The Calibanisation of the South in the German public ‘Euro crisis’ discourse

This article highlights the renaissance of the essentialist topos of the ‘lazy and irrational’ ‘Südländer’ (Southerner, Southern countries, South) in the German political and media discourses during the ‘Euro crisis’. It argues that it served to legitimate the political and economic measures taken in Southern European countries that pushed them into still more peripheral positions within the European Union (EU) and deepened the cleavage between North and South. Culture, or better culturalism and racism as its political ideological version, thus were used as a trap, as an intellectual battleground for justifying extremely complex economic and political decisions in a simplistic fashion throughout a crucial period of European history. The article furthermore demonstrates how a postcolonial reading may productively decode the processes of Othering taking place within Europe itself, especially between the so-called core and peripheral countries.     

Interventions on Europe's political futures

Europe is facing challenging times. The so-called ‘migration crisis’ has seen the hardening and militarisation of Europe’s borders. Nationalist politicians are framing European states as being under siege from Islamist terrorists and economic migrants, which has led to a rise in xenophobia and casual racism on the streets of European cities. Meanwhile the Euro-zone has seen a series of employment crises and economic bailouts. Alongside such political and economic turmoil, the European Union is facing unprecedented pressures, not least from the ‘Brexit’ result of the UK's referendum on EU membership in June 2016. In reflecting on these manifold challenges to the idea and space of Europe these interventions focus on three themes that have long animated political geography scholarship: borders, power and crises. Cross-cutting the interventions are two calls to action: to rethink our analytical approaches to Europe, and to reframe our role as critical scholars.     

Europe as a nation? Intellectuals and debate on Europe in the inter-war period

In 1933, a number of European intellectuals among whom Paul Valéry, Johan Huizinga, Julien Benda, Hermann von Keyserling, met in Madrid and in Paris to discuss the identity and history of Europe under the initiative of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. During the symposia, the participants try to define a common European narrative beyond national differences, and some of them evoke the idea of a European ‘homeland’ or ‘nation’, as already advocated in those years by Gaston Riou (Europe ma patrie, 1928) and Julien Benda (Discours à la nation européenne, 1933). Salvador de Madariaga for example calls for a ‘European nationalism’; Georges Duhamel presents ‘Mother Europe’ as an opposing force to growing patriotism; Julio Dantas hopes for a ‘européenité’ as opposed to the individual ‘national’ feelings. What is the reason for insisting so repeatedly on those concepts, when trying to overcome the dangers of nationalism? This paper analyses the different formulations adopted by the participants in the symposiums to describe their idea of a European ‘nation/homeland’, and tries to identify the specific aspects and historical implications of these concepts.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Economic Growth after the Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

In a paper on the effects of the global financial crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a European Union economist reacts to a companion paper (Åslund, 2001) published in the same issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics on the influence of exchange rate policies on the region's recovery. The author argues that post-crisis corrections in current account deficits in CEE countries do not in themselves signal a return to steady economic growth. Disagreeing with Åslund over the role of loose monetary policy in fostering the region's economic problems, he outlines a number of competitiveness problems that remain to be addressed in the 10 new EU member states of CEE, along with improvements in framework conditions supporting future macroeconomic growth.     

Conceptualising European Privatisation Processes After the Great Recession

A wave of privatisation is unfolding in Europe in the wake of the financial crisis, but it has yet to receive serious scholarly attention. This paper examines the case of Ireland, where an austerity strategy and European Union International Monetary Fund bailout conditionality have given impetus to the transfer of public assets to the private sector. Theoretically, the paper explains the roots of the phenomenon with reference to a reformulated concept of “accumulation by dispossession” whose usefulness lies in emphasising the politico‐economic drivers of privatisation, which have been neglected in the mainstream literature. A typology is presented that argues that accumulation by dispossession manifests itself, in practice, through four main processes: (1) private repossession of assets nationalised during the financial crisis; (2) restructuring of state‐owned enterprises; (3) commodification of assets and services hitherto located outside the market; and (4) privatised stimulus through public–private partnerships. The paper's framework should be useful to conceptualise ongoing privatisation processes in other European countries.     

