Ethno-nationalisms in Europe
I - The roots of ethno-nationalisms............................................................................................................................................ 3
1/ The fabrication of ethnic identities: the cultural register............................................................................................... 3
2/ The contradictory economic variable............................................................................................................................... 5
3/ The political root of ethno-nationalism ; the state tension........................................................................................... 7
II - The Ethno-nationalist dynamics in Europe......................................................................................................................... 9
1/ The transnational strategy................................................................................................................................................. 9
2/ The confrontation strategy.............................................................................................................................................. 12
Over the last 40 years, the Western states have known no major conflict on their land. For the most part, they are powerful and sovereign and democratic. Their borders, drawn by previous centuries of wars, are now indisputable and their economies are so prosperous that they make this part of the continent a most enviable place for immigration. However, Europe is troubled from time to time by remnants of violence that serve for a handful of states as a noisy reminder of the relative fragility of their territorial situation. Spain, Great Britain and France are thus confronted to ethno-nationalist movements that violently contest the claim of authority over the whole territory and its unification. But violent ethno-nationalism, if the most blatant, might not be the most efficient The European integration, the preponderant place of “Euro-regions”, the take-off of globalized economy come to shake the authority of nation-states, offering ethnic nationalism new possibilities for the future. Catalonian, Lombard or Scottish nationalisms obviously integrated this evolution into their perspective. To this extent, ethno-nationalism might not be the vestige of the past, figuring the road back to a “golden age”, nor is it a third world activism: it is part and parcel of modernity and expresses both its economic and political vivacity.
Ethno-nationalism is about all the communities that consider themselves as “little nations” without states, communities wishing for some international recognition or a greater autonomy from the states they belong to. So, I will not deal with regions the identity of which is not based on ethnic claims but rather on economic grounds, as it is the case with many German länders. Such is the case also with many Euro-regions bereft of any identity claim since they gather together a few decentralized communities on the sole basis of trade (for instance the cooperation agreement between the German Bade-Wurtenberg and the French Rhône-Alpes County in 1986). Far from it, the Basque or the Lombard country, Ulster, Corsica, Flanders, are regions which claim cultural as well as linguistic, political and economic specificity. This claim for peculiarity very often entails difficult relationships with the center and accusing the “Oppressing State” is a constant rhetoric among nationalists. The “imperialist” state is charged with a supposed indifference towards its peripheries, and is accused of exploiting the resources of these regions, or, on the contrary, of imposing too heavy a taxation.
It is always the awareness of this “violence” that a group is subjected to, which makes this group enter the nationalist age. Such an awareness is obviously worked out by “meaning translators” — intellectuals or professional politicians. By revealing the state oppression, paralleled to the group particularity, they favor a process of “conscientization”. Rewriting a so-called national past, drafting the myth of the origins, modernizing the regional language and using it as a tool for communication, insisting on local difference, sometimes with a racialist undertone, is part of the construction — some would say the “invention”— of national identities.
So are born ethno-nationalisms[1]. They still have to survive politically as well as in the ballot boxes. Maintaining a communautarian dynamics often takes a dual strategy. The first consists in having the village recognized to the face of Earth. This will to globalize the local is mainly the strategy of “modern” nationalist movements such as the great nationalist Christian-Democrat Catalan party or the SNP in Scotland.. Developing specific diplomacy, encouraging free trade, or establishing direct links with Brussels are some of the characteristics of the international dynamics of European ethno-nationalisms.
Another strategy is confrontation with the center. It might be violent as it happened with the Basque country or in Corsica or even in Northern Ireland. In this case, often, violence is[2] the companion of a more peaceful internationalization process, developed by ruling political parties as it is the case in the Basque Country where the PNV proposes a different approach from the ETA’s by establishing links with Brussels or developing inside the “Atlantic bow” a strong economic cooperation with two French regions (Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées). Confrontation is more than often a judiciary one, also, should the constitutional frame of the state allow it. It is the case in Belgium, and even more in Spain where the theme of the “living constitution” helps finding procedural tools to pass on new competencies to the regions (thanks to the possibility to bring cases before the supreme court).
