Europe In Search of a Future

Abstract

Must western Europe follow in the footsteps of the United States? Is our future inevitably American? The question was raised, spectacularly, at the end of 1993 during discussions over 'culture' as part of the Gatt negotiations. Must our images, our heroes, our models, even our dreams be shaped by the American media? asked the passionate advocates of the so-called cultural exception. Actually they won the day. Culture, you may recall, was at the last moment removed from the Gatt deal; the European Community was thus able to preserve some quotas on the import of American films. The victory, as could be guessed, was very provisional. Indeed, this kulturkampf revealed, as we shall see below, that what is crucial for the independence of western Europe is not so much its capacity to shelter behind protective walls as its ability and will to build a different society.