Nachhaltiges Europa Abschlusspublikation - Global Marshall Plan

Wie nachhaltig ist grenzenloser Wettbewerb? 15
Rupert Schlegelmilch, Europäische Kommission, Referatsleiter Generaldirektion Handel
Those who formulate the themes for the meeting
go in for double meanings. “Grenzenlos” in the
sense of without borders or the sense of without
limits? I am afraid that we shall have to spend just
a little time at the beginning looking at some definitions
and sorting out the meaning of words and
concepts. But perhaps here, in the Patentamt, to
begin with some work on definitions is not the
problem that it might be in some other settings.
Let’s start with a relatively easy one: sustainabil-
ity. Without getting too philosophical (even though
this is a German audience), we have to begin by
reminding ourselves that sustainability is a challenge
to the natural order of time and space. En-
tropy, second law of thermodynamics, the limits of
the reach of our actions in the here and now, everything
points to sustainability being the one thing
that is guaranteed to be unattainable. That is why
the usual use of sustainability in Sustainable Development
definitions is deliberately reduced to
the human scale of a lifetime and what we can do
for our children – at least leave them no worse off
with the natural assets with which to make their
lives than we are as we try to make ours.
So we should remain realistic in our expectations,
and the benchmarks by which we judge developments
around us. When we ask about the sustain-
ability of „grenzenloser Wettbewerb” we can not
be saying (or should not be saying) “does this
phenomenon contribute to a world which we can
pin down and make into an ideal system that will
last for ever” Obviously not, but it is a connotation
that I think I can detect in the phrase, especially
when linked to the question of borders, the concept
I want to look at next.
Before I do that, though, let me acknowledge
straight away that “sustainable” is often used as
shorthand for “conducive to sustainable development”.
Thus “sustainable production and consumption”
does not mean that the particular con-
sumption and production patterns have to remain
immutable throughout time, only that the production
and consumption in question do not contribute
to preventing succeeding generations from producing
and consuming in their turn, and if they so
15 The author is indebted to Gareth Steel for substantive input.
Nachhaltiges Europa
choose, producing and consuming quite different
things from us. Let’s hope they do, in many cases.
So the “common sense” reading of our theme is to
do with the question about ecological and social illeffects
of globalisation. That is what is being de-
scribed as “grenzenloser Wettbewerb”.
If we are truly concerned about sustainability, it is
not only the social, environmental and economic
consequences of developments at home that
should concern us – there is after all only one
global environment, only one humankind, and
economics is not a zero-sum game, so we can aspire,
and should aspire, to a good standard of living
for all.
So now, what are borders for? In the traditional
nation state borders define very much more than a
territory. They define the space in which the people
live with whom one is supposed to feel uncon-
ditional solidarity. Within this space the same values
are shared, the same national story has been
enacted and related, the same laws prevail for
everyone and the chances of devising lasting societal
systems are vastly improved by reason of
prescribed limits to its coverage. National (and
European) borders serve as anchors against the
entropy (Greek entrope=change) and chaos of the
wider world and the still wider universe.
So how sustainable is „grenzenloser Wettbe-
werb“?
Against the ideal of sustainability we are invited to
judge something described as “grenzenlos”. On
the face of it we are being asked to think about
the problem of companies being able to shift their
production to developing countries where social
and environmental protection may not be as we
would wish, including the problem of their using
this possibility as a threat with which to ratchet
down standards at home. This conveys the idea of
the twin evils of job losses at home and social and
environmental damage in the world. But let’s pay
attention to the language a little – rather than the
economically positive concepts of labour flexibility,
job mobility, technology transfer, economic convergence,
the very phrase „grenzenloser
Wettbewerb” carries with it the condemnation we
feel for anything carried to excess: “your drinking
habits are without bounds”. It also conveys a psy-
chological difficulty of imposing a satisfactory or-
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