DISTANCE MAKES THE HEART GROW HOSTILE:

As enthusiasm declines, EU could be in jeopardy (Graham Bowley, March 21, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

The European public's willingness to compromise national interests in the name of the European Union project is fundamentally weaker than in past decades and may threaten the pace of future integration, according to Jean-Claude Juncker, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency.

"People in all our countries are far more interested in seeing their own governments prevailing in Brussels rather than having the government coming back to London, Paris, Berlin or wherever, saying we had to do it because otherwise the EU would be blocked," Juncker said in an interview.

"Europe has stopped being an argument by itself. I am in this European business for 20 years."

In the face of growing resistance by the European public to the idea of embracing Brussels, Juncker said, the present generation of European leaders, the first without direct experience of World War II, has a responsibility to forge ahead with closer European ties - most crucially, the adoption of the proposed new constitutional treaty - because future generations who are more distant from the war will not do it.

"I don't think the generation after us will be able to put together all those national biographies in a way that the EU will not be split back into its national components with all the dangers entailed," he said.

While Europe's post-Christendom elites have dreamt of things like Marxism, socialism, transnationalism and the like, Europe's realities have been racism and nationalism and that's not likely to change at a time when its peoples are headed towards being ethnic minorities in their own states.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2005 6:20 AM