While Lisbon may narrow the material differences between small and large states in terms of involvement, it is likely to sustain the differences between states in terms of influence. A strengthened global EU presence will primarily favor the large states given their more extended capacities to cope with the EU’s expanding role in matters of foreign policy.
The European community cannot stand idly by when one of its own members faces disintegration. The Union’s motto is: “United in diversity”. Now, more than ever, the EU must live up to this ideal.
Many agree on the fact that Italy needs reform. One of every four youngsters are jobless, the sixth worst situation in Europe. One wonders whether the “Arab Spring” rising North from the Mediterranean may bring the winds of change and jasmine that Italy, as well as other troubled countries in Southern Europe need.
Greece has been financially ill even before it joined the then EEC. The symptoms were chronic cronyism, high levels of nepotism, severe clientelism and acute individualistic mentalities. Why did banks continue lending to a country like Greece, especially since they knew the economic state of affairs the country has been in for decades?
When Europe lay devastated after WWII and seemed menaced by the Soviet Union, a cross Atlantic military alliance was needed to preserve European freedom. Through a patchwork of military commands and an influx of American troops, a protective wall of security was created within which European recovery and democratization could take place. However, today, NATO is irrelevant and needs a respectful termination.
The Euro will survive. Survival is an economic, political and social necessity, central to Europe’s success. That the Euro must not fail should encourage Europe to take measures to overcome the current challenges the single currency faces. As Richard Youngs of the think tank FRIDE hopes, Europe should adopt a unity in adversity approach.
All Greeks have to understand, before it is too late, that from now on we have to co-exist and live together with immigrants, illegal or not (but mostly the former). Therefore, this new reality has raised important questions regarding acceptance or marginalization, legalization, multiculturalism, and national security, or even sovereignty.
The EU could impose its model of functioning on the rest of the world, especially through its former colonies, in a quiet, latent, and cooperative manner. That historical basis, actually encompasses the imperial, colonial past of the old European states, and undoubtedly legitimizes the EU’s process of influencing the world.
The external relations of the European Union with the Arab countries of the southern bank of the Mediterranean, institutionalised initially through the Barcelona process, then the ENP and today the Union for the Mediterranean, are predicated on the twin pillars of political stability and economic integration into a liberal free trade area. The approach is both a policy and a moral failure.
Despised by Bismarck as ’not worth the life of a single German solider’’ and described by Churchill as ‘having too much history to consume’’, the region of the Western Balkans is returning to the agenda. The EU and the USA must step in and show that they are up to this ultimate test of bringing the last remaining non-EU island into the orbit of the Union and NATO.
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