欧盟应包容异见

Since anything that can be mis-understood will be misunderstood, I must start with some disclaimers. I am not urging the EU should end. Like the Holy Roman Empire, it may spend many years in gentle decline doing little good and little harm. Nor am I urging that the UK or any other member state should leave the EU. What I am saying is that the EU no longer deserves the devotion of practical idealists. When voices in Paris or Berlin say the answer to any problem is “more Europe, by which they mean more centralised power to EU institutions, we should turn a deaf ear. And when some leaders say that “without the euro there is no Europe we should shrug our shoulders and look at an atlas to reassure ourselves.

由于一切可能被误解的事情都将遭到误解，我必须以免责声明开篇。我不是在敦促欧盟(EU)解体。就像神圣罗马帝国(Holy Roman Empire)一样，欧盟可能要在很多年内缓慢衰落，既无益也无害。我也不是在敦促英国或者任何其他任何成员国退出欧盟。我想说的是，欧盟不再值得务实的理想主义者热爱。当巴黎或者柏林有声音表示，任何问题的解决方法都是“更加欧洲化，即增强欧盟机构的集权时，我们应该置若罔闻。当某些领导人表示，“没有欧元就没有欧洲时，我们应该耸耸肩，看看地图册，好让自己安心。

Although there was always a strong federalist element in the background, the post-1945 European movement began in earnest with the Schuman Plan, designed to integrate German and French coal and steel industries so that war between the two countries would be impossible. There followed the common market, designed to free up trade in western Europe; and I can remember urging Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister, to get on with his application to join. But as time went on, the EU, as it became, acquired more and more ambitions and a whole cadre of eurocrats developed, concerned with increasing EU power and influence for its own sake. At this point they lost me.

虽然一直以来总是充斥着强烈的联邦主义元素，但1945年后的欧洲一体化进程是从舒曼计划(Schuman Plan)正式开始的。该计划旨在整合德国和法国的煤炭和钢铁工业，以避免两国爆发战争。在那之后建立起了旨在实现西欧贸易自由化的共同市常我记得自己曾敦促英国首相哈罗德·麦克米伦(Harold Macmillan)申请加入共同市常但随着时间推移，欧盟变得野心膨胀，涌现出了一批欧共体官员，他们关心的是如何增强欧盟自身的权力和影响。这时我就对他们失望了。

In recent economic policy it has achieved the worst of both worlds. It has constructed a network of regulation and red tape, of which business rightly complains. But it has combined this with highly restrictive macroeconomic policies, suggesting that the Bourbons in charge have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the catastrophic experiences of the 1930s.

欧盟近期经济政策在两个方面都糟糕透顶。首先是构建了一套繁琐的规章制度，企业对此理所当然地抱怨。但这套规章制度又与高度限制性的宏观经济政策结合起来，表明极端保守的政治领导人们从20世纪30年代的灾难经历中“什么都没学会，也什么都没忘记。

Mario Monti, the “technocrat now leading Italy, has said that his role model is Luigi Einaudi, the distinguished anti-fascist economist who became the country’s second president after the second world war. But in Einaudi’s time the world was a seller’s market; and a courageous government only had to restrict home demand for buyers to come to its doorstep. Today such orthodox policies would have to be accompanied by a free exchange rate, ruled out by the euro.

现在领导意大利的“技术官僚马里奥·蒙蒂(Mario Monti)曾言，他的榜样是杰出的反法西斯经济学家、在二战后成为该国第二任总统的路易吉·埃诺迪(Luigi Einaudi)。但在艾诺迪执政时期，世界正经历卖方市常一个有魄力的政府只要限制国内需求，阻止买方涌到政府门口。今天这种正统政策必须伴随着自由汇率，但欧元的存在已经排除了这种可能性。

Let us, however, continue in a lower key. The UK National Institute of Economic and Social Research recently published growth estimates for the EU showing no rise this year and 0.9 per cent for 2013. For the eurozone they showed rates of minus 0.4 per cent and plus 0.5 per cent respectively. For comparison global estimates are in the 3-4 per cent bracket. These may be swollen by high-fliers among emerging economies such as China. But even the US and Canada are shown with growth rates just above 2 per cent. The EU is also shown to be lagging in earlier years. And, for what they are worth, the forecasts show the gap increasing in years ahead. Nor by way of compensation are inflation rates any lower than the average of the OECD – if anything they are slightly higher. But to be fair they are slightly lower than the UK has achieved recently.

