by JOSCHKA FISCHER
Returning to Europe recently after a six-day trip to the United States, I wondered for the first time while reading the press on the recent Irish crisis whether the euro – and thus the European Union – might possibly fail. This could happen because, in the long run, the EU won’t be able to withstand its conflicts of interest and the resulting process of “renationalization” in all member states without suffering grave damage.
Wherever you look, the price tag put on Europe these days is calculated in euros and cents and no longer in political and historical currency. Germany, in particular – Europe’s largest country, and its strongest in economic terms – seems to have fallen victim to historical amnesia. The idea that Germany’s own national interest dictates avoiding anything that isolates the country within Europe, and that the task is therefore to create a “European Germany” rather than a “German Europe,” seems to have been abandoned.
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