February 13, 2019

THERE ARE NO TRANSNATIONALISTS:

Incredible Shrinking Europe: The Continent's grand unity project is failing, and its global influence is fading (Walter Russell Mead, Feb. 11, 2019, WSJ)

As its economy lags behind, Europe is becoming more divided politically. Brexit negotiations have inflamed tempers on both sides of the English Channel; Central European countries like Hungary and Poland are alienated from the West; much of Southern Europe remains bitter about the aftermath of the euro crisis; and anti-EU political parties continue to gain support across the bloc. A recent report from the European Council on Foreign Relations projects that anti-EU parties from the right and left are on course to control enough seats in the next European Parliament that they will be able to disrupt the EU and weaken it further. [...]

One European initiative did work: the single market. Europe remains formidable as a consumer bloc, and the EU's ability to regulate the conditions under which foreign companies like Google and Gazprom operate inside its wealthy market is the most important card in its hand.

Free markets require transnationalism to function. Democratic governance requires sovereignty.

Posted by at February 13, 2019 12:03 AM

  

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