What are European Union (EU) values? According to the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, in which they were defined, they are peace, democracy, respect for human rights, justice, equality, the rule of law and sustainability. Yet the Lisbon Treaty does not establish how EU institutions will uphold these values. Indeed, as sociologist Caroline Guibet Lafaye points out, “the existence of specifically European values is also called into question by the practices and the absence of policies to implement them.”

When these values were coined, they were conceived as something intrinsic to the EU. Rather than being aspirational, they have been incorporated in what European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen deems “the European way of life.”

But the EU is not an abstract concept or an idyllic “garden” for the rest of the world to admire, as outgoing High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell would like. The EU is an economic and political project that trumpets its values while simultaneously having the privilege of ignoring those values when they are politically inconvenient.

Though Borrell apologized for his Eurocentric metaphor, which likened the rest of the world to a “jungle,” this is how the EU wants to present itself. In contrast to this lofty image, though, the EU remains an economic and political project whose common policies include violating human rights at its borders. Indeed, in “Free: Growing Up at the End of History,” Lea Ypi writes about “the detention and repression of immigrants… pioneered in southern Europe” during the 1990s. She adds that “The West, initially unprepared for the arrival of thousands of people wanting a different future, would soon perfect a system for excluding the most vulnerable and attracting the more skilled, all while defending borders to ‘protect our way of life.'”

While preaching values of democracy and pluralism, the EU has never treated its members equally — as the 2008 economic crisis and COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated. It has perpetuated power dynamics between members in the north and south and continues to paternalize aspiring members in the Western Balkans and beyond. Moreover, it spares little expense in keeping people on the move — refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants — outside its borders, pouring money into the Libyan Coast Guard in an attempt to block people on the move from crossing the Mediterranean and deploying Frontex officials to Serbia’s borders with non-EU countries and other locations. 

The origin of European values

European integration originates with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. However, the EU traces its own history back to the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957 through the Treaty of Rome, which created a common market and fostered economic integration among the six founders — Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg the Netherlands and West Germany. 

The EEC became the EU in 1992 through the Treaty of Maastricht, which was updated in 2007 and became the Treaty on European Union. This treaty introduced the concept of European citizenship and emphasized the EU’s commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, embedding these values into the union’s institutional framework. The Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force in 2009, further solidified these values, officially designating them as the EU’s core principles.

The Treaty on European Union states: “The European Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society characterized by pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality between women and men.”

The treaty does not grapple with Europe’s colonial past or try to reconcile how countries who initially built wealth through colonial projects can style themselves as advocates of human dignity, freedom and minority rights. Until the EU accepts that past and recognizes the privileges some of its members have had as historical beneficiaries of colonialism, it will not be the moral example it claims to be. Believing that European colonialism — or colonialism in general — has been overcome in the last century is a profound error. Indeed, as Fraser Cameron and Shada Islam of the European Policy Center argue: “If the Union wants to realise its geopolitical ambition to be a global player, EU leaders should deal with the impact of past colonial misdeeds head-on and ensure that EU diplomats and younger Europeans are aware of how our history affects the present.”

Some EU states have made superficial efforts to reconsider their colonial pasts — France with Algeria, Belgium with the Belgian Congo, or Germany with Namibia — but others, such as Spain with the Spanish Saharraha and Latin America or Italy with its former colonies in Africa, resist. International relations scholar Anna Khakee notes that “this silencing of colonialism in combination with the EU’s ‘appropriation’ of democratic and human rights ideals has an important consequence: that the hegemonic discourses of the colonial era remain intact.”

Not all EU members have colonial pasts, but because of some of its members’ colonial and imperial legacies, the EU as a whole enjoys privileged access to the economic, political and social institutions of many now independent states formerly colonized by European powers. 

The EU’s system of treaties, rules and regulations with independent states in the global South carries the legacy of colonial domination. It falls into what French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah defined as “neocolonialism.” The marks of this system can be seen in many states that remain under its influence. 

Africa holds 30% of global mineral reserves, which are exploited by foreign companies often from former colonial powers. In Niger, for example, Areva, a nuclear services company whose majority owner is the French state, has maintained uranium mines since Niger’s independence from France in 1960, subcontracting most of its mining activity to foreign companies. As Marxist revolutionary and former President of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara put it, “those who have lent us money are the same people who colonized us. They are the same ones who managed our states and our economies. It is the colonizers who indebted Africa.”

The EU does not own universal social rights

The EU does not have morally superior values; it is a political project with a legal framework that seeks respect for certain social rights achieved throughout history. But as journalist Miquel Ramos argues, “the rights won within the countries of the union are not concessions, not even the fruit of a common identity, nor do they represent ‘European values’ as some say.” Instead, according to Ramos, “They were won thanks to social struggles a thousand times persecuted and repressed within that same EU.”

The EU’s claim to inherent “European values” in the Lisbon Treaty implies that the rights achieved through social movements never had to be fought for through tireless advocacy and often dangerous activism. It also leaves countries geographically in Europe but not in the EU in limbo: European by geography and history, not quite European in terms of values, as defined by the continent’s most powerful political institution. 

We can see examples of this fight for the values the EU claims taking place around the world, often in stark contrast to what is happening among EU members. For example, the Green wave in Argentina exemplifies defense of women’s reproductive rights at a time when Italy reportedly scratched the right to abortion from the G-7 joint declaration. Shouldn’t we learn from Maori resistance in New Zealand when the EU has so much work to do in respecting minority rights? Why don’t indigenous women in the Amazon’s struggle embody the fight for environmental conservation? 

The EU is no garden

The EU is not a “garden” where morally superior values protect its community; it is a group of countries that enjoy social rights achieved through the struggles of citizens — workers, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, climate change activists and more — who were criminalized by the same institutions that today have made them their own. 

It is happening now with protests in support of Palestine. While many across the continent demand a cease-fire in Gaza, Borrell, the EU High Representative, said that “we will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support to Israel.” This comes as EU members continue to sell weapons to Israel so that it can continue destroy life in Gaza in ways that have led to accusations of genocide.

Europe was the cradle of fascism, and the contemporary far right, this ideology’s direct heir, is not an external threat. Rather, it has emerged from within. In Ramos’ framing, “the EU is nothing more than an empty shell, a container that is progressively filled with the ingredients that history deposits in it.” He adds that “Colonialism, fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust are also part of Europe’s history. So, Europe is not in itself anything, nor are there any European values that define us.”

As the rise of the far right threatens these rights, it is crucial to recognize that the values the EU claims to uphold are not inherently European but are part of a broader, global struggle for justice and equality.

Feature Image: Atdhe Mulla / K2.0

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