Europe: a delayed train of ideas and ideals - Winner Europe Night Essay Contest

Thinking of Europe, I Ooften think of Dutch folk singer Guus Meeuwis. In his song ‘Per Spoor (Kedeng Kedeng), he sings the following:  ‘Kilometers spoor schieten onder mij door, ben onderweg naar jou, want ik ben weg van jou’ (Kilometers of railway roll away under me, I’m on my way to you, ‘cause you’re the way to me)

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Halfway through March 1957, a train carrying crucial documents heads for Italy, where the Treaty of Rome is to be signed on March 25. Due to rail delays in Switzerland, the treaty arrives at its destination too late. Extra assistants and students are hastily summoned to put the document together in Rome, but to no avail. When the treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) is signed, it is in fact an empty declaration: nothing more than a radiant cover page and a signing sheet for signatures.
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One of the European Union’s founding documents, the whistle signaling the departing train of the common market and shared ideals, turns out to be an empty shell.

Among the ruins of war throughout Europe, decades are spent building the common market: an economic force meant to transform the continent’s tendency toward war into mutual dependence and a shared purpose: collective prosperity on European soil. What begins as an economic project soon grows into a union of values. When the Iron Curtain falls in 1989 and Fukuyama heralds the end of history, an era of peace and prosperity seems all but assured.
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Guus Meeuwis continues:

 ‘Maar die had wat vertraging en mijn god, daar baal ik van,
omdat ik nu 10 minuten minder bij jou blijven kan’

(But the train it was delayed, and by God that sucks, 

since that means I get to spend less time with you)
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History proved more stubborn. The neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s cleared the way for rising populism and cultural revanchism. The democratization of the European institutions has proceeded in fits and starts. Nor has the European demos, the sense of a continental people, truly materialized.
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Like the treaty itself, the promises often turned out to be hollow. While Brussels busied itself debating enlargement, human rights repeatedly were at stake. Only a few years after the Treaty of Maastricht, genocide unfolded in Bosnia. Where the Netherlands, of all countries, played a decisive role. And while the EU’s communications department worked overtime to showcase the importance of the universal charger, a genocidal war begins in Gaza: sternly discussed, yet left without stern intervention. Even our own jeune premier seemed to regard the red-line protests mainly as an opportune piece of political performance art.
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This type of rundown offers little reason for hope. With a history like ours, cynicism is always lurking near. Yet empty promises do not necessarily imply impure intentions. That is why it remains crucial not to regard Europe’s unfulfilled promises as a settled fact, but rather as an opportunity to finally give real substance to the unwritten pages of the decades ahead.
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Ideally, the train would be rolled onto a shunting yard for a while. A proper round of maintenance would be in order, but these repairs will have to be carried out while the train is still moving.
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Institutionally, the greatest challenge lies in transforming internal relations into an instrument of external power. Trade frameworks once designed to prevent war must now serve as a defense against great powers, yet the political configuration for that is lacking. The European Commission was established as a body for policy preparation, not as a geopolitical power center. And the effectiveness of the European Council is further constrained by leaders sympathetic to Russia. Orbán’s echo in the Bulgarian prime minister Radev forms an obstacle,  though even the most powerful trains overheadline short circuit once in a while. 
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It remains a difficult fact to accept that even a paper reality as intricate as the European Union, where the wattage of vacuum cleaners is laid down in pages upon pages of documents, is ultimately still subject to the whims of the human psyche. A Spanish glimmer of hope can be found in the outspoken leaders who increasingly dare to stand up for dissenting positions. More of them should follow the example of President Sánchez: persistently calling out the hypocrisy surrounding the measures taken against Russia and Israel. 
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Guus Meeuwis concludes his song, by now in a melancholic minor chord, with:

‘Ik stap uit, kijk om me heen, even voel ik mij alleen 

Want ik zie haar nog niet staan. 

Maar vanachter een pilaar verschijnt haar lachende gezicht.

Voor mijn gevoel lijkt alles langzamer te gaan.’ 
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(I get off, look left and right, and for a moment I feel alone

‘cause I dont yet see her around

but from behind a pillar, her laughing face appears

I get the feeling everything slows down)

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Because there is hope hidden in the encounters. In the clustering nuclei of European citizens. People who form a community not because of politics, but despite it. The question, then, is not only whether Europe still dares to promise its core values anew, but above all: do we still dare to believe they can be fulfilled?

The train full of ideals may have been delayed, but it can finally move forward again. Everyone on board? Doors closed? Then let the whistle blow! Clackety-clack, choo choo!

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