It’s too early to write Europe off - by Dirk-Jan van Baar

Economic power is not the only criterion for global power. What matters is how political systems respond to new crises. And from this perspective, the EU is still in with a chance, writes Dutch historian Dirk-Jan van Baar.

When it comes to experimentation and innovation, it is much too early to write Europe off. With the introduction of the euro and EU expansion into Eastern Europe, no other continent has witnessed such a radical trans-national transformation in the last decade. It is only natural then that such transformations falter and face challenges. It remains an achievement therefore that the euro was introduced according to plan and that the eurozone, in spite of a complex debt problem whose scale few had predicted, has so far not disintegrated. This demonstrates that Europe holds much greater political power than it is generally credited with.

The current crisis, with all its financial entanglement, is leading (albeit unintentionally) to an unprecedented European solidarity that will be difficult to reverse. European leaders including Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, and the European Central Bank are also displaying an impressive ability to learn as they improvise their way through uncharted waters. That the media sees this differently is because point scoring sets the tone and that political leaders are routinely slated. However, I think you can only really judge the calibre of politicians when they have their feet in the mire – which is now the case.

Of course, many things may go wrong, and Atlantic cooperation has seen better days. But the East can only dream of such pacification mechanisms. And even if Asia – still plagued by all sorts of disasters and having still to prove itself when it comes to enduring self-governance – has its future ahead of it, it will nevertheless be a future in a world economy shaped by western ideas. You would have to be a true defeatist to then still speak of the decline of the West.

Note EU-Digest:   It all has to do with vision and being able to rise to the occasion by overturning what today, in human terms might be perceived by some as one of  irreconcilable differences, with an irrevocable commitment on the part of all European leaders and  the half a billion European citizens, to continue in unity with what is without doubt the most important economic and political project of this century on earth.  .

For more: It’s too early to write Europe off |de Volkskrant