I will deal, first, with the building of the roots[3] in ethno-nationalists movements, and then with the dual dynamics of these nationalisms in Europe, obviously international, when it comes to their relations with the European Community or with economic liberalism, but manifestly based on a confrontation with the central state.[4]
I - The roots of ethno-nationalisms
I will here follow some theories of nationalism like those of Walker Connor, Russel Hardin or the most prominent work of Anthony Smith, calling attention on the fabrication of ethno-national identities and its conditions. I will not consider, as it stands, ethnic nationalisms as natural realities, the essence of which they would formally express, and will rather insist on a more constructivist approach for which identity is primarily the result of an undertaking that aims to formalize and rewrite a tradition. While they accept the existence of distinctive cultural elements among the peoples of Europe, theoreticians analyzing nationalism like Smith or Connor, insist on the role of the intellectuals and “mobilization entrepreneurs” who modernize the ethnic referent in order to inscribe it in an acceptable modernity. The goal might be considered in two distinct ways: proposing the cultural bases of the national state that is to be built, or on the contrary providing an ideology that will contest the national frame from which the goal is to be separated.
These roots of ethno-nationalism, fed by inspired elites in their quest for political mobilization, are multiple. I will screen three main fields in which ethno-nationalist mobilization can prosper: cultural, economic, and political.
1/ The fabrication of ethnic identities: the cultural register
Everybody knows the famous definition of the nation given by French historian Ernest Renan at the end of the 19th century: “the nation is an everyday plebiscite”. France has long retained this motto, taking this nation à la française as an open model opposed to the romantic nation à l’allemande — in the “German” way. It gives way to the myth of a contractual nation, a generous and open one, receiving in its blossom everyone who partake its values of tolerance and liberalism, such as defined by the Declaration of the rights of men and citizens. However, the actual national building in France is closer to other reflections that we also find in Renan: “the nation is a rich legacy of remembrances, it is the accomplishment of a long past of sacrifices […] Or ancestors made us what we are” the French historian states a little after. Nation builders have never stopped translating this idea into facts. The whole process of building an identity has consisted in each nation in deciding what was the national patrimony and to spread its cult. It was far from being easy, since the “ancestors” had left nowhere a testimony indicating how to proceed. In the early 19th century in Europe, each country started to make an inventory of its past, making a show of it, a myth of it, in order to underscore the peculiarity of its own history, its culture, compared to the neighbors’ experience. There has been no conductor unifying all these experiences, but rather a vivid competition between nations, each one peeping at the findings of the other in order to revive a past always considered as a glorious one, unique, superior to any other. Museums, universal exhibitions, the biography of great historical characters, became fashionable and invaded the whole Europe in a sort of great symbolic trade of the past. The states were not the only ones to initiate the quest for authenticity. In front of them, and sometimes still more vigorously, regions characterized by a strong identity made an attempt to propose on the same pattern their own history, their own heroes, their own memories, often in direct confrontation with the national [model of] history. The result was a sort of “do it yourself” kit, which helped declining the “national or regional soul” based on a multiplicity of tools. Among these, the cultural elements were obviously predominant. The main tools serving to represent a nation worthy of the name — be it a little or a big one — are widely known: a history indicating the continuity with the great ancestors, a series of heroes illustrative of national virtues, a language, cultural monuments, commemorations, symbolic places, official ceremonies (with flags and anthems). All this gave way to a real “identity checklist”, which took its part in the invention, the construction of nations. It was not difficult for nation-states with an efficient educational system to share this fiction of a nation with the great majority. It was not the case of stateless little nations, which, like ethno-nationalisms, had to make still more efforts to impose their own cultural patterns of identity.
The first age of ethno-nationalisms in Europe corresponds to this period when nations are fabricated, around the 19th century. It is a period which favors the use of cultural criteria of a racialist kind in order to show one’s own ethnic difference. It is for instance the case of the first Basque nationalism, Sabino Arana, which developed a whole set of beliefs presenting the Basques as a specific people, whose originality would rest on ethnic and religious traits as well as on a democratic history, far before modern history. The Basque people is presented as the people chosen by God “far prior to the birth of the Jewish people”. Arana bases its “discovery” on the originality of the Basque language, the only non Indo-European language on the continent: “ it was a language spoken in the paradise before Adam’s fall, and was saved by Noah and his son Tubal who brought it in the Iberian peninsula.” This myth, a very fashionable one during the 19th century romantic period, also rests on the racial superiority of the Basque people, characterized by a rhesus blood factor different from their French and Spanish neighbors’. This makes the Basque people a people apart, of divine origin, but more importantly, it makes them first in the Iberian peninsula, by far prior to the Spanish, considered as debased invaders (Arana speaks of the Spanish as of a people of wogs who have polluted the Basque countryside with the industrialization and its evils: pollution, alcoholism, working class degeneration…). More modern myths are added to the legend of a divine specificity of the Basques such as the myth of the native value of equality for the Basques. Arana insists on the communautarian traditions of the Basques peasants, favoring what appears as a real “primitive socialism”, respectful of everyone’s tradition and wellbeing. So, Basque nationalism mingles up racialism and democracy; it is thanks to its communautarian traditions but also thanks to its rigorous, straight, and naturally friendly nature, that the Basque people may appear as the first democratic people in the Iberian peninsula, or even in Europe. This rhetoric helps opposing Spain, perceived as authoritarian and politically superseded. The tendency to use the “original socialism” myth is to be found in other regions. It is the case in Corsica where, as early as in the 20’s a literary regionalist movement, A Muvra, puts the emphasis on the communautarian traditions of the island producing a “endogenous socialism”, a “pastoral communism”, vouching for the political modernity of the island. Contemporary nationalists seized and developed this idea, reminding that Rousseau wrote a “constitution for independent Corsica” as early as 1775, when France was still a monarchy. Other movements like the Welsh nationalist party refer to the philosopher Robert Owen, who inspired a communautarian model of society designed to solve the problem of poverty imported in Wales by Great Britain. In the United Kingdom also, Scottish nationalism claims its continuity with the spirit of Braveheart, mythified by Hollywood and Mel Gibson, which shows the resistance of the unified Scottish people despite its great poverty against the corrupted elites, faithful to their Londonian master.
