Dispute over Europe: “A Homeland is Not a Piece of Earth”
Symbol of European identity: St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague (Photo: Markus Meissner)
27 February 2013
What is Europe? What is a homeland? Can Europe be a homeland? These were questions discussed in Prague by the EU-sceptic CSU MP Peter Gauweiler and the former Czech EU Commissioner Vladimír Špidla. Europe is not scrambled eggs, Gauweiler said. “We’re complex,” countered Špidla.
Mr Gauweiler, Mr Špidla, where is your homeland?
Gauweiler: In Bavaria. In the play Der Brandner Kaspar und das ewig’ Leben there is a Bavarian and a Prussian heaven. Bavarian heaven is located somewhere between Jachenau and Tegernsee, at the foot of the Alps. Prussian heaven is a factory where everyone works very quickly. In Bavarian heaven you can go hunting and even shoot. If you hit the game, it falls over, gets back up and says, let’s do it again!
Špidla: Homeland is not a simple term for me. The place is certainly southern Bohemia, where I come from, but also things that belong to the Czech Republic, such as St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. Europe in itself is also part of it. Homeland, to me, is not a piece of earth, but people, culture, contexts. Perhaps I’m a nomad.
Can you remember the first time that you became conscious of Europe?
Špidla: As Prime Minister I travelled the world and saw Europe from the outside. Then, on a journey to Africa, I saw clearly for the first time that we are different. As EU Commissioner, I negotiated in many places in Europe – without difficulty. Europe is not uniform, but when you enter a city hall, you always know how to behave.
Gauweiler: I was thirteen when General de Gaulle came to Munich on a state visit. He shook our hands in the Hofgarten, on Odeonsplatz he held a speech about Europe: “La patrie des patries.” But, for Europe I also remember the 21st of August 1968, the day the Red Army marched into the Czechoslovakia, and there was a demonstration of solidarity in Munich. Almost 100,000 people came, crying, “Dubček, Svoboda!” That was a momentous day because we knew that the Czechs in Prague stood for all of us.
Mr Špidla, how did it feel in Brussels in 2004 to be one of the first EU Commissioners from the new acceding countries?
Špidla: It was not a problem for me. I was well familiar with the territory. And I certainly didn’t suffer from any inferiority complexes. I remember one conflict very well that I had to settle with Jacques Chirac. We sat for three or four hours alone at the table – at the end, I came out on top.
EU veteran Špidla: “I like Europe because I see it as a political success” (Photo: Paul Pacey)
What did you learn in Brussels?
Špidla: To recognize professions. I work with people of various nationalities, but was never able to tell where they came from, since they all spoke English. But, I was very soon able to tell whether one was a lawyer or a sociologist.
Do you, as a EU enthusiast, sometimes feel misunderstood in the Czech Republic, where many people are very sceptical towards the EU?
Špidla: I’m no enthusiast; I’m a realist. I like Europe because I see it as a political success. But, it is based on a tough political dispute.
Mr Gauweiler, could you ever imagine going to Brussels as a politician?
Gauweiler: That’s not my world. The EU no longer offers any real solutions to problems. It has become a problem itself. The EU turned the European ideas into an ordinance scheme, in which functional systems are wantonly destroyed. I want nothing to do with it.
You say that the constitution for Europe we should return to is the Human Rights Convention of 1952. Is that not very backward-looking?
Gauweiler: If you’re stuck in a blind alley, you have to go back. The Human Rights Convention and with it the European Court of Human Rights are true guarantors for conditions in accordance with the rule of law. Unlike the EU centralists in Brussels with their problematic relationship towards division of powers, towards basic rights and towards independence of the judiciary.
Mr Špidla, do you also see Europe in a blind alley?
Špidla: We often don’t recognize that we are in a blind alley until we’ve reached the end of it. But, I don’t assess the situation as negatively as Mr Gauweiler. Of course there are problems, but in my opinion, we simply have a lot in common. The risk lies in us not drawing conclusions from them, that we are not forceful now in the crisis.
EU critic Gauweiler: “The EU has become a problem itself” (Photo: Paul Pacey)
Gauweiler: We have to ask the people if we wish to remain democratic. That is unavoidable if Europe wants to live up to the democratic claims that it represents to so many countries of the world.
You believe that more Europe, disregarding the question of legitimacy, would endanger national identities?
Gauweiler: Europe consists of these national identities. This is contrasted by this Esperanto mentality, the idea that Europe is scrambled eggs. I consider this dissolution of the different cultures and identities an un-European idea.
Špidla: Yet, what is Czech, what is German? That is not an ethnic culture; it’s a culture of the European region. Take a look at architecture: Matthias Arras came from France and built St. Vitus Cathedral, Benedikt Ried was German and had a major part in building Prague Castle. And nevertheless both are parts of the Czech culture. We are complex.
During the presidential election campaign in the Czech Republic there was a dispute over the deportation of the Sudeten Germans. The later winner, Miloš Zeman, defamed his opponent Schwarzenberg as the “speaker of the Sudeten Germans,” because he criticized the Beneš decrees that legitimatize the deportation. How did you perceive that?
Gauweiler: In this issue I think that Schwarzenberg won a moral victory. After all, 45 percent of the people stood behind him and the absolute majority of the country’s young people.
Špidla: For me it was a sign of how disastrous the Second World War was if it still has reverberations 60 years later. But, I think that was the final phase of the debate over the Beneš decrees. The subject is no longer useful as political leverage.
Assuming the Europeans would be deported and would set up a homeland museum with mementoes they brought along to their new place of refuge. What would it contain?
Gauweiler: Perhaps a recording of Verdi’s Va, pensiero.
Špidla: Classical music from Beethoven to Dvořák. A model of a Gothic cathedral would be crucial for me. Sentences from the European Constitution. And the preamble of the Lisbon Treaty.
The interview was held by Nancy Waldmann.
Vladimír Špidla, born in Prague in 1951, studied history and worked, among other positions, as an archaeologist and in a sawmill. He was the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 2002 until 2004 and guided the country into the European Union. From 2004 until 2010 he served as the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Špidla has been active in the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) since 1989 and was its chairman for many years. Peter Gauweiler, born in Munich in 1949, is a lawyer and member of the Bundestag. He joined the CSU in 1968 and has been an elected politician since 1972, first in the Munich City Council, later in the Bavarian state parliament and in the Ministry of State. He has been responsible for cultural and educational policy in the Bundestag since 2002. Gauweiler is considered a Euro-sceptic and made a name with partly successful constitutional complaints against the euro bailout fund and the Lisbon Treaty. The latter strengthened the role of the Bundestag and Bundesrat. At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut Prague, the two recently met for a panel discussion, during which time this conversation was held.