不过，我们要继续保持更低的姿态。根据英国国家经济社会研究院(National Institute for Economic and Social Research)最近发布的经济增长预测，今年欧盟经济不会出现增长，2013年将增长0.9%。欧元区今明两年的增长率将分别为-0.4%以及0.5%。相比之下，全球增长率预期在3-4%之间。而这一数字还可能被中国等一些新兴经济体拉高。但即使是美国和加拿大，经济增长率预计也将略微超过2%。欧盟在早些年也表现落后。而且，该研究院的预测（我们姑且相信）显示，未来几年这种差距将越来越大。另一方面，通胀率也不低于经合组织(OECD)的平均水平——甚至还会略微高一些。但平心而论，欧盟的通胀率略低于英国在近期的通胀水平。

Tim Congdon, the economist, has estimated that EU membership costs equivalent to 10 per cent of UK gross domestic product. This should not be brushed aside because the research is published by the UK Independence party, for whom Mr Congdon stood at the last general election. The biggest losses are shown to be the “costs of regulation. But the next biggest item is said to be the costs of resource misallocation, no longer mainly the common agricultural policy, but other backdoor protection. However I disagree with Mr Congdon in attaching a negative to the free movement of labour in the EU. This is a gain in human rights terms, not expressible in terms of GDP. Such free movement does not apply across the Atlantic nor the Commonwealth. It should be preserved in any future, looser UK- EU arrangement.

经济学家提姆·康登(Tim Congdon)估计，欧盟成员国的身份导致英国损失了10%的国内生产总值(GDP)。我们不应把这份研究结果置之不理，因为这是由英国独立党(UK Independence party)发布的，康登曾代表该党参与上次大眩最严重的损失为“规则的代价。第二严重的项目则是资源配置不当的成本，这里主要指的是不再实行共同农业政策，而是其他“后门保护。不过，对于康登否定欧盟内部劳动力自由流动的观点，我不能认同。从人权的角度来看，这是一种进步，无法体现在GDP中。这种劳动力自由流动没有出现在大西洋两岸之间，也没有出现在英联邦内部。这一点在未来任何更为松散的英国-欧盟安排中均应得以保留。

But the most devastating case against the EU’s direction of movement is provided unintentionally by a federalist MEP, Andrew Duff, in a Policy Network booklet “On Governing Europe. His object is to try to make sense of the complex network of bodies, policy chiefs, bailout funds, international agreements and much else that has emerged since the financial crisis. He makes a man-sized attempt and remembers to mention the idiotic commitment to balanced budgets. The author hopes yet another treaty revision conference in 2015 will make sense of these arrangements. Anyone who supposes that this rigmarole will advance the welfare of Europe’s citizens is an optimist indeed; and Mr Duff has little hope of convincing his fellow Brits, as his last few pages explain how the UK can remain honourably on the sidelines.

但不支持欧盟前进方向的最有力理由却是拥护联邦制的欧洲议会议员安德鲁·迪夫(Andrew Duff)无意中提供的。他为政策网络(Policy Network)智库编撰了一本小册子，叫做《论治理欧洲》(On Governing Europe)，他的目的是弄清楚各种机构、政策负责人、纾困基金、国际协议以及金融危机后涌现出的其他事物所构成的复杂网络。他做出了巨大的努力，还不忘提到有关预算平衡的愚蠢承诺。该作者希望在2015年再次召开欧盟条约修订会议将使这些安排变得有条理。如果有人认为这番长篇大论能够促进欧洲公民的福祉，那真是不折不扣的乐观主义者。迪夫也并不期盼能让他的英国同胞信服，因为他在最后几页解释了英国如何能够体面地置身事外。

But of one thing I am sure. I know the language of intolerance and authoritarianism when I hear it. Words such as unthinkable, unmentionable and undiscussable are hurled at anyone who dares question EU orthodoxy, not only on the euro. Even if everything else in this article is wrong, EU intolerance of criticism is enough to turn me off the project.

但有一件事我是确定无疑的。我能够分辨出什么是不宽容和威权主义的言辞。不可想象、难以启齿、无从讨论等字眼被用来攻击任何胆敢质疑欧元合法性甚至欧盟正统性的人士。即便本文的所有观点都是错误的，欧盟不能容忍批评的做法已经足以使我反感一体化进程了。