The Failed European Union: Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression of 1929–321

French scholars have led a revival of interest in inter-war efforts at European integration and the prominent role played by the French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand. Franco-German rapprochement was integral to this effort, but with the death in October 1929 of his like-minded German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, it is generally held that Berlin adopted a more confrontational foreign policy even before Hitler took power. However, this article demonstrates that in spite of a series of upsets, an intense and sustained effort continued during the years of the Great Depression (1929–32) to forge Franco-German détente. This culminated in September 1931 in a Franco-German treaty that established the mechanisms for far-reaching integration of the two countries’ economies, with a customs union and European union as the ultimate goals. It then examines in detail how and why this remarkable effort collapsed during 1932, paying particular attention to an unforeseen crisis in trading relations and the impact of a media scandal surrounding the publication of Stresemann's memoirs. Despite this failure, efforts to integrate Europe around a Franco-German axis between 1929 and 1932 can nonetheless be understood as part of a deeper process that survived Hitler and saw the emergence of the current European Union.     

Restructuring Intra-urban Space during China's Transition. Jian Feng

An American geographer whose research focuses on Europe reports on changes in geographical patterns and trends in merchandise export trade after the dismantling of political- economic divisions prevailing during the Cold War and their replacement by European political and economic integration as well as globalization. Analysis and comparison of international trade data for the years 1960 and 2010 reveal a dramatic expansion in the role of Germany and China in European merchandise trade, accompanied by a decline in the importance of the United States and United Kingdom. The author also demonstrates how some countries such as the Netherlands have expanded their exports to a broader range of European countries, whereas others appear to be consolidating their roles as leaders of regional trade blocs (e.g., Italy in Southeastern Europe).     

Economic Regionalism and Social Stabilisation: the International Labour Organization and Western Europe in the Early Post-War Years

The International Labour Organization (ILO) played a concrete role in shaping the mechanisms of international economic co-operation created in Western Europe in the early post-war years. Its tripartite composition and orientation towards social dialogue were perfectly in tune with the productivist principles sponsored by the United States after the Second World War, which largely permeated European economic integration. Thanks to its solid know-how in the field, the ILO made a key contribution in promoting labour mobility, by helping the organisation and co-ordination of national employment services and vocational training systems and, most of all, by assisting institutions such as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) and the European Communities in implementing freedom of circulation between their member countries. At the same time, in the mid-1950s it offered theoretical support to the economic liberalism on which the European common market was being modelled, arguing against claims for social harmonisation as a precondition to economic integration, and thus contributing to giving European co-operation the shape which still characterises it today.     

Where Will Europe End? Ukraine and the Limits of European Integration

In an exploratory essay, two geographers assess long-term prospects for Ukraine's integration into European economic and political structures, most notably the European Union. The analysis is based on an examination of such commonly cited yardsticks as economic reform, political liberalization, and efforts to combat corruption (“internal obstacles”) as well as geographic factors such as relative location, production structure, and commercial relations (“external obstacles”). Efforts to upgrade and, to some degree, reorient transportation linkages to facilitate connection with Europe are investigated as well. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F40, 010, 018. 3 figures, 3 tables, 42 references.     

Exchange Rate Policy and the Central and East European Financial Crisis

A prominent specialist on economic developments in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries examines the ways in which the global financial crisis of 2008-2010 has impacted the economies of the 10 new eastern member states of the European Union (CEE-10). The author assesses the multiple preconditions of the crisis (e.g., excessive current account deficits, large foreign debt, inadequate currency reserves, immense credit expansion, rising inflation and real estate prices) as well as the rapid financial adjustments that had to be undertaken to overcome it (e.g., current account rebalancing, reducing budget deficits, pension and fiscal reform). He devotes considerable attention to the key issue of how the differences in exchange rate policies in these countries affected their abilities to respond to the crisis and outlines measures that should be implemented to enhance the crisis management capability of non-eurozone states relying on currency boards or floating exchange rates.     

