Will the EU’s Genetic Flaw Lead to Its Demise?

It’s not a death sentence, but it could be.

Since I am in Europe — Spain, to be precise — I shall do as the Europeans do and fret over the future of the European Union.

As my tepid opening sentence suggests, I don’t really care much about the future of the EU. In this, I’m a lot like the average American, who probably spends less time fretting about the EU than about what to have for lunch next Tuesday.

But just as one can care little about the fate of the neighborhood Taco Bell, one can care a great deal if it meets its demise in some undesirable way. If it goes out of business because of competition from the new Chipotle across the street, so what? If it’s burned down by a mob, that’s a graver issue than the availability of a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Likewise, it would be bad news if the European Union were undone by an uprising of angry nationalism.

Indeed, part of the argument for the EU itself was to make sure that Germany never again reprised its role of Continental aggressor by making it part of an interdependent economic and political order. Lord Ismay, an aide to Winston Churchill, said the aim of NATO was to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.”

The EU has done anything but keep the Germans down, economically speaking, which in itself isn’t a bad thing (though many poor European countries, particularly Greece, that have lost the ability to print money to eliminate their debts might disagree).

The real problem is that the EU has something like a genetic flaw. As with many genetic flaws, it’s not a death sentence, but it could be.

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Πηγή: www.nationalreview.com