The EU must build on past successes


As it faces fresh challenges, Europe should remember that neither economic integration nor convergence among member states was inevitable. 6park.com
面对新的挑战，欧洲应该记住的是，不管是经济一体化还是成员国之间经济发展水平趋同，都不是理所当然的事情。



The EU confronts huge challenges. These include accelerating innovation, deepening financial integration, protecting its security and maintaining the values of freedom, democracy and social welfare on which its society has been built since the second world war. None of this will be easy given the adverse changes the bloc now confronts, not least the political disarray in France and Germany. Yet, in confronting its future, it can build on great historic successes. The EU has, after all, managed to enlarge and extend its union over almost seven decades (and longer still if one goes back to the European Coal and Steel Community, created in 1951). 6park.com
欧盟面临巨大挑战。这些挑战包括加速创新、深化金融一体化、保护自身安全以及维护自由、民主和社会福利价值观这些自二战以来欧洲社会的基石。考虑到欧盟目前面临的不利变化，尤其是法国和德国出现的政治混乱，这些事情都不容易实现。然而，通过直面未来的挑战，欧盟可以再续它伟大的历史性成功。毕竟，欧盟在近70年的时间里成功地扩大和扩展了它的联盟（如果追溯到1951年创建的欧洲煤钢共同体(European Coal and Steel Community)，时间就更长了）。 6park.com
    6park.com
EU enlargement took it from an initial membership of only six (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) to today’s 27 (down from 28, alas, after Brexit). It is not just enlargement that has been remarkable, but the extent of economic convergence among members. As Annette Bongardt and others noted in 2013: “One can broadly distinguish three phases in the EU convergence at the country level: 1) 1950-1973 — convergence of western Europe to US living standards; 2) 1974-1993 — convergence of northern and southern Europe to continental Europe; 3) 1994-2010 — convergence of eastern Europe towards western Europe. This convergence process has been broad-based and robust, with only Italy starting to diverge in the third period due to lower GDP growth.” Then, after 2013, the shock of the Eurozone financial crisis occurred, which created significant divergence, for a while. There has also been the faster recent productivity growth of the US in the recent past, which I looked at last week. 6park.com
欧盟扩容使其从最初的6个成员国（比利时、法国、德国、意大利、卢森堡和荷兰）发展到今天的27个成员国（英国脱欧前本来有28个）。令人瞩目的不仅是欧盟的扩大，还有成员国之间经济发展水平趋同的程度。正如安妮特•邦加特(Annette Bongardt)等人在2013年指出的那样：“在国家层面上，人们可以大致区分这种趋同的三个阶段：1)1950年至1973年——西欧与美国生活水平趋同；2)1974-1993年——北欧和南欧向欧洲大陆趋同；3)1994-2010年：东欧向西欧趋同。这一趋同过程是广泛而强劲的，只有意大利在第三阶段由于国内生产总值(GDP)增长放缓而开始掉队。”随后，在2013年之后，欧元区金融危机的冲击发生，又让这种趋同在一段时间内发生了明显的逆转。最近，美国的生产率增长速度也有所加快，我不久前的文章探究了这个问题。 6park.com
    6park.com
Of the nine countries that joined the EU between 1973 and 2000, all but one (Greece, alas) had raised GDP per head (at purchasing power parity) relative to the average of the original six by 2023. Ireland was, by a huge margin, the winner. But, given the role there of foreign direct investment, GDP was 30 per cent higher than gross national income in 2023. Again, all the 13 countries that joined between 2004 and 2013, mostly from central and eastern Europe, raised their GDP per head relative to the original EU six, some of them by huge proportions. Poland’s real GDP per head, for example, rose from 40 per cent of the EU six level in 2004 to 73 per cent in 2023. (See charts.) 6park.com
在1973年至2000年间加入欧盟的9个国家中，除了一个国家（唉，是希腊）之外，到2023年，人均GDP（按购买力平价计算）与最初的6个成员国之间的差距都缩小了。遥遥领先的最大赢家是爱尔兰。但考虑到外国直接投资在爱尔兰扮演的角色，2023年的GDP比国民总收入(GNP)高出30%。同样，2004年至2013年间加入欧盟的13个国家（大部分是中欧和东欧国家），人均GDP与最初的6个成员国之间的差距也都缩小了，其中一些是大幅缩小。例如，波兰实际人均GDP从2004年占欧盟6个最初成员国水平的的40%，升至2023年的73%。（见图表）。 6park.com
    6park.com
To provide a comparison with a country of a similar size, yet outside the EU, Ukraine’s real GDP per head rose from 28 per cent of the EU six average in 2003 to a mere 31 per cent in 2021 and down to 28 per cent in 2023, after Vladimir Putin’s onslaught. Turkey, though outside, did well. Yet a reason for that was the (fading) hope of membership, which drove policy until the mid-2010s. 6park.com
乌克兰提供了一个与波兰规模相似但又没加入欧盟的参照物，乌克兰的实际人均GDP从2003年占欧盟6个最初成员国平均水平的28%，上升到2021年的31%，在弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)发动战争后2023年又降至28%。土耳其虽然没加入欧盟，但表现不错。然而，表现不错的原因之一是加入欧盟的希望（这希望如今日益稀薄），这种希望在2010年代中期之前一直驱动着政策方向。 6park.com
    6park.com