A nineteenth-century Mediterranean union: Michel Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée

This article examines one of the nineteenth-century’s most revolutionary schemes for establishing a union of Mediterranean states. In 1832, Michel Chevalier set out a startling scheme that would bring to an end armed conflict in Europe through a confederation of European states and a subsequent alliance between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. His plan envisaged a vast infrastructure network of railways, canals, roads and shipping lanes that would link the major ports of the Mediterranean with Europe’s capital cities and those of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The infrastructure network at the heart of Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée was conceived by him as the basis for a system of economic integration that would foster political harmony throughout Europe – anticipating by over one hundred years Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman’s plans for a European Union – but also between Europe and the Ottoman world. Harboured within Chevalier’s infrastructure scheme for the Mediterranean was one of the earliest and most complex nineteenth-century theories of networks ever devised. This article examines the centrality of the Mediterranean to Chevalier’s theory of networks, and explores the multiple dimensions of this complex theory, including the intimate connection he identified between networks as expressions of human creativity and the kind of unalienated human relations that would result in the end of conflict both between and within nations.     

The May 2004 Enlargement of the European Union: View from Two Years Out

A prominent American geographer and observer of political currents shaping modern Europe provides an introduction and background for three following papers on the nature and impacts of European Union's 2004 enlargement in different macroregions along the EU's eastern frontier. He outlines three major dimensions (economic, social-political, and institutional) that may be used to evaluate claims supporting and opposing enlargement, surveying the evidence to date for each. Concluding sections highlight the importance of scale in assessing the impacts of enlargement, the persistence of state nationalism as a curb to EU "deepening," and changes in the nature of the EU itself over time. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F02, F20, F40, O19. 2 figures, 20 references.     

Multiple connections in European co-operation: international organizations,policy ideas,practices and transfers 1967–92

Abstract

International organizations are ubiquitous in contemporary Europe and the wider world. This special issue takes a historical approach to exploring their relations with each other in Western Europe between 1967 and 1992. The authors seek to ‘provincialize’ and ‘de-centre’ the European Union’s role, exploring the interactions of its predecessors with other organizations like NATO, the OECD and the Council of Europe. This article develops the new historical-research agenda of co-operation and competition among IOs and their role in European co-operation. The first section discusses the limited existing work on such questions among historians and in adjacent disciplines. The second section introduces the five articles and their main arguments. The third section goes on to elaborate common findings, especially regarding what the authors call the vectors for the development of policy ideas and practices and their transfer across different institutional platforms.     

The euro crisis and European citizenship: The euro 2001–2012 – celebration or commemoration? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The Eurozone crisis has highlighted the problems of European economic integration, but what effects is it having on social cohesion in the European Union? Using symbolic, historical and anthropological perspectives this article examines the relationship between the single currency and European citizenship. I argue that the roots of the crisis lie in the euro's origins. Economic and monetary union (EMU) was an assemblage of two very different rationales: one economic and based on neoliberal assumptions, the other political and geared towards forging social cohesion among Europeans. Binding Europe through a common currency was always a risky endeavour, placing heavy expectations on the identity‐effects of money. EU leaders also seemed curiously oblivious to the possible negative effects that weaknesses in the euro might have for European solidarity. Drawing on theories of money and its role as a technology of citizenship and symbolic boundary marker, I argue that the euro continues to symbolize European integration, only now it has come to symbolize the cleavages and tensions that divide Europe. Paradoxically, one effect of the Eurozone crisis is not fragmentation but an acceleration of the deepening of European economic governance. However, the centralization this entails imposes heavy costs on the EU's peripheral members and raises concerns about the future of democracy in Europe.     

Western leveraged pedagogy of Central and Eastern Europe: discourses of homophobia,tolerance, and nationhood

This article focuses on the relations between the two geo-temporal categories – Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and West/Europe – in discussions about sexual politics, homophobia, tolerance, and nationhood. It contributes to the existing literature about homonationalism and sexual nationalisms by introducing CEE to the debate's geographical loci, so far mostly invested in West/Europe and its relations to Islam. It argues that it is important to consider CEE in sexual nationalism debates because of its framing as the European (homophobic) Other in the emerging discourses of ‘homoinclusive Europe’. This article introduces the concept of leveragedpedagogy, which captures the specificity of the West/Europe – CEE discourses of sexual liberation, advancement, and backwardness. Leveraged pedagogy is a hegemonic didactical relation where the CEE figures as an object of the West/European ‘pedagogy’, and is framed as permanently ‘post-communist’, ‘in transition’ (i.e. not liberal, not yet, not enough), and homophobic. Such ‘taking care of’ CEE, it is argued, is a form of cultural hegemony of the Western EUropean liberal model of rights as the universal.     

