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The EU Is on the Verge of Collapse–An Interview with George Soros

85 points by nkurz 11y ago

marvel_boy 11y ago
Spaniard here. Unemployment has reached 20% after 2008 real state collapse, central government is corrupt and incompetent. I guess that any economic trouble could be fatal.
- netcan 11y ago
  I don't think we're there yet, but I think the EU could theoretically be a benefit. Eventually, I think the EU should be capable of limited direct transfers in times like this, but we're not really there yet. More immediately many young people stung by Spain's youth unemployment crisis are here (in Ireland) working and living for a few years, for example. Still close to home and planning to return. Flights are €40. They are not is Spain, but they aren't foreigners either. I like having them here and I'm glad they can get a job and live here as a right. Maybe one day I'll exercise that right in Spain. An EU working as it should should be of help, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters. I think we'll get closer eventually. Spain isn't doomed.
- tormeh 11y ago
  Does those 20% include Spaniards employed in other countries?
  - marvel_boy 11y ago
    No. 20% is living from subsidies. When economy were at full speed there was 20 milion people working, now there is just 16 millions.
- trw0012 11y ago
  > central government is corrupt Yeah, not like regional governments at all, specially Catalonia and Andalusia. > and incompetent. Can't argue with that. After 4 years of the worst of a cuckservative government we're ready to jump from the frying pan into the fire now.
redsummer 11y ago
Why can't the 7 million refugees all go to Israel? It's the most developed country in the region and it has not even let in ONE refugee. Sure, the population would double, but think of all the multicultural benefits: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35353310 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35353310
k-mcgrady 11y ago
It's hard to care about articles like this anymore. They're like the SV bubble articles. Every month some other genius tells us the EU is about to collapse and they've been telling us this since 2008. The EU has faced some pretty massive hurdles in that time and managed to overcome them and I see no reason that can't continue with the new refugee crisis and the ongoing financial crisis in some of the member states.
- rtpg 11y ago
  It's like how people have been predicting the fall of the American empire for over 100 years now.
  - lukasm 11y ago
    Isn't it a given? Historically every empire collapsed.
    - Wintamute 11y ago
      I'd say it's a hazard, but not necessarily a given. The current cultural and economic interconnectedness of the globe is profoundly unprecedented in all of human history, no reason why old patterns should repeat themselves.
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      ... except those that are still around. I'm not sure how that logic can work. You're essentially saying "immortality is impossible because the people who are dead aren't still alive".
      - vidarh 11y ago
        He's essentially saying that historically the odds are vastly in favour of every empire eventually falling. The "American empire" is a historical shortlived blip compared to many other empires that eventually fell.
  - threeseed 11y ago
netcan 11y ago
I like Angela Merkel, and I live in the EU (Ireland). I think she's wrong about a lot of things though. The EU is on shaky foundations. The original principles of free movement, free trade, solidarity & peace are great. I totally support them. They move the world in a liberal (ie liberty) direction and they really do promote the central goal, centuries of peace. Europe has been at peace for a logn time. It's an achievement, and we need to defend that. But, there was never a truly agreed upon and understandable basis for how these would be promoted and protected and an explicit definition of where and how the EU's authority ends and the State's begins. This has left our national governments with a nice scapegoat, great for populists, nationalists and fringe politicians to use for their purposes. The Greek saga is a perfect example. Rather than an intelligent abstract policy of allowing Greek to make their own decisions, support with limited liability for the Union we get a German style bureaucratic approach. Regulation an oversight. I also appreciate her refugee policy. My grandparents (like many's) were refugees in WWII. I think it came from a genuine place of human solidarity. I hope it doesn't sting Germany too badly. I hope that the EU gets another round of constitutional, foundational work. Take as long as it takes, but do it right. This is for the next 200 years. The problem, as I see it, is that politics has polarized into pro and anti EU. Anti-EU political outsiders from either (or neither) traditional wings using anti-EU rhetoric as an easy populist tools and pro-EU insiders defending the EU as a bureaucratic status quo. One thing I think needs to change urgently is an exit policy. We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option. Similar for Greek. No hard feelings, civilized-like, we can still be friends, just do what the people want.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Most of the peace was achieved by having two superpowers use Europe as their high noon staring contest location. Most of Europe was exhausted from two generations of war at that point, so having another would be a fools errand. Also, i don't think Merkel has much say in any of this. Its her finance minister and his buddies at the ECB that is running the show.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Is there really a strong anti-EU movement? Admittedly I don't really follow the nationals politics of the other member states, but at least from my position - living in one of the PIGS - what I see is mostly a movement against the Euro. I mean, sure, Merkel, Schäuble and Juncker are demonized quite a bit, but I think the argument is for improving the EU, not leaving it.
ane 11y ago
Soros has insightful opinions regarding Orbán and the internal political struggle arising within the EU, but caveat lector: Soros has a large, literally vested interest in seeing the Euro collapse. That is to say, he has bet a huge amount of money on it collapsing. So he paints a bleak picture about the future of the Euro, because it is the future he desires.