The regionalist identity kit also rests on other variables: language, where it stayed alive and spoken, is always presented as the proof of the ethnic difference between the region and the central state, even if often this language is the result of a unifying rewriting of different dialects, as it is the case in Corsica, or in Catalina. The land might be used as well to support ethnic contest as in Corsica or Sicily, where the island context allows stressing the difference with the center. Using the outline of the Island on T-shirts or on pendants is aimed at the artificial interiorization of differences. Even more recent ethno-nationalisms, based on more economic than cultural grounds, avoid with difficulty the necessity of a mythical construction. For instance, Umberto Bossi’s movement, in Northern Italy, invented the term “Pandania” to name its future state in the Lombard region. It is not enough for Rossi to denounce “Rome the Robber”[5], he also makes his political discourse rest on references to Germanic warriors, whose descendants would be the Pandanians. He also used the image of Gandhi, fighting the British colonial invader, to make a show of the opposition between the people of the North and Rome Italy through a 3-day walk to Venice.
Obviously, nothing is too good for ethno-nationalisms, in order to flatter their small differences. Usual customs, languages, sports, traditions, food, architecture, poetry, the identity toolkit never stops aiming at the same goal: showing its specificity and, if possible, its natural superiority over the oppressing state. As a side issue, economy also serves, but often in a contradictory manner, the ethno-nationalist ambition.
2/ The contradictory economic variable
Ethno-nationalist claims are often formulated in the language of economy, more apt, especially in the second age of regionalism in the 60’s, to let state power know of their demands. However, the economic root of ethno-nationalism is dual and seems too contradictory to be taken as a single model of interpretation for regionalism.
A first thesis, developed at the beginning of the 70’s, by British theoretician Michael Hechter, denounces the “internal colonialism” of the central state vis-à-vis its peripheries (Internal Colonialism, 1975). The idea is that the politically dominant center exploits materially its wealthiest peripheries, which, as a matter of consequence are brought to a situation of economic insecurity. While the center possesses sophisticated industrial means of production, the periphery depends entirely on the center’s model of development. When it has its own industrialization, it is specialized and oriented towards exportation. In the same way, investment decisions are made by the center and often directed at satisfying its interest. To put it in a nutshell, the nation-state reproduces vis-à-vis its peripheries the same framework as with its African or Asian colonies. Directly opposed to a diffusion model that sees in the industrial progress which is initiated by the center a development opportunity for the whole country, and, thus, the ineluctable end of ethnic nationalisms (Karl Deutsch), the internal colonialism model foresees increasing conflicts, should the [feeling of] economic exploitation find its political and cultural translation.
This model was adopted by many ethno-nationalisms despite deep divergences in their actual situation. In the 60’s already, Scottish nationalism, under the auspices of the SNP, vigorously protested against the British economic policy against Scotland. The SNP criticized the exploitation of rich oilfields off Scotland. Critique is twofold: not only this wealth does not benefit Scotland, but it also allows Great Britain to maintain the rate of the pound at an artificially high level, far beyond the actual performance of British economy. The consequence of this artificial maintenance is to put at disadvantage the Scottish economy traditionally oriented towards exportation. If the union with England was originally justified by economic reasons at a time when the British Empire insured commercial openings to Scottish firms, it is now for these very economic reasons that the union is criticized, now that the empire collapses. This economic grammar has long helped giving a reading of the Northern Irish situation, and emphasizing how the catholic minority is marginalized compared with the protestant majority, who upholds the status quo with the English Crown. Internal colonialism is also denounced in the Corsican context. Corsican regionalists, then nationalists, have always recalled the policy of the French state, which consists, according to them, in maintaining the island in a situation of under-development in order to keep alive one sole resource: the beauty of its landscapes and of its beaches. Nationalist elites have long refused to become what they call the “le bronze culs de l’Europe” (the arse-taner of Europe). In France also, Breton nationalism, massively coming from the small traditional peasantry, found one of its reason for mobilization in the protest against the development by the French state of a productivist agriculture accused of being in the hands of Breton bourgeois in agreement with Parisian business people.
