Sixty years after the Schuman declaration that launched the European project, the Eurozone crisis has called into question the essence of the union. To regain confidence, the EU27 must jettison the stereotypes of the past, argues the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The Lisbon Treaty took effect last December: it took nearly a decade for this European Treaty reform to become a reality. And because this round of reforms took so agonisingly long, most of the weary participants infer that there are to be no further treaty reforms in the foreseeable future. Whether the Greek crisis will augment the general inclination to make what would be per se a desirable change in the fiscal policy provisions of the treaties is debatable. Despite the pressure exerted by the crisis, it is unlikely there will be any attempts soon to make new changes in the treaties with a view to disenfranchising inveterate backsliders, let alone expelling them from the monetary union.

A few months ago, at any rate, few Europeans would have imagined the treaty reform buzz would be back again so soon. Most of us were hoping that thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union would now be finally entering into a phase of internal consolidation and external reinforcement. That hope may have been audacious or simply unrealistic from the outset: in any case, it has now been dashed by the financial and debt crises. Instead we are now discussing the risks to the eurozone brought on by the Greek calamity; taxpayers and politicians alike are worried about the stability of the euro and the cohesiveness of the monetary union.

Is the monetary union irreversible?

The pace at which our political managers rushed in to avert the impending bankruptcy of the Greek state reflects not only disillusionment, but panic. It’s not only about Greece, everything now smacks of an “Operation Save the Euro”. Is the euro’s stability really endangered by the financial plight of Greece, a country that accounts for only a miniscule portion (2.5%) of Europe’s overall economic output? That is another question we could not have imagined asking only a few months ago.

Is the monetary union, this so-called community of fate, really as irreversible as its founding fathers claimed? Is the EU really on the way to becoming an increasingly tight-knit union of nations? Do the member nations even want that in the first place? That would seem doubtful now, given the public upsurge in the wake of the Greek crisis. Clearly, we find ourselves in a phase in which some certainties are beginning to totter.

Europe’s diversity goes to make up its charm

For some time now, moreover, leading European politicians have been complaining about a resurgence of nationalist sentiment, and this complaint is aired suspiciously often in the direction of Berlin. If the Germans lose faith in the single currency, their enthusiasm for Europe will dwindle even further. Very few prospects are as unpopular as that of Germany playing the part of Europe’s paymaster. The assertion that that serves German interests hardly finds a sympathetic ear any more amid the general discontent. And that discontent is only fuelled by admonitions that Germans have to show “solidarity”, especially seeing as most Germans probably feel they showed a great deal of “solidarity” when they gave up the Deutschmark – whereas Greece inveigled its way into the currency bloc under false pretences.

It would be nonsense to start intoning the swan song of the great European project. European unification has not reached the end of the line. Maybe the time has simply come to dispense with certain stereotypes and admit a few home truths.  One such home truth is that, a good 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, European unification does not have the same dynamism it once did. Another verity is that most people find the unification argument that we can only stand our ground in a globalised world by pooling our forces nowhere near as compelling as the “original motivation” of war and peace. But our remembrances of the war are steadily fading. What needs to be done is clear enough: safeguard what we’ve got, above all the euro. But that should not obscure or belittle the internal cultural, political and economic disparities, e.g. the different fiscal policy mentalities. Not everything fits the same mould. Europe’s diversity goes to make up its charm, yet it is also an enduring weakness, not least when it comes to taking on other world heavyweights. But that’s just the way Europe is.