Town Twinning in Greece: Reconstructing Local Histories Through Translocal Sensory‐Affective Performances

Twinning arrangements between members and non‐members of the European Union are one of the many Euro‐symbolic measures taken with the aim of making indigenous populations “feel like citizens of Europe at the local level”. This article addresses the ways in which trans‐local projects of indoctrination, such as twinning, force indigenous peoples to reposition themselves toward what is culturally defined as local history. Its focus is on the exchange of small‐scale civilities through which partners engage themselves in sensory and affective performances of their history, and are gradually led to the reorganization of their domestic sensorium or public memory.     

Changing industrial production systems and regional development in the New Europe

The continuing expansion and deepening integration of the European Union is redefining the map of threats and opportunities for both companies and regions in Europe. In this paper I analyze the changing geography of the production system in three industries – automobiles, clothing and steel – as a product of the strategies and tactics of companies, states (at EU, national and regional levels) and trades unions, as they seek to shape geographies of production to favour their interests within this changing European political–economic space. It is argued that the end product of this process will be the creation of new and sharper forms of regional uneven development and qualitative differentiation between regions, as well as a renewed widening rather than further narrowing of regional differences in economic performance and well–being.     

Australia’s relations with the European Community in a historical perspective: an elusive partnership

ABSTRACT

In 2015, Australia and the European Union successfully negotiated a Framework Agreement. This agreement is an essential step in establishing a stronger Australia–European Union partnership and achieving closer bilateral cooperation. For years, negotiating such an agreement had proved impossible. In the 1970s, successive Australian governments showed interest in enhanced collaboration with the European Community, but the political climate for closer relations was far from encouraging. This article explains why this was the case. In doing so, it also explores how the Whitlam and Fraser governments envisaged, framed and developed Australia’s ties with the European Community in the 1970s, and asks whether a more positive approach on their part could have led to a stronger relationship. Based on recently declassified government files, this article shows that although both Whitlam and Fraser fully grasped the importance of the European Community as an emerging international actor and were willing to deepen Australia’s ties with it, significant constraints existed against enhanced bilateral cooperation. With the Common Agricultural Policy still a considerable challenge to Australian economic interests and with the European Community focused mainly on the management of its internal market, broader political considerations were inevitably relegated to the margins of Australia–European Community consultations.     

Identity and European integration: diversity as a source of integration1

ABSTRACT. This article explores the concept of European Union identity and its significance for European integration by drawing upon insights from theories of nationalism and national identity. European Union identity is viewed as an ongoing process which is banal, contingent and contextual. The central hypothesis is that: European integration facilitates the flourishing of diverse national identities rather than convergence around a single homogeneous European Union identity. The role of the EU as facilitator for diverse understandings of collective identities encourages the enhabitation of the EU at an everyday level and the reinforcement of a sense of banal Europeanism which is a crucial aspect of the European integration process. Facilitating diversity may thus provide a vital source of dynamism for the integration process.     

Towards new (graphic) narratives of Europe

The cultural policy of the European Union (EU) has become more important than before as economic crisis threatens to undermine the EU’s nascent political identity. This paper offers graphic narrative (or comics) as a medium particularly suited to the task. This suitability results from several features: (1) the text/image hybridity of comics, which eases translation into multiple languages; (2) the topological aspect of graphic narrative, in which panels compose a spatial network of relations of various intensities that is isomorphic with the theorization of European space offered by a key EU think tank; and (3) the potential for comics of the ‘everyday’ to narrate a plural, non-didactic identity with which both Europeans and others can identify. It is hoped that a policy such as this could have a more positive influence on the more territorial, exclusive notions of the EU.