Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Tired Europe

Roger Cohen asks, "Has Europe become a sideshow?"
What could French Prime Minister Villepin mean when he says, "globalization cannot be our destiny"? Tired, unambitious, relaxed, post-modern, Europe is in trouble. If you don’t get it, he notes, compare it to India, which is dynamic, young, fluid, and willing.

He writes from Venice, and concludes with a description of once all-conquering Venice as it surrendered to Napoleon: "The fact of the matter was that Venice was utterly demoralized. It was so long since she had been obliged to make a serious military effort that she had lost the will that makes such efforts possible. Peace, the pursuit of pleasure, the love of luxury, the whole spirit of dolce far niente has sapped her strength. She was old and tired; she was also spoilt."

The BBC
also reports on the upcoming Brussells meeting Thursday and Friday. It is a pessimistic report: "it may be hard to prevent an impression that the EU is unravelling," and "European leaders with a chance to show that the EU still works - but all the signs are that they will fail."

Update: Robert Samuelson also thinks that Europe is finished. Europe is "going out of business" because of a larger reality than the question about the EU constitution: "Unless Europe reverses two trends -- low birthrates and meager economic growth -- it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. Actually, that future has already arrived."

Discussions - 2 Comments

Indeed, note one Italian Ministers ruminations over the need to abandon the Euro. If the lacksadaisical Italians are considering action Europe has need of being wary. Problems with this bunch run much deeper than ethnic boundaries and cultural conflicts. I’m not foretelling war, but I surely don’t like the way things are progressing.

I doubt war. They’ve had enough of that for a while...it’s part of their problem now (lack of moral courage and perhaps a selection effect...the best human stock was decimated during WWI and WWII, leaving a disproportionate percentage of weenies).

I think they need the own Ronald Reagan...a retrograde leader who can bring them back to reality and remember their former greatness. If they are poor enough long enough (and Muslims keep pouring in, and human sacrifice continues in England and elsewhere) we are likely to see resurgence of an older ethic (which has its dark side, no doubt).

Leave a Comment

* denotes a required field
 

No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: https://nlt.ashbrook.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/6759


Warning: include(/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2005/06/tired-europe.php on line 447

Warning: include(): Failed opening '/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/sp/php7.2/lib/php') in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2005/06/tired-europe.php on line 447