Anecdote on Liberation

A short anecdote to complement my last post. My British grandfather was sent from his headquarters in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) by Mountbatten to Normandy for the D-Day landings to observe and take detailed notes that could be used to inform the planning of a large amphibious assault on Burma.

The assault never happened, but my grandfather's notes remain, and I recently had a quick look through. They are filled with technical details about logistics and weapons, but also contain a diary in which he recorded some more personal impressions.

One of my favourite entries recalls a conversation with a Norman farmer, who complained that he had suffered more damage and property loss at the hands of British soldiers in 4 days of liberation than he had suffered in 4 years of German occupation.

A further remark was tha the discipline of American soldiers appeared to be much better than that of the British.

The first entry was interesting to me because it brought home the reality of war for an individual. I suspect the farmer was delighted to be liberated from German occupation. But that would not have lessened his anger at the British looters, and may have coloured his feelings of affection for the brave boys are so lionised in the UK for saving our allies.

And the second tickled me because the Brits love to think that Americans are uncouth and ill-mannered.

The truth is never as simple as it appears.

WWII and nationalism

The anniversary of the start of the Second World War has been fairly extensively covered in the media and in the Brussels blogosphere. You can see some examples here, here, and here.

As I get older and wiser, I am increasingly struck by the way states use history, and the history of war in particular. To put my remarks into context, I'll start with what seem to me to be factual observations about WWII. Some can be applied to war in general:

1. War was/is declared by governments and not by popular votes.

2. Most countries involved in the Second World War experienced a degree of internal societal division about it, ranging from which side to fight on, to what form of political organisation to create to cope with the new reality.

3. Individual men and women have radically different personal circumstances and make personal choices for accordingly radically different reasons.

In this context, it is striking to see how many nationalists from the victorious countries (UK, Russia, and USA in particular) are seeking to use the anniversary to promote an image of their countries that distorts reality. Equally, commentators from "victim" countries such as Poland or France, seem to be promoting interpretations that emphasise the injustice of what was done to them and the sufferings that their people endured. Commentators from "losing" countries, such as Germany, it seems to me, have a health and objective approach to the role of the state in the war and the sufferings endured by "victim" countries ("we feel bad about it"), but are rarely seen to discuss the sufferings of their own people. While it is good form for a Pole to bemoan the sufferings of his people at the hands of the Nazis, it is not such good form for a German to bemoan the sufferings of his people at the hands of the RAF or the Red Army. Note that I am talikng here about civilian populations.

The result is more than a passing atmosphere of triumphalism in the victor countries every 5 or 10 years, a passing atmosphere of the culture of victimhood among occupied or persecuted populations, and a passing atmosphere of humble introspection among the Germans and Japanese in particular. It is in fact a fundamental divide in how war is viewed in our countries.

In France, they tend to talk about the suffering experienced, but gloss over the political leadership that founded Vichy France and the crimes of the collaborators. In Poland, they talk about the terrible destruction of the country and mind-boggling loss of life, but try not to discuss the fact that millions of Poles fought for the Soviets and for the Germans as well as for the Allies.

As someone with a background primarily rooted in the victor countries, I can remember being taught and believing that "thousands and thousands of our countrymen died so that we could have a free country", or "died for democracy", or "sacrificed their lives for us" or "died on the battlefields in defence of our allies", etc. Every Memorial Day in the U.S. and Day in the UK full of speeches about national heroes. They glorify "our brave soldiers", and by implication, "our great nation". No one asks why individual men actually fought. Many many thousands undoubtedly fought for money. Many fought because they wanted a good fight. Many fought because their mates were fighting. Many fought because they were afraid of the Germans or the Japanese. Many fought for the British Empire. Many fought against their will. Many fought because they had nothing better to do. Most of them probably had some sense that they were fighting for their families and their communities, and in maney cases even some sense that they were fighting "for their country". I'll wager that nothing but a tiny minority consciously fought "for democracy". Indeed, we entered the war because of an existential threat, and not because we already had a blueprint for a democratic post-war Europe. We didn't. And yet here we are, 70 years later, effectively hijacking these peoples' lives for political ends. We are de-humanising war.

