even Germany. But AfD and Pegida are not the German nation. By what right do these groups claim to be the German people?

ZEIT ONLINE: How can Europe react to that?

Guérot: The one answer to populism does not exist yet. But it is an essential feature of the populists to be against an open Europe. With this they want to split the whole of Europe. So maybe right now, for the first time in history, we would be in a process of putting a political we-group over the national grouping. The example: As a German, I have more in common with the pro-European Poles who take to the streets against the current government when I have in common with the AfD and Pegida people from Germany. If so, it's not about renationalisation anymore. Then we are in a historic moment where we are discussing transnationally for the first time how Europe should be shaped.

ZEIT ONLINE: Others feel that the days of the EU are numbered.

Guérot: Renationalization, of which so much is talked about and so much is written about, really only happens on the surface. Among them, the nations have long been split. There is a transnational debate that can be fundamentally divided into two camps: there are those who stand for a European isolation. Even the identities have recently met for a congress in Linz, the title was: the defense of Europe. The other camp is those that defend the legacy of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.

ZEIT ONLINE: When will the nation state disappear?

Guérot: The nation state will disappear. Already he is partially gone. There is a big urban movement, people say: I'm from Barcelona or London, not from Spain or Britain. The central question is: Is the national the most important identity feature? Or are there other features that can go beyond the national?

ZEIT ONLINE: And what do you say to people who are happy about being German, if the German wins against the Italian national team?

Guérot: I am in favor of a normative unity at European level and cultural diversity at national level. In between there's the national narrative. Of course, this has to do with football. I am completely relaxed. The Belgian nation is nowhere to be found - and yet there's a Belgian national team. It comes together irregularly, but the players play in different European clubs.

ZEIT ONLINE: Are you proud of your European passport?

Guérot: It's about constitutional patriotism. I am proud to be European because we share a common set of values: human rights, legal principles, good governance. A few weeks ago, Björn Höcke of the AfD sat with Günther Jauch on the German flag and Justice Minister Heiko Maas moved from him disgusted. I would have said: Wait a minute, let me also put on the flag, that is not the German, but that of the Federal Republic. And that is the only reason for freedom of expression here and we can argue in this broadcast.

ZEIT ONLINE: Can you explain your utopia of Europe to a Polish car mechanic?

Guérot: Yes: We as citizens are the sovereign, not the nation states. We are getting a representative European Parliament with full right of initiative, which will result in a government that can be voted out. There is a European Senate in which all European regions - 50 to 60 - send two senators.

ZEIT ONLINE: According to your vision, what skills should the local levels, which Europe take over?

Guérot: defense policy at European level, taxes on several: a regional trade tax and a federal income tax, for example, to finance a European unemployment insurance. We can not create political unity on the continent if we constantly believe that we are making national us a competitive advantage.

With a German pension and German taxes, they can neither rationalize a currency nor the market, let alone a democracy. But that's about it. That's why I want us to be the same as European citizens in elections, taxes, social rights. But I am not for the European central state. There is also not the European identity. Rather, I say with Robert Menasse: home is region, nation is fiction.
ZEIT ONLINE: Okay, when will the United States come from Europe?

Guérot: The European Republic will come in a few decades. I consider May 9, 2045 realistic. I do not want to do away with anything, do not break anything. It's just about making the last third of European integration, otherwise we'll lose the first two. If they build a house and do not roof it, it'll rain, then it'll be moldy eventually.

ZEIT ONLINE: And if you are wrong?

Guérot: If the European Republic does not come, then something else will happen, but the good old nation states will have their day. Wherever we go, we do not go back but to something else. The good old Federal Republic with the beautiful old D-Mark will not exist anymore.