How to combine the tilted Titanic (EU) and a win scenario after Croatian EU accession?

On 9 December, Croatia signed the EU Accession Treaty. Despite all problems and incertitude concerning both the future of the European Union and the Eurozone, we should start reflecting upon the possibilities of future EU enlargement. The new Croatian government has announced that it will give strong support to further European integration efforts in other post-Yugoslav countries. Therefore, this month’s report brings an overview of integration capacities and challenges of the Western Balkans region.

How to combine the tilted Titanic (EU) and a win scenario after Croatian EU accession?

We hold that the EU is currently a titled Titanic which has a tendency of straightening its course and “mending” holes which are capillary filling with protruding ice-cold seawater. If that vessel gets back into shape and Croatian becomes the 28th EU member, the Croatian society can in the long term expect three non-material gains or a win scenario.

The first non-material gain in the win scenario is the establishment of institutional continuity in the long run. In this scenario we work with the idea of a Europe of peace, following Kant’s idealist concept
of “eternal peace”, i.e. the expectation that there will be no wars in Europe in the long run. In a societal “framework of peace” Croatian institutions would be able to develop without institutional breaks, building upon a concept of stability, development and creation of responsible national social elites, which would be a great breakthrough in comparison with the current “greed oligarchy” which established itself at times of transition or some other great historic moment of “playing around” with social masses. An explanation should follow! The explanation of this gain should include the negative historic experience of institutional breaks, discontinuity and violent “decapitation” of social elites in the period from 1918 to 1991. Bearing in mind the institutional breaks of 1918, 1941, 1945 and 1991 and decimated responsible social elite, we cannot even expect a law of institutional stability which would enable unhindered development and growth. The first gain can be deemed as an important social gain which enables development of a stable system or an EU subsystem. We could place this gain in the context of long-term rational construction of objective social reality. The establishment of institutional continuity
or the evolution of social institutions also means an institutional upgrading of democracy in Croatia which has, after only twenty years, “glided off” into post-democracy. The win scenario also means that
in terms of a post-democratic EU constellation the participative and control capabilities of Croatian citizens are strengthened in a way that the conduct of the domestic political oligarchy can be controlled. The domestic oligarchy will, due to glocalization of economic and political interests of upper classes of the supranational society, find its interests intertwined with the interests of the European oligarchy and technocracy. This process can be labeled as “stable institutional/social continuity”.

The second non-material gain is the establishment of the rule of law in order to eradicate bandit mentality and the Zeitgeist of the period where the saying was “one should not always blindly stick to the law”. The rule of law is in direct relation with the first non-material gain of the establishment of long-term institutional continuity. This gain can be labeled as “civilization breakthrough”.

The third non-material gain is the one which can occur by a “top-down modernization”. This modernization could incite processes of capillary top-down modernization of the society because of societal inertia and missing strong institutional centers of modernization at system level. Due to this lack, everything is left over to haphazard, coincidence, talented individuals and groups, attempts, mistakes, personal sacrifice, etc. A “top-down modernization” would mean an emission of modernization standards, norms, values and technologies from the “center” and their acceptation in the society we live in. This would mean an accommodation of the modernization imbalance to developed centers. Yet, here one would have to be careful not to create a “cultural colony” which would only accept and not produce anything and would not establish a constructive and winning interaction with the EU. We shall label this gain as the “establishment of societal compatibility with the big society of the 21st century”.

These are the three potential gains. All other things are uncertain because we are entering a space of ruthless socio-Darwinist game drawn with the chalk of incertitude. Whether one will be a winner or a loser in that game will depend on several things. On the individual level, it is a matter of work ethics. Without it, there cannot be any success and survival. Also, there will be no success and survival without knowledge and continuous education, mastering of new information and communication technologies, knowledge of foreign languages, the will to mercilessly compete with others, self-respect and self-confidence. With low self-esteem and self-confidence we will not achieve much. In primary and secondary socialization, we should develop and encourage traits of self-esteem and self-confidence in order not to remain overshadowed by Others. The success of the society will depend on the way individuals treat each other and themselves. As we can see, the benchmark has been set high. Due to the ways the EU building is constructed, the “elites”, i.e. the upper strata are closer to this benchmark. Habermas therefore speaks of the EU as a building with an elitist form. Yet, what will happen to “the rest” of the society is hard to tell. The ones which achieve to reach this benchmark should tell others how they have managed to do so and will thus help others to also successfully master this.

Professor Anđelko Milardović, PhD
scientific advisor at the
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb
director of the Political Science Research Centre, Zagreb

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