A second these is radically inverse and appears in the end of the 80’s when the surprising dynamism of ethno-nationalism in the wealthiest regions was taken into consideration. It is the case in Catalina, Flanders, Northern Italy, which illustrate the third age of nationalism, more economic than ideological. It may be called the nationalism of the well off. Whether they have been long the edge of the country industrialization like Catalina in Spain or they have known a later take-off as in Flanders, these regions are in advance compared with others, the survival of which depends on the redistributive intervention of the central state. From then on, the latter is considered as useless and even as a parasite since it takes on their wealth to distribute it to backward areas. There is eventually the idea, in the nationalist discourse, that the region would be better off on its own. This discourse is particularly relevant in the Lombard country where Umberto Bossi’s lega norte keeps on denouncing “Rome’s fiscal plunder” which fills with the northern industrial toil the endless well that the South of Italy is.
At the bottom of this nationalism, there is undoubtedly some measure of economic egoism, which should remind us that nationalism is also the result of a rational choice, and not the weird attraction for an unclear ideology. We can thus confirm American sociologist Russel Hardin’s views, for whom nationalist activism is always rational and interested. Voting in Belgium for the Vlams Blok or in Italy for the lega norte is a way to demand the end of economic transfers from wealthy Flanders to poor Walloon country, or rich Lombard country to Mezzogiorno. The comparison between Flemish and Catalonian ethno-nationalisms shows that nationalism can cope with economic globalization, whatever the situation is. In the second half of the 19th century, Flemish nationalism appears in a poor agricultural region while the neighboring Walloon region is a wealthy one, thanks to the coal industry. At the same time, Catalina is exposed to massive industrial development, which makes her the first region in Spain, along with the Basque country. Nationalist movements thrive in both cases. A century after, nationalism is still reinforced in Catalina while the difference with other Spanish regions has diminished. It is also very strong in Flanders where now economy is prosperous. This shows that economic growth does not suppress nationalism as if by magic. On the contrary we may notice a cumulative effect in nationalism: the greater the economic difference is, the more nationalist elites try to reinforce their enviable position.
The opposition between the claims of internal colonialism and those of the nationalism of the well off, shows that the economic variable cannot be interpreted as the starting element in ethno-nationalist demands. It is at the very best an accelerating parameter, which, though, might work in very different directions. What counts eventually is the political interpretation of the economic variable.
3/ The political root of ethno-nationalism ; the state tension
Ethnic nationalism in Europe is rarely the sole result of a sudden awareness of one’s identity through the means of an invented or rediscovered culture, and seldom rests on economic evolutions. Most often, the political translation of cultural or economic differences gives way to virulent expressions of ethno-nationalism. The cases I studied show that the opposition based on identity might be shaped as a contest of the central state, or of the contempt of this very state for its peripheries, or of the refusal of a local political system which is regarded as archaic or corrupted.
Many authors with a weberian inspiration, as Pierre Birnbaum in France (La logique de l’État, 1981) tend to emphasize a macro-sociologic approach in order to understand the differentiated emergence of ethno-nationalisms in Europe. Without entering in too much detail, the idea develops as follows: the intensity of the ethno-nationalist contest would be strongly dependent on the structure of the state against which the nationalist movements rise. So, confronted with a weak state, without authoritarian pretensions, vigorous ethno-nationalisms will have an opened attitude, which, among others, entail the refusal of violence. On the contrary, the strong state à la française (in the French fashion) refusing any kind of devolution of power and without any tradition of negotiation with civil society, will be confronted with movements which will have no solution but radical steps of action in order to be heard. This model, which I sketch here in a somewhat too rapid way, is interesting since it introduces in the analysis of ethno-nationalism the relation to the types of states involved; it is yet too general to convince entirely. It might even be adverse to truth if we compare the hyper-violent action of Basque nationalism against a weak state like Spain, and the more moderate action of Corsican or Breton nationalism in their confrontation against a strong state like France.
