Monday, April 25, 2011

John Lichfield: European unity is an ideal that is being crushed by crude nationalism


RIP, the European Dream. Born in Rome March 1957; died at the unlovely Franco-Italian border railway station of Ventimiglia, April 2011. OK, d'accord, ist ja gut, bene, the demise of the European adventure has been forecast many times before.
The European Union as an institution will, doubtless, stumble and rumble on for a little while yet.
But the Great European Idea – the proposition that 400,000,000 Europeans will be safer, happier and more prosperous if they work together rather than against each other – has never faced so many overlapping threats to its survival.
And the greatest of these threats may be indifference. To be passionate about "Europe" these days, you have to detest the whole idea. The voice of pragmatic, moderate support for the European project is scarcely heard. Even the countries that invented the idea of "ever closer union" between the peoples of Europe are now sticking it to each other gleefully like kids in a playground
The Independant..

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