Europeans, especially those living in countries affected significantly by the economic crisis, have seen their lives mired in uncertainty for the past few years.
Living standards in some countries have dropped dramatically, a drop precipitated - if not engineered as some say- by the policies of strict austerity proscribed from Brussels.
A series of revolutions in neighbouring countries have been metastasising ever closer and transforming into wars, coups and rule by militia.
As a result of those and other wars a steady stream of people is landing, if they are lucky as the Lampedusa tragedy shows, on European shores, stressing the already crumbling state services of member states crippled by the crisis like Greece.
The global economy is transforming, the personable age is being raised, education is in some cases becoming a paid-for luxury.
But all these plagues on all our houses, even though in many cases they have resulted in a drop for support and trust for the EU, have also made most Europeans appreciate its founding principles.
Greeks and Cypriots have moved money and in some cases even businesses abroad and individuals from all crisis-sticken countries, have made their way to other EU member states to find employment and a better future.
Now as we report in this issue, politicians from member states on the receiving end of internal migration are asking for caps on the numbers of people moving within the EU, undermining not only the reason for which the Union was founded, but what little trust and support this supranational construction of ours has.
Commissioner Malmstrom recently spoke of the need for solidarity with members states that receive great number of immigrants from outside the Union. How about starting with solidarity for Europeans who find themselves in difficult times and use the Union for the purpose its founders envisaged.
Perhaps Solidarity is not the right word and it's use might be counter – productive in Europe today? Why not exchange it for “Self – preservation” that might better reflect the situation the European Union finds itself rapidly approaching?
Self – preservation not as in a “free for all” as any individual country trying to secure for themselves exceptions and researching means to circumvent the major cornerstones on which the European Union is based, but collective self – preservation on a European level by at least resisting the short-sightedness that seems to be gripping the continent lately.
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