Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

198 Norbert Cyrus
The differentiation into a multitude of groups and environments crosscutting
national boundaries means that German, French, Italian or Danish
people increasingly meet each other [but] not as representatives of national
collectives.
(Münch 2001: 291)
In the frame of these network structures, the strong collective solidarities, identities
and cultures will be replaced by a pluralism of heterogeneous and widely branched
associations and cultural patterns. The representation of huge masses of workers by
large trade unions will be replaced by the individual representation of interests
(Münch 2001: 223). In the long run nation-states with nationally based solidarities
and cultures will not be obstacles on the way to integration, because they will in any
event, diminish in significance:
The Europe of the future will be not a Europe of one’s native country and
national culture but the Europe of individuals acting self-responsibly and of a
plurality of self-reflexive biographies no longer bounded to a national frame of
reference.
(Münch 2001: 230)
Within such a framework, individuals inevitably have to and will adapt to the new
circumstances only by adapting quickly, as the only protection from insolvency
and unemployment (Münch 2001: 274). But is this simple dichotomic outline of
the prospective European development correct? Not only individual but also
collective actors have the capacity and the will to learn and to adapt to the changing
framework. As with individuals, collective actors have to learn to cope with the
increasing importance of Europe. Already in the early 1950s, German trade unions
had supported the idea of European integration for historical reasons: European
integration was principally supported as a forward-looking project to establish
welfare, employment and peace. Trade unions criticised the primarily economic
character of European integration, which was taking place at the expense of the
social dimension. But as long as Europe remained a more abstract and far away
phenomenon without a concrete impact on the domain of national trade union
interests, they were not really engaged at the European level. To summarise a long
and intricate story: German trade unions supported the idea of European integration
but ignored the process of European integration as long as organisational interests
were not affected (Streeck 1996; Dølvik 1997; Martin and Ross 1998).
Trade unions started to concern themselves with European affairs only when
they realised that decisions made in the European arena increasingly affected the
domestic situation. European directives and legislation increasingly interfered with
the structuring of industrial relations, which had hitherto been the exclusive domain
of national institutions and actors. The creation of the single labour market following
from the Treaty of Rome reduced the discretion to regulate industrial relations
according to the needs of nationally bounded actors. In Germany, legal barriers
preventing the employment of foreign workers from abroad – the 1973 recruitment