Old Europe, New Europe and the Ghost Constituency

Another crack in the Old Europe emerged from WWII: Germans are back in the driving seat and national pride comes back together with old ghosts.

On one side Angela Merkel has become de facto the Treasury Minister of Greece saving the country from bankruptcy. On the other side, two high rank officials had to stand down because of their considerations on the past national glories. The Deutsche Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarazzin made peculiar considerations on Jewish genes while Christian Democrat (CDU) member of parliament Erika Steinbach was keen on sharing with Poland the responsibility for the outbreak of war in ’39.

These facts are not alarming because Nazism is remerging or Germany is building a IV Reich but the signals  suggest that something is changing in the Europe. The glue of the European Union is loosing strength after 60 years. The blame over Germany for the WWII is not an valid excuse to rein the country in and squeeze its wealth anymore. Guilt and Peace are out-dated.

In the next few years Berlin might become the capital of Europe instead of Brussels, Paris or London. Are you ready for this New Europe?

I loved playing with the expression – Old Europe New Europe – coined by Bush’s US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to provoke Schroeder and Chirac. It’s such a naughty saying to annoy old school Europeans.

Actually I don’t think there is any ‘New Europe’ in the geographic sense – neither Germany nor the new Member States. But there is a new generation of Europeans. People like me who don’t have a clue what life was during the WWII , didn’t go through the Cold War, don’t have any emotional reaction to Communism or any other ism.

We are just globalized in all senses. Nationality doesn’t mean much – I was born in one country and have lived in several different ones since University. The first one is not a choice like family, name and sex… including its size!

No affiliation to political parties. No issues with religious choice, sexual orientation, alcohol, drugs, and rock and roll. You choose what you like. You read a book today and another one tomorrow.

We’ve had a very good education, speak languages, are well travelled, open, hard workers, ambitious, privileged… we want all the comforts we are used to, but a meaningful life: a good wage and nice house are not enough. The bourgeois life is boring. You can devise your family as you wish. As you know I’m working on it.

We like individuals not institutions. We are individualists and uncomfortable with collective identities. We are smarter and quicker, but don’t have the same stability: we don’t know where we come from and go to. We are international adventurers like Drake and Captain Harlock.

Democracy and welfare benfits are taken for granted. Social conflict is just an academic definition for public transport strikes. We are devoted to sustainability and international development. We donate for every humanitarian crisis, like demonstrations, especially on the internet, but don’t share a word with our neighbours and rarely vote – we are travelling while our fellow citizens go to vote.

We are the future but nobody represents our interests and ideals. We don’t belong to a place and the democratic system has been designed based on citizenship and local representation. We are the ghost constituency, the New Europe without voice.

This New Europe should scare you.