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Letter from Berlin

Celebrating the Boring Miracle of the European Union

By Charles Hawley

The European Union turns 50 on Sunday. For many, the 27-country bloc has become bureaucratic and boring. That, though, is precisely why it should be celebrated.

One gets the impression that the gigantic European Union 50th birthday bash this weekend will be a lot like the institution itself. Hundreds of workers have spent the cold, wet week in the German capital Berlin setting up stages, booths and tents right in the heart of the city.

On tap? Booklets illustrating the ins and outs of German and European Union politics. Free beer and sausage to go with food from around the 27-member club. Music from Joe Cocker and the Big Band der Bundeswehr.

In other words, a day of comfy boredom punctuated by moments of energetic mediocrity. Europe in miniature.

Of course there are other entertainment options. The 27 European leaders -- who began trickling into Berlin on Friday -- will gather this weekend for a bit of Beethoven at the Berlin Philharmonic. Saturday night will see Berlin's Museum Island open until well after midnight. After that, DJs and musicians from all across the continent will be helping young Europeans bump and grind the night away at EU member-themed parties in the city's renowned clubs.

But it will be difficult for revellers to get around Europe's salient characteristic: It is a huge, not-always-transparent, somewhat humdrum bureaucracy. Difficult to love. Hard to celebrate. But it's blandness is exactly what makes it the most shockingly successful alliance in Europe's history.

"Europe is becoming normal," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said when asked by the German tabloid <I>Bild Zeitung</I> why nobody paid attention to the accession of Romania and Bulgaria at the beginning of the year. "When the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, World War II was only 12 years in the past. Just prior to the signing, Germany and France were still considered arch-enemies. Nobody remembers that any more, fortunately. Today, Europe is in many ways just like run-of-the-mill domestic politics and thus not always so exciting."

In other words, the European Union has become so taken for granted that it has become part of the political background. And that is one of the union's greatest successes. Indeed, in 1945, the continent was emerging not just from years of bloody warfare, but from a centuries-long cycle of self-destructive violence. There was nothing at all to indicate that anything was about to change.

But it did. The Marshall Plan injected the cash. NATO provided the muscle. But the founding of the European common market in the Palazzo Senatorio on March 25, 1957 applied the decisive diplomatic glue to hold together the longest continuous era of peace Europe has enjoyed in recorded history.

A modest beginning

At the beginning, it was small. Just six countries joined the EU precursor known as the European Economic Community, which was established by the Treaty of Rome: France, Italy, Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Soon, though, the community began flexing its muscles, creating a common agricultural policy in 1962, then merging together the EEC, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community in 1967. The first enlargement followed in 1973, when Denmark, Ireland and Great Britain joined the EEC.

From there, the European Monetary System was established in 1979. Greece joined in 1981. Spain and Portugal became members in 1986. Austria, Finland and Sweden came on board in 1995. The common currency, the euro, was officially introduced in 1999 and physically launched in the form of banknotes and coins in 2002.

And in 2004, 10 new countries -- many of them formerly part of the Soviet Union's sphere of influence -- bumped the member total to 25. The accession of Romania and Bulgaria at the beginning of this year seemed almost an afterthought.

But Europe is more than just numbers. The Schengen Agreement from 1985 means Europeans can travel through much of the continent without having to even slow down at the borders. Likewise, most EU citizens can choose where they wish to live and work, largely free of bureaucratic hurdles. Since 1987, more than 1.5 million European university students have taken advantage of the Erasmus European exchange program. And this year, the EU agreed to far-reaching climate change measures and took steps toward unifying its energy policy.

Nice but boring

Lately, though, it has become clear that success is boring. More than six decades after the last shots of World War II were fired, peace and prosperity have become such a fact of life in Europe that finding fault has become something of a continental pastime.

And there are plenty of things to complain about. The amount of money handed out to farmers in the 27 member states is scandalous. Subsidies for questionable projects are off the charts. Transparency is an ongoing project. Layer upon layer of bureaucracy defies efforts to improve efficiency. And the single foreign policy "phone number" that US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger famously yearned for in the 1970s has yet to materialize.

Not only that, but the Union even has trouble agreeing on how to toot its own horn. Negotiations on the final text of the "Berlin Declaration" -- to be ceremoniously signed on Sunday -- will likely continue up to the last possible moment. Europe has spent the last week arguing about whether the euro should be mentioned as a major EU achievement, whether Europe's Christian roots should get a shout out, and whether the word "constitution" should see the light of day -- especially given France and the Netherland's rejection of the document in 2005. The Schengen Agreement was also mired in controversy, as was a possible mention of the European social model.

By Friday, many of those questions had been answered. As the Associated Press pithily put it: "The euro's in. God and the constitution are out." But Merkel was able to convince EU leaders to commit to an overhaul of European structures by 2009, paving the way for a two-year battle as to what the future of the EU will look like.

It was, in short, a uniquely European discussion -- full of disagreement and culminating in the prosaic. Not exactly the best possible way to prepare for this weekend's party. But even if the entertainment in Berlin on Saturday and Sunday will be wanting, even if it's hard to love a massive collection of bureaucrats housed away in Brussels, it is difficult to find a better excuse to celebrate than the 50th birthday of the European Union.

The successes of the bloc, as Time Magazine writes this week, may not seem like much: "But for anyone old enough to remember the European misery out of which the Treaty of Rome took shape, it is a stunning miracle."