The Future of the Eurocracy

Crumbling

Is the EU falling apart?  It has been a long, long time coming, but we believe the answer lies in the affirmative.  The endgame of the EU has always been to "retire" the nation-states and transfer authority, power, and governance to a federal government.  Britain would have been equivalent to a California; Germany to a Texas.  All would have been subservient to the federal overlordship.

But this longed-for trajectory has reached the point where to make further progress towards the great federal goal the Eurocracy must bring the nation states under more control.  Now the controls are extending to include those which purport to govern each local community.  Not unexpectedly, the locals are reacting.  Sumantra Maitra writes:

The EU is punishing Britain, threatening Switzerland and Italy, crippling Greece, and suing Hungary and Poland. Democratic elections in member states have little meaning within any country in the EU, as its purpose is to transcend national boundaries. Nothing is really consequential unless Berlin and Brussels agree to it.

There’s just one problem.
The people are turning against it, including the French rioters and the Brexiters — something (US Secretary of State) Pompeo and other conservative realists instinctively realize, but our liberal establishment fails or refuses to understand. Feeding the same food to the horse and donkey, so to speak, does not lead to the donkey turning into a horse, but leads to the horse’s death due to starvation, and the policy is unsustainable.

For decades a lie was sold to the people of Europe that free movement, social engineering, and cheap imported labor would be compatible with an ever-growing managerial welfare state. That falsehood now lies exposed, and the results aren’t pretty. The problems of Paris and, by and large, the EU, are only beginning.

The present "great" federalists of Europe (Merkel and Macron) appear to be on their way out.  Merkel has announced her intent to retire; Macron has learnt the hard way those in the barricades rarely listen to a stentorian microphone.  But more than that, the end game of the European "project" has been revealed and an increasing number of European states (and their voting citizenry) don't like what they see.

Pompeo understands what other American liberal internationalists fail to comprehend about the EU. While some European nations might be allies, the European Union isn’t. Rather, it’s an empire in the making.

One cannot govern against his own people in democratic societies without using medieval authoritarian tactics and brutal crackdowns. And the only way to have good government is to have nation-states, where the people can elect their own leaders and choose their own systems and social policies. After all, as Kenneth Waltz once wrote, an aspiration of a global government would lead to a global civil war.

We live in the most interesting of times.  It will serve us well not to forget that wishing such times upon another is an ancient Chinese curse.  But in this case we suspect it could well turn out to be a blessing.