In a less macro-sociological fashion, the example of the Scottish nationalism also shows how influent is the political balance of forces on ethno-nationalist virulence. The SNP grows in the 80’s, which are, in the United Kingdom, the Thatcher’s years. From 12% in 1970 it reaches 30% at the end of the 90’s. The conservative policy of the English government clashes with the ideological social-democrat grounds to which the immense majority of Scottish people remains attached. The idleness of the Scottish Labour party, who refused to criticize Thatcher’s policy in fear of giving the impression that the attachment of the periphery to London could be suspected, drove many Scottish Labour voters to vote for the nationalists. But most of all, it is the policy chosen by the conservative party that shocks Scotland, giving way to this paradox: it is the English conservatism, apparently indifferent to the fate of a traditionally “Labour” Scotland which offers its best chance to Scottish nationalism. The “poll tax”, which is experimented in the peripheries, is perceived as a deeply unjust tax in Scotland, just as is the important “Law and order” legislation. Enforced with great severity on the whole territory, this very repressive law does not appear as relevant to the situation in Scotland, which has known neither the urban violences of southern England, nor hooliganism or Brixton and London racial riots. The refusal of the government to adapt its policy to the Scottish difference gave many Scottish people the impression that London was really indifferent to its periphery. The political contest is so strong that even three island zones, traditionally not in favor of autonomy because of their oil resources, join the ranks of the nationalists. Still worse, the refusal of Europe, very popular in Great Britain, diminishes when Scottish MPs grasp they are supported by Brussels, which criticizes Thatcher, and which could serve as an ally against London.
The political variable can also be seen in Northern Italy or in Corsica where, once again, the ethno-nationalist contest coheres with the refusal of established political systems both at the local and the national level. The success of the Northern League was dazzling. In 1982, the League could rally 2,7% of the votes. In 1995, it reaches 20%. This success is of course explained by the scandal that shakes the Italian political system in the early 90’s. The mani pulite operation delegitimizes the Christian democracy and opens the field to many new political forces. But most of all, the League uses a traditional repertoire of action that was forsaken by its competitors. While criticizing the system, the League uses the traditional means of the system: activist press, trade union meetings, youth movements, and demonstrations. While traditional parties are entirely focussed on TV campaigns, the League encourages rank and file militants, and thus retrieves the tools of success that the ICP had created in the 50’s. This twofold dynamics is the ground of its success: on the one hand, a radical critique of the partitocracy, on the other hand, an activist renewal which knows how to socialize again the virgin lands deserted by a declining Christian democracy.
Corsica has, as I said, the same features, even if the nationalist contest is essentially targeted against the local political system. Ethno-nationalist parties emerge in the clan’s contest, which is typical of this island society and in the invention, at the same time, of a new way to do politics. The introduction of ideology, the rewriting of local history, the use of Corsican language in the public sphere, contribute to the distinct originality of nationalist parties, and to their growing electoral success. Here again, we may understand the success of nationalist movements thanks to an essentially political frame of explanation.
When solidly established, ethno-nationalisms can last only by constantly reminding their existence to the states. We can speak of a real ethno-nationalist dynamics in Europe.
II - The Ethno-nationalist dynamics in Europe.
There are, or so it seems to me, two axes to understand ethno-nationalist dynamics. The first is of an institutional nature, and aims at integrating the little stateless nations into a greater institutional frame, larger than the state to which they belong. The use by some regions of a transnational economic diplomacy corresponds to this goal. It is the same with ethno-nationalisms which know how to put the European card on the table and benefit from a new pattern of opportunity proposed by the growing power of regionalist parties inside the European parliament (since 1999) and by the establishment of the Region committee in 1994. The second axis is the confrontational one. The ethno-nationalist dynamics can here use violence, as we saw. The confrontation might also be in some states a judiciary one between the center and the peripheries in order to gain increased competencies for the latter.
1/ The transnational strategy
Canadian political scientist Michael keating[6] correctly underlined the virtual marriage between some ethnic nationalisms and economic liberalism, aimed at political recognition. It might be talked of “free-exchange nationalisms”, ie minority nationalist movements which have cut the traditional bond between nationalism and protectionism or autarchy. We face ethno-nationalist movements which aim less at ethnic purity or access to immediate sovereignty than at regional enrichment and, on that ground, at an increased autonomy from the center. Even if the ethnic dimension is always there, it is not dominant, and can be linked with a more civic dimension. It is the case in Corsica where there is a difficult cohabitation between a narrow nationalism under the auspices of the FLNC and a transnational integration strategy under the authority of the leader of the legal nationalist, Talamoni.