What has happened to US neighbours is nothing like what happened inside the enlarged EU. Mexico, the most important by far, has gone backwards: its real GDP per head fell from 35 to 29 per cent of US levels between 2004 and 2023, despite the opportunities supposedly afforded by its free trade agreements. 6park.com
发生在美国几个邻国身上的事情，与扩容后的欧盟内部的情况完全不同。重要性显着最高的墨西哥还走了下坡路：在2004年至2023年期间，其实际人均GDP从美国水平的35%降至29%，尽管理论上自由贸易协定会为它提供机会。 6park.com
    6park.com
The fundamental difference between EU enlargement and Mexico’s agreements with the US is that the former is both institutional and normative: it offers a route to becoming European. The US cannot offer that. On the contrary, the US social pathologies I recently discussed pour over its border, as it exports guns and imports drugs. This fuels gangsterism and devastates the rule of law. Given anxiety over the immigrants coming across the border, why don’t Americans try harder to make the fragile countries of this region more prosperous? Yet similarly, the EU has done too little for the Middle East and north Africa. 6park.com
欧盟扩容与墨美间协议的根本区别在于，前者既是制度性的，也是规范性的：它提供了一条成为欧洲国家的途径。美国无法提供这个。相反，随着美国出口枪支、进口毒品，我最近讨论过的美国社会病正在蔓延到国境以外。这催化了黑帮行为，破坏了法治。考虑到对越境移民的担忧，为什么美国人不更努力地让这个地区脆弱的国家更加繁荣呢？不过同样的，欧盟在中东和北非也做得太少。 6park.com
    6park.com
EU success has been overwhelmingly internal. Even the Eurozone crisis of the 2010s has, despite mistakes made in creation and subsequent management of the currency union, been successfully overcome. Since 2020, all the crisis-hit countries have done better than Germany, including Greece and Spain. 6park.com
欧盟的成功基本是在内部。即使是2010年代的欧元区危机（尽管欧元区货币联盟的创建和随后的管理都出现了错误）也已被成功克服。自2020年以来，所有遭受危机打击的国家，包括希腊和西班牙，表现都好于德国。 6park.com
    6park.com
Neither the economic integration of Europe nor the convergence among its member states was inevitable. It was the product of wise statecraft, some of it, ironically, going back to Margaret Thatcher’s promotion of the single market in the 1980s. Yet now come new and even bigger challenges. The security provided by the US will, at best, become far more expensive and, at worst, disappear altogether. Russia, backed by China, is a threat to Europe in the east. Ukraine, desperate to enjoy the blessings of being within the EU and Nato, is in danger of being abandoned by those who should know better. The EU’s ageing societies are raising fiscal burdens. Hostility to immigration is intensifying, while need for it is growing. Not least, as the Draghi report demonstrates, raising productivity growth — by building the digital economy, deregulating and deepening integration — is essential. 6park.com
欧洲的经济一体化和成员国之间的经济发展水平趋同都不是理所应当的。这是明智治理的产物，具有讽刺意味的是，其中一些可以追溯到玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)在上世纪80年代推动的单一市场。然而，现在出现了新的、更大的挑战。在最好的情况下，美国提供的安全也将变得更加昂贵，在最坏的情况下则将完全消失。得到中国支持的俄罗斯在东方对欧洲构成威胁。迫切希望加入欧盟和北约(Nato)的乌克兰正面临被那些不明智的人抛弃的危险。欧盟社会老龄化让财政负担越来越重。欧盟社会对移民的敌意正在加剧，而对移民的需求却在增长。尤其是，正如德拉吉(Draghi)的报告所表明的那样，通过建设数字经济、放松监管和深化一体化来提高生产率增长至关重要。 6park.com
    6park.com
Some way will also have to be found to form and implement a common foreign and security policy. There is also a need to agree a substantial rise in the EU’s fiscal resources, via its own taxes and borrowing capacity. That, in turn, will take the EU back to the debates of the early 1990s on political union. It will also be necessary to reduce the ability of recalcitrant members, such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, to block essential common policies. Many will say that all this is impossible. But there must be some benefits to flow from the removal of British recalcitrance. 6park.com
还必须找到某种方式来形成和实施共同的外交和安全政策。还有必要就这件事达成一致：凭借欧盟自身的税收和借贷能力来大幅增加欧盟的财政资源。而这反过来将把欧盟带回到上世纪90年代初关于政治联盟的辩论。同样有必要的是，让欧尔班•维克托(Viktor Orbán)领导的匈牙利等捣乱分子没那么容易阻挠重要的欧盟共同政策。许多人会说这一切都是不可能的。但英国这个捣乱分子已经不再是欧盟成员国肯定会有一些好处。 6park.com
    6park.com
Europe should not embrace a social model that risks delivering the US pathologies of premature death, mass murder and stratospheric rates of incarceration. Yet radical changes are essential. The survival of a Europe whole, free and fragile depends on whether Europeans have the bravery and the wisdom to rise to the challenges of today’s era. 6park.com
可能导致社会成员早死、无差别杀人和高得离谱的监禁率（像美国的情况）的社会模式不应是欧洲的选择。然而，激进的变革是必要的。一个完整、自由和脆弱的欧洲能否生存，取决于欧洲人是否有勇气和智慧直面当今时代的挑战。