The last ‘Euroskeptic’ President in Europe, Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, has surrendered to the seemingly-inevitable and signed the Lisbon Treaty, thus committing his nation to this sad, strange chapter of European history.

Klaus has few doubts about what the Lisbon Treaty means for his nation; thus he delayed signing the treaty until the nation’s high court proclaimed it was compatible with the republic’s constitution. Despite the court’s declaration, Klaus maintained the treaty means the end of the republic’s sovereignty. According to an article at the Wall Street Journal’s website:

In Prague, Mr. Klaus said that while he expected and respected the court's decision, he "absolutely" doesn't agree with it. "The Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state" after the Treaty comes into effect, he said. The court's decision dismissed arguments filed in September by a group of Czech senators allied to the president.

For months, the euroskeptic Mr. Klaus was himself the treaty's biggest obstacle. He had refused to sign despite approval by the Czech parliament and prime minister. But he relented last week after the other countries agreed to let the Czech Republic have an exemption from an EU bill of rights.

Making matters even worse was the announcement by the UK’s Conservative Party that there would not be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if the Conservative Party comes to power. The announcement clearly signals that it is ‘safe’ to allow the party’s comeback, since it means there will be no meaningful reversal of the most deleterious decisions made in recent years. As in the U.S., the “conservative” opposition in the UK usually simply means the “less honestly liberal” party.

The final signature to the Lisbon Treaty comes at the same time that the fault lines of the European Union are readily in evidence. Tensions are running high between nations of Eastern and Western Europe over which of them will get stuck paying for the global welfare system to be formally proposed at the upcoming UN Climate Conference. If their nations mean little to them in terms of history and culture, the national bureaucracies at least still covet their tax revenues.

There is something tragically absurd about the transformation of Europe; childless and faithless, it seems hard to believe that the nations limping into the EU actually are descended from the countries which once built cathedrals, gave voice to their beliefs and aspirations through the arts, ruled empires, and settled the New World. The farce which is modern Europe seems to be perfectly summarized by a leading contender for the role of first President of Europe, Tony Blair, a man whose record in public life has always felt like a particular strange Monty Python skit.

Looking across the Atlantic, the dread which Edmund Burke once expressed as he looked across the English channel gains a new poignancy. The lingering death of Europe — politically and demographically — seems to presage the shape of a new dark age, just as the course of the murderous Jacobins announced a pattern which endured among the sociopathic utopians from their own generations through the various flavors of socialism which followed after them. The European Union is not actually built on a shared history and common culture; rather, it is built on an shared antipathy for everything which once made its member nations great, each in their own way. A motivating impulse behind the drive for union is the lust for power — not because one wishes to do great things with such power, but because of an innate sense in the current generation that there was something shameful about the particularity and limitations of scale which characterized the individual European nations.

No longer content to be German, French, Italian, Swedish or Dutch — and unwilling to bear the children necessary to provide another generation of citizens known by such nationalities, anyway — the faithless, barren, ahistorical postmodern ‘European man’ seems bent on bequeathing to those who will live on the lands which were once the nations of Europe a land which has been scoured clean — spiritually, intellectually, and sometimes physically — of the centuries of civilization which were peculiarly his own.

America now manifests ample signs of the same disease to which the nations of Europe have succumbed. Torn apart by hostile pressure groups and the incoherencies of various ideological sects — all of which find their unity only in a hatred for this nation which their spiritual cousins have demonstrated toward the nations of Europe — it is not enough simply to fight against such disparate groups. Rather, we must rediscover once again the heritage which is peculiarly our own, rebuilding the foundations of our civilization around each hearth.

The European Union will certainly not arrest the trends which are leading the continent to ruin; it is folly to envy or fear the power and wealth which will result from the granting of more power and centralization because it won’t last. Either the union will be torn apart by a restoration of discernibly European cultures, or it will linger until the beliefs of what will take the place of the old civilization — perhaps the Islamic faith of those who appear most likely to inherit the continent — has the power to take its place.

Klaus is right; he has seen the end of his nation’s sovereignty. And Europe continues on the path to ending not with a bang, but a whimper.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church.  Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (4)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Stophel said:

	... So, why did he sign it? "I hate it, and it's going to destroy my country...but I'll sign it anyway"????? Sounds like an American Republican.
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 04, 2009
Votes: +4

RP said:

	... Could be a Republican... could also be the typical American voter with the defeatist attitude that he/she must vote the "lesser evil". What good is a conscience if you continually ignore it?
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 04, 2009
Votes: +2

RemnantMan said:

	Sign it - then make changes! "But he relented last week after the other countries agreed to let the Czech Republic have an exemption from an EU bill of rights." Just like the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 - sign it and remove the exemptions later!
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 04, 2009
Votes: +1

DDW said:

	Let us weep For what was, 'casue what's coming looks pretty dreary.
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 04, 2009
Votes: +2