Such a modern nationalism, often more efficient than violent ethnic nationalism finds its complete achievement in the wealthiest regions, and, more especially, in one of them, which is the trend-setter of this strategy, Catalina in Spain. Her president, Jordi Pujol, recently declared: “Catalina has not a foreign policy, but an international presence.” This declaration, issued as a measure of comfort for Madrid, does not seem to correspond to reality, since this “international presence” is indeed the consequence of a strong political voluntarism. Taking advantage of the fact that Catalina supports Madrid government against its opposition, making herself indispensable and impossible to criticize, Jordi Pujol lead a very dynamic strategy of international recognition mainly in the international field. Catalina has thus about 30 delegations abroad (NY, San Francisco, Tokyo, Moscou…) the goal of which is to promote the region economically and politically. A newspaper, Made in Catalunya written in Catalan language and in English (but not in Spanish) is used as a tool of promotion in the consulates. Specific agreements, both political and cultural, have been signed with Maghreb countries. In the same way, Catalina develops a parallel diplomacy with European institutions. An organization, both private and public, the Patronat Catala Pro Europea defends Catalan interests in Brussels, very often in opposition to Madrid’s interests. Barcelona, in the same fashion, signed many agreements with neighboring regions, like the Midi-Pyrennees or the Languedoc Regions in France. This allowed, in 1993, the creation of the “Mediterranean bow” in charge of the coordination of some policies in the fields of health, culture, environment etc. Another agreement was signed with three other economically powerful regions: the Lombard country, le Bad Wurttenberg and the Rhône Alpes region. Altogether, they are what has been called the “four engines of Europe”. Even if at a practical level cooperation is impeded by the diversity of the institutional situations of these four regions belonging to four different states, the symbolic weigh of such an agreement is important and is part and parcel of the creation of what is called the “Euro-regions”.
Such a diplomatic activism is bound to involve many conflicts with Madrid. The Spanish Supreme Court authorized the development by Catalina of international agreements in the field of its own competencies (and not in the field of the central state’s). But there are many examples of an illegal parallel diplomacy on Barcelona’s side, crossing over state prerogatives or foreign affairs. For instance, the declaration of the généralitat de Catalunya recognizing the legitimate Croat secession or the declaration of independence of the Baltic republics in 1994 provoked Madrid’s anger.
The transnational dynamics of ethnic nationalisms is also working in a more institutional fashion inside the European community. Great nationalist leaders like Pujol in Catalina, Alex Salmond in Scottland, Luc den Brande in Flanders, Bossi in Northern Italy or Talamoni in Corsica all display their pro-European convictions. They use the motto of regionalists such as Denis de Rougemont or Alexandre Marc in the 60’s: “the Europe of the regions.” The dominant idea is to put the European card on the table in order to break free from national supervision and impose the regional context as the dominant frame for decision making.
The idea of a “Europe of the regions” is more a myth than a reality since the weigh of the states is so important in the decision making process in Europe, and more particularly inside the Commission or in the Council of Ministers. However, strong identity regions succeeded, and especially since Maastricht to gain increased visibility and power. Rather than talking of a “Europe of the regions” it would be more appropriate to talk of a “Europe with the regions” and more precisely of a “Europe with some regions”.
This regionalization of Europe appears in the 70’s with the creation of a European fund for regional development, which takes part in the creation of economic development projects in favor of some regions. This novelty coheres with one of the intellectual principles of the European construction, the “subsidiarity principle”. The very idea of letting the more apt players to handle the problems, ie the players closer to ground issues, is advantageous to the more dynamic regional players. In 1988, the reform of the structural funds aimed at the more disadvantaged regions accelerated the Europeanization of the regions. From now on, there is a direct link between the regional authorities and the European Commission, a fact that favors a regional policy of recognition after the European institutions via an intensive regionalist lobbying. Even if the state is not absent and may come into an association with the regions in order to defend their interests, as it is the case in France, the relation is yet a direct one between Brussels and the regions. What is more, following the Maastricht treaty, the regions get their own representation in 1994 inside the “Committee of the Regions”[7]. This committee is a European organization which must be consulted by the Commission, the Council of the Ministers or the parliament about any project connected with the regional policy of Europe. The Amsterdam treaty still enlarged the repertoire of competencies of the committee to some related issues. Not only is this committee a central place for the institutional integration of the regions, but it is also an important political platform since it is composed by most of the nationalist representatives of the different regions of Europe. Last institutional effect: the Maastricht treaty also gave the national ministers the possibility to be represented at the Council of the Ministers by regional Ministers, when the discussion is relevant to regional competencies. This has an effect solely on regions in federal or quasi-federal structures like Catalina or Bavaria. It is nevertheless part of the regionalization of the decision making process at the supreme level of the European community.
