There is no denying that the Greek default—whatever its final outcome—will bring Greece economic dislocation and even more pain, and there’s no doubt that it will launch further shockwaves across the Continent and the Atlantic. But at its foundation the unfolding “Greek tragedy” is about more than the Athenian political class’s lies and pandering and the Greek citizenry’s unsustainable expectations. It is ultimately about the European Union, the limits of top-down state engineering, and European elites’ hubris and disregard for the effects of their schemes on the ordinary citizen. It is telling indeed that Europe’s postmodern elites, as they berate the Greek Prime Minister for daring to demand a referendum on his country’s most consequential decision in decades, seem still to believe in the non-negotiable character of the European Union project. For them, institutions will always trump cultures, and economic inducements will always overcome deeply rooted national identities. Germany and France are prosperous, and they surely have the right to engage in democratic processes. Does Greece not have that right, simply because it has driven itself into bankruptcy?
The European idea of a common market expanding into a larger community of nations remains as valid today as it was in the 1950s. Trade, cross-investment, and the sharing of resources for infrastructure projects, insofar as they benefit economic growth, are all part of the manifest successes of the original vision of a European community. Still, the EU as it is presently conceived has produced more than its share of hubris and bad ideas, beyond the notion of bringing Greece into the Eurozone. The partial de-nationalization of the state and the partial limits on state sovereignty in the name of peace still lie at the foundation of the original European project, but they have since given way, especially since the end of the Cold War, to a European bureaucratic fantasy of what should constitute the “Union.” The idea of a common market has been knocked out from its central place by the vision of a pan-European quasi-state entity, whose workings few in Europe understand, and which, most importantly, has consistently failed to generate a new Europe-wide identity in place of national allegiances. This is not just a Greek problem; bureaucratic empire building has its limits, and we call those limits “citizens.” The stirrings across Europe, from the United Kingdom through Spain to Poland, show that the issues at hand are not purely economic, and that traditional national identity, citizen participation and sovereignty remain just as relevant to democracy today as they were in years past.
It is particularly poignant that Greece and its demos are what may ultimately force Europe to rediscover the original premises underlying the European project and the meaning of democratic processes. In the hubbub of the past months, as Grexit inched closer, commentaries emanating from Europe (and at times from the U.S.) often lost sight of the fact that in the final analysis Greece is a democratic society (one which has faults, not least a tendency to live beyond its means). The Greeks have the right to make their own choices, and likewise the responsibility to live with the consequences. The European project should be about creating a community of democratic nations whose voices and aspirations are not lost in the larger whole. Or perhaps the problem is that what analysts have often called Europe’s “democracy deficit” goes deeper than what they suspected. We shall know soon enough.
It is perhaps pointless to re-hash the euro’s original sin of disconnecting fiscal and monetary policies, or whether this was an overreach from the start. Europe’s common currency, notwithstanding economic arguments then and now, remains a quintessentially political project. As it happens, a nation’s inability to control and thereby assume responsibility for the consequences of its monetary policy remains one of the most disruptive aspects of the euro when it comes to the functioning of a democracy. This is less about economics than about the deepest fundamentals of democratic politics and self-government. This dilemma could perhaps be glossed over in times of stability and prosperity (especially if the government, as in the Greek case, simply cheats and lies and others pretend they don’t notice). But to expect that, at a time of national emergency, Mr. Tsipras will bend to Ms. Merkel’s and Mr. Juncker’s will without a fight is to misread the basics of democratic politics. He may still fail, and Greece may still accept the terms of another bailout (desperate people can be cowed), but let us not confuse such a move with democratic process.
Despite the dangerous economic winds ahead, there may ultimately be a silver lining to the “Greek tragedy”: Europe may begin to return the grand elite project it has always been to its proper and necessary democratic context. Economic market integration is a workable path to peace, but EU leaders should never have lost sight of the limitations of this project imposed by the enduring primacy of national sovereignty. In the end, the European Union is not a state but a treaty-based organization, and it is unreasonable therefore to expect that its members will surrender all sovereignty on the most fundamental aspects of their existence.
Asking the Greeks to forgo for decades any reasonable prospects of economic recovery just so that the euro idea remains pristine is a bridge too far. For Greece, being on EU welfare for a generation is not a solution. It is time to let the Greeks return to the drachma and start the painful process of putting their economy back together. And for EU leaders, it is time to learn some humility as they craft policy.
