Thread: EU ties fray over debt crisis, border control

EU ties fray over debt crisis, border control

The dream of a common future for the continent fades as some countries worry about being yoked to shaky economies and others rethink their open borders.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
June 24, 2011

Reporting from Flensburg, Germany— Erik Holm Jensen slips between countries without a thought or a passport.

He drives from Denmark into northern Germany as smoothly as an American going from Delaware to New Jersey. There's no hassle at the border, no guards to stop him on his way to the office. If he blinks, he misses the modest sign indicating that he's crossed from one country into another.

Such seamless travel is one of the European Union's greatest achievements in its pursuit of a stable, prosperous continent built in the lingering aftermath of World War II. The other is the wad of euros in Jensen's wallet, which the 60-year-old business consultant can use in 17 nations.

But these twin pillars of Europe's grand project are now under assault. Unfettered movement and the single currency have become the subject of bitter dispute, pushing tensions to their highest point in years and making the European Union look increasingly like an oxymoron.

Countries including Denmark, France and Italy have raised hackles recently by considering the reintroduction of checks of some kind along their borders. The euro faces a debt crisis that poses the gravest threat to its existence since it was launched nine years ago, with political infighting preventing the EU from mounting a swift, effective response.

Faith in the dream of a united, richer, happier continent — fueled by the easy optimism of most of the last decade, when the region's economy was booming — appears to be dwindling.

"Europe is a little bit in shock," said Ulrike Guerot, an analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations. "We need to figure out whether the project of political union and greater integration still stands."

That prospect has been most severely undermined by the euro crisis, which has produced major cracks within the 27-nation EU.

Even as debt-laden Greece, Ireland and Portugal lined up for humiliating bailouts, EU leaders have squabbled for more than a year over how to deal with the mess and keep it from spreading to the bigger Eurozone economies of Spain and Italy.

Ironically, the common currency that was meant to unite Europe is dividing it instead, with fiscally disciplined northern countries such as Germany and the Netherlands growing more resentful of being on the hook for their southern counterparts' imprudence.

Although not everyone would go as far as the German magazine Der Spiegel, whose cover this week featured a portrait of the euro atop a coffin draped with the Greek flag, skepticism toward Europe's most ambitious experiment in forging a common future is not hard to find.

"It can indeed be a burden to be part of the European Union," said Thomas Dehler, a 44-year-old entrepreneur in Berlin. "I've often asked myself why the deutschemark was abolished in the first place.... Economic union wasn't the right way."

But he added, "We can't take it back anymore. Now we have to grit our teeth and get to it."

Such disenchantment isn't that surprising in the economic powerhouse of Germany.

But disillusionment with the EU is also rife in Greece, a beneficiary of the club's largess. Anti-EU graffiti and banners in downtown Athens shout the frustrations of people who see the austerity and pain demanded of them in exchange for help as both punitive and a recipe for economic suicide, not recovery.

"I believe Greece belongs to Europe. Its interests are anchored there," said Nikos Branidis, 37, an unemployed mathematician. "Do I believe, though, in European integration? Not anymore. It was supposed to be a process of coming together but instead has proven to be just a union driven by monetary interests."

Waning enthusiasm spans the continent. In an EU-wide survey last year, only 49% of people said membership was a good thing, close to its lowest level of support in a decade. Nearly 20% saw membership as a drag on their country. The poll was taken in May 2010, and the euro's troubles have only worsened since. Three countries have applied for bailouts, with one of them, Greece, desperately needing another one; private creditors holding Greek bonds are under pressure to take a hit; and tens of thousands of anti-austerity protesters have flooded the streets of Madrid and Athens.

European solidarity is in shorter supply now than a year ago. In Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, for example, populist right-wing parties have made significant electoral gains, led by politicians who often spout "Euroskeptic" rhetoric about being yoked to countries they deem too different or irresponsible.

"European integration was a top-down [enterprise]: If you build it, they will come," said Hugo Brady, an analyst with the London-based Center for European Reform."People did make use of the benefits it brought. But it didn't mean that they moved any closer culturally or on the organization of society. We have some commonality, but we're not as alike as people thought."

Even if the euro pulls through its crisis, the trauma of the experience will probably cool the dreams of ever-closer cooperation and expanding European power, Brady said.

"We're likely to see the emergence of a generation of politicians who are likely to see the EU as far more limited in the things it can do," he said. "It doesn't necessarily mean that the EU will disappear, just that member states will not be as interested in the benefits of cooperation for a time."

As the crisis continues, tempers grow short. During the continent's recent outbreak of E. coli-related illnesses, Germany quickly blamed it on cucumbers from Spain, which reacted furiously when the accusation turned out to be misplaced. Talk in Madrid of suing German officials subsided only after the EU agreed to offer compensation to Spanish farmers.

National interests still trump European ones, a truth laid bare by the rising disputes over borders.

Currently, 22 EU countries, plus three not in the union, allow unrestricted movement between them; enter one and the rest are open to you, with no need to clear further border checks. The liberalization has been a huge success, loved (mostly) by residents and visitors alike.

No wholesale rollback of the system is on the horizon. But two months ago, France and Italy, alarmed over a surge in immigrants fleeing unrest in North Africa, called for the reintroduction of temporary border controls in special cases. The idea ignited a firestorm of protest from fellow EU countries worried over the consequences of such a move.

And next week, Denmark is set to approve a controversial measure to reestablish a permanent customs presence along its borders with Germany and Sweden, largely at the insistence of an influential right-wing anti-immigrant party. The proposal has strained relations between Copenhagen and Berlin.

Here in Flensburg, a town of 90,000 people just inside the German border, residents are used to the Danes who come to buy lower-priced liquor, get their cars repaired for less and receive cheaper dental care. Workers in either country commute to jobs on the other side.

"Walls have come down, and it has become easier and easier to live and work wherever you want to," said Jensen, the business consultant, who works with an association of border merchants. "We are afraid that this will be a step back."

The Danish government insists that its plan to beef up policing operations for contraband such as drugs and guns won't impede the free flow of people.

"It has nothing to do with the control of persons and passports. Illegal trafficking of goods is a very real concern for the Danish population, and the Danish government is responding," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, adding, "If you look at the facts of the agreement, it really shouldn't be that controversial."

But it is. Wolfgang Buschmann, the mayor of Harrislee, another German border town, warned against underestimating the psychological effect of customs booths sprouting up again where only grass and asphalt are today.

"It's a question of the heart," Buschmann said. "Now we are going to build up a new frontier in our thoughts, and that's dangerous.

"We have worked so hard to get closer to each other, and now we are going to separate," he said. "It makes no sense."

henry.chu@latimes.com

Special correspondents Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin and Anthee Carassava in Athens contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... full.story

What a crappy article by a progressive globalist, Chu...

Its one thing for people to move freely inside the European Union. Its something else to have massive migration from around the world into Europe. The European people have left themselves vulnerable and now they are being exploited and taken advantage of..