Eventually, it is worth taking notice of the strong presence of ethno-nationalisms inside the European parliament since the 1999 elections. About 20 regionalists were elected and decided to create a federate party, the Free European Alliance, which became linked with the Green deputies, reforming the 1989 “rainbow” group. This group G/FEA is now the fourth more powerful party in the European parliament. It supervises very closely the parliament commissions which are in charge of the management of regional interests (management of structural funds, interregional programs, IMEDOC programs) and helps the strengthening of a Europe where ethno-nationalisms would be recognized. The parliament along with the committee of the Regions encourages the creation of Euro-regions under the leadership of strong identity regions like the “Atlantic pact” that links together Galicia, the Basque country, the Midi-Pyréennées and Aquitaine regions. The funding of many cultural and economic projects in the French Midi-Pyrénnées region by Bilbao, the capital city of the Spanish Basque country testifies to this regional transborder integration.
But this “Europe with the regions” has its limits. Not only does it favor the wealthiest regions belonging to already decentralized states, but it is also perceived by part of the ethno-nationalist movements more as a threat than as an opportunity. It is the case with violent movements like the Sinn Fein in Ulster, Batasuna in the Basque country, or the Cuncolta in Corsica. Those movements refuse Europe for two reasons: they denounce the fric and flics Europe (“cops and bucks Europe”) seeing in the European integration the constitution of a police Europe (encouraged by the normative integration of Schengen and Trevi) as well as the reinforcement of a capitalist frame that will only strengthen the “internal colonialism”. They also fear the European dynamics in itself for it favors a federal integration with a risk of dilution of national identities; it also entails the refusal of a nation-state model that still remains the goal for some of them.
That is why such movements prefer a strategy of confrontation against the center. It might be violent or, as it is the case in Spain or Belgium, might also be a judiciary confrontation. The ethno-nationalist dynamics is both of arms and law.
2/ The confrontation strategy
I will not develop the question of armed struggle, as it was undertaken in Corsica, the Basque Country or Ulster in order to break free from the nation-state, since I already dealt with this issue yesterday.
Only a few words to let us bear in mind the possible instrumental use of violence in order to give stronger roots to the conflict with the center. If violence may obviously be perceived as a way to gain one’s independence thanks to an armed conflict, it also — and maybe principally — appears as a way to induce among the population a social identification with the cause of independence. To that extent, violence is aimed at the affirmation of ethno-nationalist identity. Attacks allow a bloody display of the conflict with the center and help drawing ethnic oppositions otherwise suffering from low visibility in a mixed though more and more culturally homogeneous Europe. Attacks are used as a reminder of so-called ethnic differences: the one who is killed is different from the communautarian in-group. This difference calls for his or her suppression and helps reinforcing, by contrast, the unity of those in whose name the killing has been done. Violence here has a pedagogic dimension, bloodily reminding the distinction between “our people” and “the other people”. Most of all, violence allows socialization inside the in-group and makes the memory of the conflict durable. Ethno-nationalist violence is here the violence of a whole community, nourishing the memory of violence, the reminiscence of tortures committed by policemen, or the remembrance of the martyrs who died for the cause, or the hatred for the Spanish (Maketos), the French (Pinzutti) or the English (Brits). Wall paintings, posters, the nationalist press, all contribute to make the nationalist conflict highly visible in the public space to a point it seems to have become a natural one. To quote Habermas, the nationalists “root in the everyday world of our life” the remembrance of a conflict with the center, which is both historical and eternal.
It is worthy of note that nationalist violence also finds in Europe and more specifically in its judiciary system a support of some sort. If ethno-nationalisms refuse this “Bunker-states union which continue to negate the peoples which constitute its space” (FNLC) they nevertheless use structural possibilities that this new adversary offers. It is the case with the European court of justice which offers nationalist movements new judiciary opportunities allowing them to add to violence a judiciary repertoire. Thus, when Sinn Fein lawyers brought their case before the European court, they succeeded in having some questioning techniques forbidden and they accused the British anti-terrorist system, charging it with violations of human rights. It is the same in Spain and the endeavor of many Batasuna lawyers to have Madrid condemned on the charges of brutal questioning or illegal custody. Law is here an arm that helps presenting the situation upside down: the state becomes a terrorist, while the terrorist is made a victim.
