by New Europe The mood in Brussels is one of despair and there are fears, not over Greece but the future of the EU. Iceland said ‘no thanks’ to membership last week and frankly, who can blame them. Less than five years ago, Barroso strutted at the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, “I am convinced that the result will be a European Union better placed to face the challenges of the future, and better placed to meet the aspirations of its citizens, a Europe of freedom and solidarity.” Today, we are in an economic crisis that seems unending, yet it could have been dealt with by allowing 4-5% inflation for a few years. Germany said no, so the sinner nations were put under harsh austerity which not only failed, but have brought the union to the edge of disaster transforming a financial challenge to a political crisis. Germany's moral highstanding and constant national stereotyping has now led frustrated and inexperienced Greek politicians to raise Europe’s darkest hour in their cold war with Germany, in a sign of the degradation of politics and political discourse. To this, we add the impotency of our external policy, the failure to act has led many thousands to flee towards our borders in order to escape the direst of situations. They have not been welcomed. The rhetoric against those fleeing conflicts in Syria, Libya and other crisis we have neglected, is also often directed against Europe’s minority communities and those who follow a different religion. Timmermans ditching of 73 pending proposals is instructive. The list has many annotations like ‘No foreseeable agreement’ and ‘blocked in the Council’, which reveal how the very top is paralysed. None of the deep structural problems in Europe have been tackled and we are left with a machine that cannot be repaired and there is no desire to spend another wasted decade on another compromise treaty. We tried to build a European United Nations and we’ve got a European League of Nations. It’s almost last orders in the Last Chance Saloon.
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