In the talk “Europe Now: Integration, Society, and Islam in a New Europe” yesterday, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a European Parliament member, argued for the need to transcend cultural differences of separate nation-states in the European Union in order to survive in the global era.

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Alvin Chow

Daniel Cohn-Bendit speaks at yesterday’s talk, “Europe Now: Integration, Society, and Islam in a New Europe,” about the necessity to transcend cultural differences in the European Union in order to tackle problems of the modern, global era.

“Europe since the end of World War II has been one of renewal,” said Cohn-Bendit, co-president at the Greens/Free European Alliance Group. “After the war ended, people felt like they could have a fresh start, another try at maintaining a world free of inroads on human rights.”

In order to maintain that fresh start, Cohn-Bendit argued that a true homogenization of nation-states under the European Union must take place, a realization that stems from the memory of the Yugoslavian crisis in 1989. The biggest impediment to accomplishing this unity, however, is the lack of an EU constitution.

“The constitution for the European Union is difficult to draft, because it demands compromise between constitutions of separate European nations that have very different constitutions,” he said. “The French constitution, for example, is one that arose out of the energy and disorder of the French Revolution, whereas the post-WWII German and Spanish constitutions both served as responses to Hitler and Franco’s fascist states.

“The British,” he joked, “have no constitution.”

The most recent attempt at a European constitution failed when an insufficient number of EU states accepted it.

“Europeans voted no for the most recently proposed constitution because they distrust the government and fear they will lose certain human rights should the constitution be ratified,” he said.

Though Cohn-Bendit criticized the proposed constitution as “horrible,” he also said it has potential for promise.

“Parts of the constitution are wonderful,” he said regarding certain passages on individual rights. “It is as if in these areas of the constitution, Europe is finally putting up an answer to its collective history.”

In order to truly become collective, however, Cohn-Bendit argued for amendments to the constitution ratification process. The current regulation requires all 25 EU states to approve. Instead, he proposed a method where only 60 percent of states are required.

The reasoning behind this proposal is that a unanimous decision is almost impossible. Instead, dissenting countries should be given the choice to remain in or leave the EU, allowing the remaining members to solidify their unity.

The need for a more unified Europe, Cohn-Bendit claimed, is necessary to face various global problems.

On the one hand, uniting can prevent a possible environmental catastrophe at the hands of the greenhouse effect.

“Switzerland has cleaned up its factories, its air, but it is only one country,” he said. “Its improvement makes little difference in the grand scheme of things.”

Decreased release of carbon dioxide from industrial processes over the entire continent of Europe, however, would have a much more significant effect.

Another fear of the modern era, religious fundamentalism, could also be addressed by the EU’s unified constitutional ideals, Cohn-Bendit said. He argued that the constitution — which allows for personal freedom of belief and does not enforce one faithover any other — would serve as the perfect counterexample to religious fanaticism.

“Problems today can no longer be solved by individual nation-states,” he said. “Europe needs to begin to deal with global problems on a global level.”