Only the Germans publicly take responsibility for the massacre of Europe's Jewry, for the terrible crimes of the SA, SS, Gestapo, the Wehrmacht, and other arms of the state, as well as thousands of individuals. No conquering war heroes in German schoolbooks - only warnings about the horrors of war. There is no introspection in British or American schools to speak of about the crimes committed by "our boys". Crimes? What crimes? They were liberators!

The fact is that WWII, like any war, was a horrible, individual human tragedy on an unimaginable scale. People died, were made homeless, witnessed the stuff of nightmares. And those people had to live or die with their choices. The choices were forced on them by states. And yet in many cases, those same states have the audacity to claim the right to interpret and advertise those individual tragedies as part of a national narrative without the consent of the individuals concerned.

I have lost count of the number of times hat I have heard Brits express suspicions that the EU is really a clever way for the Germans to take over again. The reality is that the threat to peace in Europe comes from those countries who have sold a distorted version of their history to their people for political benfit, but at an enormous social price. It certainly does not come from Germany.

Germany has managed to re-discover a cultural and political identity that does not need the glorification of the state through long-dead war heroes who can't express their views. Germany has grown up in a way that most other European countries (and te USA) have not. And for that, Germany and the Germans deserve our special thanks and respect.

A Quiet Revolution

Back to one of my favourite topics: the Services Directive. This isn't an excuse for me to publish that picture of the Polish plumber again, although I suppose I might secretly be hoping that readers think he's me...!

No, I really want to share my views and hopefully stimulate some discussion on the effects of the Directive. My line of argument is essentially that the Directive's main benefits will come in areas completely unrelated to the subjects of heated political debate. I remember distinctly the times when PES (Socialist) and EPP-ED (Christian Democratic) groups stopped talking to each other in the European Parliament's internal market committee. I remember the tortuous negotiations that addressed the precise wording of the Country of Origin Principle (now renamed the Freedom to Provide Services Principle). I remember the painfully detailed discussions on precisely what administrative requirements for establishment of new businesses should be banned or reviewed or allowed. I remember the farcical horse-trading that went on over the scope: health services, public services, education, gambling, temporary work...in or out?

There was also a surreal moment when I saw a news item on Belgian television about the anti-Services Directive demonstrations in Brussels organised by the trades union movement. The journalist interviewed a Polish union member holding a placard written in French, who said that he was against the Directive because he, as a Polish worker, wanted to be able to work in Germany for German wages and not Polish wages. It was surreal because he clearly had been bussed to Brussels on the basis of a plain lie about the contents of the Commission proposal - the proposal specifically said that workers posted in other Member States would work under local labour conditions, specifically including wages. He was actually fighting against the cause he claimed to be fighting for. But the irony didn't stop there. It was of course even more surreal because it was widely believed (and in fact explicitly claimed by the trades unions movement) that Polish workers overwhelmingly wanted to come to the West to work for lower wages than locals.

Joking apart, it was a significant moment in my life, when my view of politics changed abruptly, and I saw much more clearly than ever before how cynical people could be when seeking to achieve a political goal. hroughout he debate on the Services Directive, it mattered little to the unions or their opponents what logic they used, as long as they could make a big media impact. It was media coverage the politicians were counting on to win their battles on the Services Directive, and not the strength or consistency of their arguments.

All this is really to set the scene for my main point. Which is that while these battles were being fought, the parts of the Directive that I think will have the biggest long-term impact on the single market were being quietly nodded through. I suspect this was partly because the articles concerned were quite boring and therefore less likely to make good press. I am, of course, referring to the articles on administrative simplification and administrative co-operation.

The Directive's high profile provisions on freedom of establishment, freedom to provide services, and the restrictions on administrative requirements, were essentially re-statements by the Commission of its interpretation of the Treaty and ECJ case law. None of this, despite the claims of the more passionate advocates and opponents of the proposal, was really innovative. It was simply an attempt by the Commission to force the pace of opening of the internal market for services by directly attacking common practices by protectionist Member State administrations through legislation. Had these proposals not been made, the ECJ and the Commission would have done the job eventually through case law and infringement proceedings.

