Ministry of Propaganda - 22/Dec/2003: "Europe's position in the world"
[Previous entry: "GDP -vs- Happiness"] [Home] [Next entry: "Football -vs- Football"]
Europe's position in the world
Interesting commentary in BusinessWeek: "Will Europe Become A Backwater? - Its failure to pull together could relegate the EU to minor-power status". I agree with a lot of the points John Rossant makes, although I wouldn't limit it to being a key ally to the US or having influence on the Middle East peace process.
With the rise of China (and probably at some point the return of Russia) as a big power the individual states in Europe are simply too small to pull enough weight in a global context. Both in a political and an economical context.
If Tony Blair talks about being the main ally to the US and mentions the "special relationship" I believe he is kidding himself. I think the US see the UK as a junior partner at best. As long as Blair does what Bush wants he's fine, but that's about it. What about the British detainees in Guantanamo Bay? To my knowledge they are still there despite British requests to transfer them to the UK.
Economically the Euro is beginning to gain strength and becoming an important currency which might at some point rival the Dollar. It probably could have been much further already and/or progress much faster if more Europeans put their weight behind it. Continued harmonisation would increase trade in the EU and help with economies of scale, which would help European companies to compete with American or Chinese companies which have the advantage of huge home markets. But at the moment this is happening much too slow.
So, yes, I believe Europe will become a backwater and be steamrollered by the US, China and potentially Russia, if the European states don't pull themselves together. This doesn't have to be a "European Superstate", but a confident and unified European Union with some self-confidence. Unfortunately I fear this is still a long way off.
End of entry
Entry trivia
When writing this entry the weather was: Cloudy, slightly warmer than yesterday
When writing this entry I was listening to: BBC Radio 1
During the last hour before I wrote this entry I visited this website: Google Newssearch
End of entry trivia
Send me feedback about this entry:
The form below will send me an e-mail. To discuss in public, please use my discussion forum.