Would an EU collapse change multilateralism?

The Eurozone crisis has taken a holiday respite. But have no doubt; it will be back after the New Year, and likely more intense than ever. A number of troubled European sovereigns have large borrowing needs in the first quarter of the year. All the frenetic summitry of the last few months hasn’t altered the fundamental reality is that neither Europe nor the international community–working through the IMF– have fashioned an effective short-term firewall, and the markets know it.

That failure means there’s still a real possibility that the Eurozone–and perhaps the European Union itself–will fragment. There’s been plenty of speculation about what a chaotic unraveling of the European project might mean for the world economy (nothing good). But what would it mean for the broader project of international organization? The EU is not just a critical economic bloc and the home of a leading reserve currency, it’s also the most advanced form of organization between sovereign states. For those of us particularly interested in that project, a serious setback to the EU would have important practical and theoretical consequences.

Most obviously, an EU fragmentation would be a blow for the worldview that insists the world is evolving toward more and more institutionalized cooperation. Since the Cold War’s end, in particular, there’s been an almost inexorable growth in institutionalized cooperation. First, the United Nations revived from its Cold War slumber and returned to the center of world politics. NATO and the EU itself expanded and took on new tasks.  The IMF and World Bank absorbed most members of the former Communist world, making those institutions truly global for the first time. In 1995, the GATT became the much more advanced World Trade Organization, which boasts a binding adjudication system. In 2002, the International Criminal Court opened its doors. The EU’s fragmentation–or even substantial downsizing–would represent a dramatic turn in this trajectory.

An EU failure could be particularly consequential for other regional organizations that have used the EU as a blueprint. The African Union, for example,  has institutions that bear an uncanny resemblance to those in Brussels. Would an EU collapse lead the AU to revisit its design? At the very least, a humbled EU would become a less attractive model for evolving regional blocs and perhaps reduce the appeal of regional organization altogether. The Eurozone crisis should have already reminded states that formally hitching their fortunes to those of others can be perilous. 

On the international stage, the EU has represented an important negotiating bloc in international trade negotiations and on most economic and financial deliberations. The EU states typically work out joint positions on the IMF and World Bank executive boards and at international conferences on issues from climate change to arms control.  The EU itself is a member of the G-20, the only regional organization accorded that honor. This united European voice often annoys others, but it also simplifies already bewildering international negotiations, which  may become even more unwieldy if Europe no longer speaks with one voice.  And while a common European foreign and security policy has always been more an aspiration than a reality, a fracturing of the EU would deal that project a stiff blow. The EU’s new diplomatic arm, the External Action Service, could be left adrift, a bureaucratic relic of a more hopeful time.

But not all the consequences of an EU collapse would necessarily be doleful for multilateralism. The cracking of the EU model might encourage less imitation and more innovation in regional organization; the idea that EU-type institutions could simply be transplanted to other regions was always far-fetched.

In the United States, it’s even possible that an EU crackup would improve the mood of conservatives about international cooperation. The EU, after all, embodies several conservative fears about international cooperation. First, it suggests that cooperation will necessarily push states leftward–toward greater taxation, social spending, and environmental regulation. Second, the EU project has strongly  implied that modest, functional cooperation between states leads inexorably to the shedding of important sovereignty and perhaps ultimately to the disappearance of the sovereign state. That fear is central to conservative qualms about much more modest international  organizations, including the UN. For the most part, conservatives don’t object to UN peacekeeping missions in Sudan, WHO vaccination campaigns, or to the work of UNHCR with refugees around the world. What gives them nightmares is the nebulous project of "global governance," pregnant as it is with more menacing possibilities. If the EU fails, so too has the most outlandish experiment in shared sovereignty. And that just might make some wary Americans more amenable to the very modest multilateralism other international organizations offer.