The parts of the proposal that were new and innovative were those that addressed the most fundamental workings of national administrations. These will entail nothing short of a revolution in the way public administrations work in the EU. The Directive contains no less than 13 articles (well over a third of the content of the Directive) that touch on the way national administrations must change to serve the market and the citizen. I won't bore readers with a detailed list, so here are some headlines:

• simplification of procedures;
• points of single contact for businesses;
• rights to information for economic actors;
• procedures by electronic means;
• detailed obligations on mutual assistance for Member State administrations;
• rules on which Member State is responsible for supervision of various aspects of cross-border service provision;
• alert mechanisms when fraud is suspected.

The Commission is given some pretty impressive powers to harmonise implementation through comitology, particularly as regards the IT systems that will have to be set up to make all this work. The whole philosophy that drives these provisions is one that will strike those of you who are familiar with European public administrations as quite alien. National administrations will be obliged by the Directive to modernise and become more efficient, and to communicate systematically with counterparts in other Member States. The primary driver of all of this is the idea that the administration should facilitate, rather than control, economic activity. That philosophy is going to be a shock to most of the national administrations I have come across. Expect strikes and demonstrations as the Commission and Member States push modernisation through. ..

Polish Plumbers Apply Here!

The Polish plumber was the bogeyman of European politics for the two years that the Services Directive was going through co-decision in the EU institutions, coinciding with the accession of Poland and seven other former Communist Bloc countries - perhaps not quite a hate figure, but certainly feared as the symbol of Eastern European workers coming to Western Europe to "take our jobs", working for East European wages. The Polish tourist board outflanked French trade unionists by using humour and publishing the now-famous poster of a hunky, wrench-toting, pipe-wielding Polish plumber addressing French lady tourists saying, "Je reste en Pologne. Venez nombreux!"

At the time, the argument went something like this: Polish plumbers will come in large numbers to "old" EU countries like France and Germany, will price local competitors out of the market, and will not contribute a penny to local taxes. This has all been proved to be nonsense by the UK and Ireland, which have no successfully hosted several hundred thousand Polish workers (not just plumbers), of whom the overwhelming majority pay taxes and fill labour shortages. Most EU Member States took advantage of a "phase-in period" for the freedom of movement for workers from the new Member States, and have seen very limited immigration. Germany and Austria retain these controls. What immigration there has been there seems to be part of the grey economy, with the workers legally present in the countries, but working illegally.

And now we have the German government acknowledging a skills shortage in Germany, and calling for immigration from the East to be made easier. Great! Let's all gloat at the Germans and say how pleased we all are that they were wrong. And wrong they undoubtedly were. But is it really that simple?

Now, I'm not an economist, but I know for a fact that Poland is facing severe shortages of skilled construction workers, and yes, plumbers! Word is, you can't get hold of a decent plumber anymore, because all the best, most enterprising ones, have moved West. Can it really be that good for Poland to lose large numbers of its best and brightest? Sure, it makes the government's drive to cut unemployment much easier - the stats are good even taking into account the fact that many who are working abroad are claiming unemployment benefits at home.

There seems to be a consensus that most of the emigration is temporary, that workers are sending money home and will return when the Polish economy begins to catch up. That may be the case, but in the meantime, Poland and some of the other new Member States are making do with shortages of their own.

Shouldn't this really be about addressing the need for better education and training in all EU countries, rather than moving skilled workers from low-wage countries to high-wage countries? Isn't the issue here that all EU countries need these workers, and aren't we making a mistake if we seek to solve the problem only through labour mobility?

Don't get me wrong - I am not in favour of closing the borders. But I don't see governments addressing this in a way that is sustainable for Europe - the German government has little interest in what's happening in Poland; it wants to find the easiest way to fix the skills shortage. Shouldn't policy be more consistently directed at addressing the underlying structural problem?

I don't know. Maybe national governments are taking this seriously and are doing lots to increase the skills of the local labour force, and the media aren't reporting on it. But I have my doubts.

I have a confession to make: I have used a Polish plumber, a Polish handyman, and a Polish-owned Belgian construction company here in Brussels. They are competitive on price, especially for the small jobs, and they do good work. By contrast, my experiences with Belgian plumbers have invariably been negative: rude, incompetent, late, untidy, and expensive. The Poles are "incontournable" in Brussels, but I expect the locals still rule the roost outside the big city.