FT.com - Europe has to guard democracy amid crisis - by Anatol Lieven

For the complete report from FT.com click on this link

Europe has to guard democracy amid crisis

Europe has to guard democracy amid crisis - by Anatol Lieven

A fraction of the trillion and a half dollars now spent on rescuing western economies from the consequences of their elites’ greed and recklessness would have been enough to have greatly reduced African misery, stabilized Pakistan and other Muslim states – or put a human being on Mars. In fact, whatever was left over from the west’s relentless pursuit of material satisfactions has been largely burned up by the Bush administration’s tax cuts and by misconceived and appallingly executed American wars. The European Union in this period does, however, have two substantial achievements to its credit. The first is that, albeit far too slowly and inadequately, the EU has placed the issue of man-made climate change squarely on the international agenda. The second is the democratization and economic development of eastern and central Europe. Pray God that this is not endangered as a result of the present economic crisis. If we are lucky and the latest actions by western governments take hold, the inevitable economic depression that we are facing will be short and shallow.