Richard Pine: Bewildered Greece becomes refugee from reality

There are three types of refugee in Greece today: Syrians, sun-seekers and citizens.

The Syrians seek refuge because they can’t go home. The sun-seekers are refugees from the northern darkness. And the citizens of Greece are seeking refuge from reality, because they, too, have nowhere else to go.

All are in a state of bewilderment. The Syrians do not understand the factors that have destroyed their country. The sun-seekers cannot believe that such a beautiful country can be so derelict. And the citizens of Greece do not themselves understand how, in this home of democracy, they have allowed such an appalling economic and political crisis to develop.

Heralding Slovakia’s presidency of the EU, the Slovak foreign minister emphasised security as the EU’s post-Brexit priority. Security of the economy, of jobs, of anti-terrorism and a mind-blowing “climate security”, as if one could harness the weather for the EU’s protection.

He says we must break the “vicious circle of endless discussions about the EU’s problems”.

If we admit that Europe has a problem, then how do we avoid discussing it? Only cutting the Gordian knot can demolish the problems, since we know from experience that if you try to go around them, they are still facing you as you approach the next crisis. And there is no European statesman capable of cutting that knot.

To say that Brexit has catalysed these issues is to miss the point: the chief threat to European stability is the mindless fear of otherness, epitomised by fear of Islam.

While one may deplore "honour killings" and other unpalatable aspects of Islamic law, and while the escalating activity of Isis is of course a cause for vigilance, it is nonsensical to project Europe's ills on to Islam, and even more stupid to identify the refugees on our borders as the advance force of some rabid virus that will destroy Christian Europe.

The refugees are seen not as an opportunity but a threat; not as an argument for assimilation but for rejection. And among them, the asylum-seekers are the most suspected, because, it’s assumed, if they want asylum they must have done something wrong in their own country and want to do it here too.

The recent UN summit on refugees in New York only made things worse. “An opportunity to come up with a blueprint” are simply windy words which, however noble in aspiration, are incapable of implementation.

You cannot eradicate the causes of migration anymore than you can stop a tsunami, so it is the mindset of the host countries that has to be redirected. If you can’t do that, you abuse the word “asylum”.

Forty years ago, as a consultant to the Council of Europe, I was commissioned to investigate the way culture is enacted by people at grassroots. Two facts were immediately evident: first, that there was an east-west split on the issue of authority – does it reside with the citizen or with the state?

Second, there was a north-south difference about how things get done – how we perceive ourselves, how we plan our lives and how we make things happen. The north – especially the Scandinavians and the Germans – was cold, pragmatic and calculating. The south – especially today's "PIGS" – was the opposite: spontaneous, emotional and devious. Ireland was somewhere in the middle.

Nothing has changed, and it explains why there is such a massive difference between the “work ethic” of the north and the “ergonomics” of the south.

At the Bratislava summit the fierce divisions between east and west (Hungary and Poland vs Brussels), north and south (Germany and France vs Italy) show that cultural differences so easily slip into disagreements about how our lives are to be lived.

German chancellor Angela Merkel urges that, in order to re-establish trust, politicians should "stick to the truth". This is an adhesion devoutly to be wished, but methinks the glue was never there. Truth? Politicians? And never the twain shall meet. It's a wonder that she could suggest it with a straight face.

When EU president Donald Tusk said that trust and confidence would be renewed when people realised that the leaders were "delivering on their promises", he was pushing hope beyond all known limits.

Plutocrats

Tusk admits that the EU isn’t perfect, but claims it is “the best instrument we have”. This ignores the fact that the more complex and extensive it becomes, the less capable it is of serving its citizens. But that’s not what it’s about, is it?

Leaving aside the external threats, the major systemic and organic sickness is the static and negative bureaucracy, the lack of transparency among the political elite, the untouchable plutocrats, and the everlasting dichotomy between north and south.

Next year, the EU celebrates the 60th anniversary of the original Treaty of Rome, establishing the European Economic Community. Since then, it has morphed into a political, legal and unethical union which has prostituted the vision of its founding fathers, Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann.

Personally, I will be happy when we have a Eurexit: Europe exiting itself with the departure of 27 more states from institutional spasticity, disingenuous politics, economic ruin and endemic, terminal turpitude.

Greek leader Alexis Tsipras left the Bratislava and UN summits bewildered. They had exacerbated, rather than solved, the refugee crisis; they had ignored the democratic deficit within the EU system; and they had done nothing whatever for his fellow citizens. He’s become a refugee, too.