The arm of legality is also a privileged one in the states where the institutional structure allows it. It is the case of Spain where the 1978 “living constitution” allows diverse nationalities to compete with Madrid in order to obtain new legislative competencies. The Spanish constitution, being the result of an attempted compromise between neo-pro-Franco in favor of centralization and those in favor of a radical autonomy of the regions, has many ambiguities. Title VIII more specifically, which deals with the different competencies of Madrid and of the autonomous communities, that is to say, the regions, gave birth to many interpretations before the Supreme Court. Two articles indeed grant the separation between the competencies of the state (art 149) the competencies of the autonomous communities (art 148). But these articles which bear the possibility of transferring competencies from the state to the peripheries are silent about who should hold emerging competencies or competencies which had not been thought of when the constitution was written. The result is to give the constitutional court (audiencia nacional) the role of a referee between the state and the autonomous communities when a competency conflict occurs. Since 1980, the three more advanced communities in Spain, ie the Basque country, Catalina, and Galicia, have brought an ever growing number of cases before the court against Madrid in order to gain enlarged competencies at the state’s expense. Between 1980 and 2000, the count is of more than 1000 cases before the supreme court, about the 2/3 being brought by one of these autonomous communities in order to deprive the state from its prerogatives. The result is an extraordinary constitutional dynamics, which transforms the sometimes violent conflict against the center into a conflict of a judiciary nature. Even though, law is more the companion of ethno-nationalist violence than it is its transformation. When the PNV rulilng party in the Basque country, asks for more competencies, it does so in order to resist against violence, arguing that more autonomy will silence the violent ones. This leads to a sort of constitutional rhetoric opposing law to violence, but which ends up feeding the latter, when it becomes the unavoidable alibi to get more from the center. The Catalan, Galician, and Basque models eventually influenced the 15 other autonomous regions, which are also contaminated by this judiciary activism in order to reach the same level of autonomy as the three historical regions. This mad constitutional dynamics, which makes the Spanish supreme court the most productive constitutional court in the world, might well end up with the implosion of the Spanish state.
The same dynamics based on the defense of rights brought the unitary Belgium to its end in 1993, transforming the country into a federation, opposing autonomous regions, autonomous communities and a dispossessed central state. Belgian federalism is now so developed that regions can even sign international agreements regarding competencies considered as their own. The Flemish or the Walloon regions thus enjoy a nearly complete international sovereignty, almost making a puppet of the Belgian state. The success of the ethno-nationalists is kept alive under the pressure of the, Vlams Blok Flemish nationalist party, which weighs on the decisions of the Flemish elite ruling the country, up to the demand of new rights like fiscal autonomy or the partition of social security.
Even France, by all means a centralized country, seems to give up when confronted to this dynamics of nationalist rights. The leaders now in office have made theirs the proposition of the previous government regarding Corsica as the result of the “Matignon agreement”. The idea is to offer Corsicans, who aim at being recognized, differentiated rights concerning the teaching of the language, the possibility to vote norms with legislative status, and the right to adapt some of the national laws to the Corsican context. Here again, law tries to civilize actual violence by proposing a model close to Canadian multiculturalism, offering differentiated rights to a people who is represented as different, and thus answering its will to be recognized. But violence gave birth to this evolution, for it is as an alternative to it that it has been proposed. For that reason, it is difficult to know whether the ethno-nationalist dynamics will someday be able to give up violence.
Ethno-nationalisms in Europe are still ebullient. Most of the European countries have to deal with identity tensions of this kind, surfing between violence and law, between the withdrawal into identity and transnational ambitions, or history rewriting and economic populism. At first a racist and catholic thought at the end of the 19th century, ethno-nationalism was converted to Marxism in the 60’s, and then entered a more economic and institutional way thanks to the consolidation of the Community institutions. Will Europe and law [8]appease those identity tensions or will these tensions offer new resources to those movements always ready to fight great nations? It is somewhat too early, or so it seems to me, to speak of a “Europe of the regions”. It is nevertheless relevant to evoke the idea of a “Europe with the regions” where these regions, often together (the Euro-regions), transform the frame of governance, and recompose the decision centers.
[1] Such is the cradle of ethno-nationalisms. They still have to grow, and survive
[2] However, violent processes appear often as companions and competitors for more peaceful undertakings of internationalization developed by… For instance, in the Basque Country, the ETA uses violence, but the PNV proposes …
[3] Peut-être homogénéiser la métaphore (dans le texte français un mixte de métaphore constructiviste et organiciste): I will first show how ethno-nationalisms thrive from theirs roots, and, then, how
[4] Je manque un peu d’imagination pour être fidèle ici au français. Je crois que tu peux ajouter “obviously international, when it comes to their relations with the European Community or with economic liberalism, but also manifestly internal in their confrontation to the central state”
[5] Dis, ca marche encore mieux en anglais qu’en italien, cette phrase…
[6] - Les défis du nationalisme moderne, Montréal, PUM, 1997.
[7] A vrai dire j’ignore la traduction officielle: regions committee, committee for the regions, committee of the regions? Un coup d’internet devrait te renseigner.
[8] Will the rule of law in Europe…