The crash of the world financial system in 2008-9 hit Europe hard. Britain suffered badly, as its overstretched banks collapsed. Other nations, such as Poland and Germany, had tighter banking controls and got off lightly. But the smaller or poorer members of the eurozone – Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – lost the trust of international speculators and lurched towards "sovereign default".
Two lessons have emerged. One is that the eurozone project is a fair-weather design, flimsy in crisis. The other is that Germany, the rich man of Europe, will not go on bailing out weaker brethren for ever. The German view is that there has to be more centralised policy, not less – including a unified tax system – if the common currency is to survive.
The 66 years since the war have transformed European society. Two huge groups that once dominated European identity, the peasantry and the industrial working class, have become endangered species. But the EC and the EU, through social and regional funds, gave much of Europe a modern infrastructure; the Common Agricultural Policy – so detested by the British – sheltered farmers from ruin during the transition to market economies. And the European model, the ideal of a "social" state that guides and restrains capitalism, still survives as an alternative to the neo-liberal "US" model.
This Europe – our Europe – is a political creature of a new kind. Rich but porous, spongy in texture and capricious in shape, the EU will never harden into a superstate capable of rapid decisions. It will always need outside forces to defend it. We can only hope that the rest of the world will think it worth defending."
Note EU-Digest: to be or not to be ....its up to every European citizen to make this greatest political endeavor work so we don't have to rely on outside forces to defend our existence.
For thecomplete report: New Europe: A vision of unity | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
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