Africa should avoid copying Europe`s failing experiment

Source: by Lorenzo Fioramonti,Business Day, 30/07/2015

THE European Union (EU) is generally presented as the most advanced
case of regional integration in the world. It has progressed from a
system of sectoral co-operation in energy governance among six states
in the early 1950s to a multifaceted body of 28 members, with
unprecedented powers in areas such as economic and social development,
monetary governance, legal affairs and foreign policy.
Its approach to integration has been driven by bureaucratic and
economic elites, mostly through technical co-operation among key
national departments. There is little doubt that such a top-down
approach was a key strength during the takeoff phase of integration,
as technocrats managed to forge co-operative mechanisms despite the
volatility of politics and the fierce ideological battles of the time.
Citizens` involvement came late, with the first parliamentary
elections only in 1979. Albeit marginally on the increase, genuine
popular participation in Europe`s affairs has been deliberately kept
at bay by its architects. Over time, this has resulted in the populace
endorsing a rather utilitarian approach towards the EU: happy to be
part of it for as long as the benefits largely outweighed the costs.
Since the late 1990s, however, things have changed dramatically. A
continent traditionally marked by progressive social policies,
functioning welfare states and high living standards has been turned
into a very unequal one, with shrinking budgets to support healthcare
and education, but vast resources to subsidise financial markets.
Wealth has accumulated at the top, while the middle class has shrunk,
filling the ranks of the poor. As popular acquiescence towards Europe
started to wane, the global financial crisis hit, plunging some
European countries deeply into a debt spiral. The current situation in
Greece is often presented as a struggle between profligate Greek
citizens and their creditors, mostly thrifty German taxpayers. But the
reality is rather different, revealing the profound divide between
elite politics and popular democracy. European technocrats have lent
money to the Greek government not to save its people, but to cover the
backs of German and French private banks, which had made windfalls by
investing cheap public money available in northern Europe to buy
high-return bonds in Greece. Instead of sanctioning financial agents
for their reckless behaviour with a view to protecting all European
taxpayers, EU institutions have ended up pitting citizens against
citizens, triggering dangerous nationalistic resentments.
Since the mid-2000s, trust in the EU has plummeted among Europeans.
"Euroscepticism", a phenomenon notoriously confined to the UK, is now
a widespread reality, with only one-third of European citizens having
confidence in the EU. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising to see
the unprecedented rise of anti-EU parties not only in Greece, Spain
and Portugal, but also in founding member states such as Italy,
France, Germany and across most northern countries and nations from
the former eastern bloc. Thus the recent events in Greece have simply
worsened a dynamic that had been cooking for decades.
As citizens feel impoverished and a sense of injustice permeates
public discourse, policy makers are finding it difficult to explain to
their constituencies why cross-national solidarity is needed. The
utilitarian approach is now backfiring.
The European predicament points to the importance of building regions
with the people, not despite (or, worse, against) them. Setting up
institutions may be relatively easy for technocrats, but realising a
sustainable social, economic and political system is a different ball
game.
This is a problem African policy makers should be paying serious
attention to. Africa is replete with regional organisations but their
role is mostly ceremonial. There seems to be an unspoken tendency to
assume a system of regional governance must look like the EU to be
credible. The African Union has championed this kind of institutional
mimicry, with a similar flag, a commission, a continental (unelected)
parliament, and a vast array of bodies that resemble the EU architecture.
The reality, however, is that this formal setup, even if it were to
achieve the level of sophistication of Europe (from which Africa is a
far cry), would be fundamentally unsustainable without the continuous
support and contribution of African citizens, as the euro crisis reveals.
So, what to do? First, African policy makers should abandon simplistic
"copy and paste" approaches with a view to forging a system that
responds to the needs and expectations of African people. Unlike
Europeans, Africans have a strong sense of "Africanness". Even
political leaders, albeit rhetorically, make regular reference to
"being an African", something European national governments are loath
to do.
Many African languages are mutually comprehensible and there are
innumerable communities traditionally linked across national
frontiers. Borders are notoriously porous and regional migration is a
fact. While the spotlight is on the frail regional institutions of the
continent, our research shows there are myriad regional exchanges
happening below the radar screen at the grass-roots level across Africa.
Cross-border traders, kinship networks, and formal and informal
businesses are building a form of regional integration that has the
potential to make a real difference for African people. Official
institutions should support this form of "regionalism of the people",
rather than deny it or, even worse, oppose it.
Indeed, when informal systems of regional trade and movement are not
institutionalised, protected and regulated, they may easily produce
undesired effects. The well-known phenomenon of "Afrophobia" that
continues pestering SA, should be more correctly viewed as a case of
"war of the poor", with citizens blaming other citizens for their
precarious conditions, rather than a form of ethnic conflict. That
Pakistani, Bangladeshi and other poor communities are also being
attacked attests to the fact that this form of violence has more to do
with poverty than with being African. At a different scale and
intensity, it is not very different from the type of resentment
visible in Europe these days.
The only solution is to promote a form of regional integration that
puts people rather than markets at the centre. African leaders should
spend less time jetting from one summit to the next and focus more
closely on what works on the ground. Regional social security
mechanisms, circular migration systems and alternative currency
networks for small traders are just some examples of governance
innovations advocated by civil society groups that would not only
strengthen development, but also ease tensions across the region.
Ultimately, if integration does not improve the wellbeing of the
people, what is it for?