Europe from the North | The Great Continent

Europe is going through a crisis so profound that we will only realize its significance in retrospect. Here’s the paradox: Today, two-thirds of Europeans say in polls that they share a lot with other citizens on the continent, but when you ask a European what that means, they hesitate, they doubt, and they mostly talk about differences. Yet, from the outside, Europe's identity is glaringly obvious: its art, its architecture, its culture, and even its environmentally conscious social market economy. It is this disconnect that prevents Europe from becoming a true political union. People believe that Europe lacks a grand economic plan or strong leadership, when in reality it lacks a people—or, more accurately, the sense of being a people. Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the WTO, calls this the “people deficit.” He recounts how Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission in the 1980s, had already foreseen this problem. Delors used to say, “You don’t fall in love with a big market,” and he asserted that Europe lacked a soul. Despite all the treaties, the institutions, and European citizenship, the Union has failed to create an “imagined community,” to use the words of the anthropologist Benedict Anderson. The economic Union operates based on the cold logic of interest, flows, and the market; but political belonging, on the other hand, arises from passion, emotion, and shared histories. This is where Europe has hit a glass ceiling. Lamy proposes a change of strategy: abandoning the path charted by the founding fathers, who believed that economic integration would naturally lead to political integration, and attempting the ascent via the “north face”—in other words, tackling the question of European identity head-on. This identity, so paradoxical, is obvious to those who live elsewhere, but remains unclear to those who experience it on a daily basis. Lamy provides a striking example: the figures of the European winter—Saint Nicholas, Father Fouettard, Befana, Krampus, Zwarte Piet—may seem very different from one country to another, but they all belong to the same festive cycle, from Christmas to Epiphany, which, for our ancestors, exorcised the fear of darkness and cold. Behind the diversity of the masks lies a common fear, a shared ritual. But Lamy goes further: he argues that to awaken a European consciousness, we need to study everyday life, not just myths or folklore. How do people celebrate a birthday in Warsaw, Barcelona, or Hamburg? How is remote work experienced in Helsinki, how is death viewed in Naples, and how are migrants integrated in Paris? He calls this “Europe on a human scale,” a phrase borrowed from the anthropologist Marc Abélès. The aim is not to deny differences, but to show that they often conceal fundamental similarities. Moreover, the Ukrainian crisis, the pandemic, and the rise of populism have created what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls a “risk community”: in the face of a threat, Europeans discover that they stand in solidarity, even without saying so. Perhaps it is here, says Lamy, that the “demos” that our continental democracy so sorely lacks will finally emerge. But he adds that nothing is guaranteed: it will take years of work, a great deal of imagination and education, and undoubtedly shared hardships. The real challenge is not to advance the market, but to give Europe a history, a warmth, a soul. For the Union to finally become a people, we must dare to explore the North Face—the most difficult, the least comfortable, but also the most promising. Europe doesn’t need more regulations: it needs a story that speaks to the heart. If you feel that this way of looking at Europe resonates with you, on Lara Notes you can say so with I'm In — it's more than a like; it means that the idea is part of who you are. And if you discuss it with someone, over coffee or at the dinner table, you can link that moment to them with Shared Offline—because some conversations on Lara Notes are worth remembering. This text was taken from Le Grand Continent and saved you eight precious minutes compared to the original article.