- jap 11y ago
  Source?
  - eps 11y ago
    Soros is a very manipulative gentleman looking exclusively after his own interests. When he says A it doesn't mean it's true, it merely means that saying A benefits him the best.
    - meric 11y ago
      But if he didn't think it would be true he'd bet the other way. Of course he's going to put his money on what he thinks/thought was going to happen. I can see how it's not true but I think it's likely he believes what he's talking about.
    - _yosefk 11y ago
      You're probably right (and you'll remain right if "Soros" is replaced with the name of many, many people), but I don't think you're the kind of source the grandparent asks for; I think they wanted evidence that Soros shorted the euro or something similar. Even if he's short the euro, it kinda seems that no single famous, connected billionaire can make or break the euro. It's, like, a really, really big, erm, thing. He ought to believe his bet to be correct rather than hope that him talking about it will move the market very much. So if he's indeed short the euro, I'd guess you're hearing his true opinion (which doesn't make him right, it's not like he's never lost money, it just probably means he's honest in this particular instance.)
      - 11y ago
mahouse 11y ago
Says the guy who has put his money to keep the Eastern European countries heads low.
VeejayRampay 11y ago
I'd be cautious about an in-depth article about the state of the European Union where the protagonists never bring up the subject of France. Not once. Kind of strange.
gal_anonym 11y ago
The whole world today is based on countries and their respective borders. When you want to travel between countries anywhere in the world you must have valid passport, to prove your identity. Countries can issiue or choose not to issue visa, so not everyone can pass every border. Things are working this way, and have worked this way for very long time. A very basic principle. Why is that? Many reasons, and the main is national security. EU opened borders between their own countries. This is a good thing, it allows free travel and flow of products and money between EU countries. But EU still borders countries that are not in EU. Now they are allowing everyone without valid documents to pass EU border in Greece and Turkey. You just need to say that you are a Syrian refugee and that you are going to Germany. Sane countries like Poland and Hungary are only reacting to this insane situation. Racism is not involved here, only logic.
lispm 11y ago
Soros would be probably the last I would listen to. Money and politics is a toxic mix. He influences politics and markets to create chaos to make profit out of it. He is still upset that his manipulations against the EU and the Euro has failed. In the last few years the news of the collapse of the Euro was daily in the headlines of interested newspapers and magazines, manipulated by persons like Soros. The Euro is still there and the EU, too. Don't hold you breath to see them collapse.
- matt4077 11y ago
  I don't think Soros' civic engagement is connected to his investments in the ways you think I've been involved in some of the projects run by his OpenSociety Foundation and the work they do is clearly Pro-EU.
  - DominikR 11y ago
    Clearly Pro EU work like handing out guides to immigration to people in the Middle East and inviting millions to come over here. We are all very happy about that here in the EU! There have been more than 800 arson attacks on refugee homes in Germany alone in the last year. One more summer like this and you're going to regularly see German mobs beating up random Arab looking persons on the street.
  - iofj 11y ago
    This is how George Soros became a billionaire : http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank-of-england.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank... Of course he's pro-massive bureaucracies. He thinks it'd be excellent if he could repeat this action. But let's not confuse that with being pro-Euro. He wants a bigger Eurozone because it'll be more exploitable. He's just a wolf advocating for fatter sheep.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - joeyspn 11y ago
ju-st 11y ago
> “Chancellor of the Free World.” Merkel took only charge because everybody else didn't and the other European leaders indirectly expected her to lead them in the Ukraine crisis and the refugee crisis. In my opinion there are two problems with the refugee crisis: (1) for many years the calls for help from Spain/Italy/Greece have been ignored and the refugee problem was swept under the mat. And now since Syria everyone is unprepared because no sensible policy was created back then. (2) the EU members from eastern europe wanted to join the EU for economic gain and protection from Russia. Now they have to realize that the EU is a union and not a economic aid programme. But this is also a consequence of problem nr.1 because it was politically ignored to set policies for distributing refugees in the EU.
pdkl95 11y ago
EU is in a risky position, but the article seems to only tangentially mention the main problem: shared money without a proper merging of monetary policy. The 5 trillion euro bank bailout abused Greece with idiotic austerity policies a left quite a few countries (France in particular) with banks that are leveraged many times larger than their host country's GDP. Mark Blyth[1] has a very good explanation[2] of this mess that covers a lot of the history. More recently, his analysis has unfortunately changed for the worse[3]. We find ourselves in a precarious situation on both sides of the Atlantic, and I hope we can find enough good men willing to actually do something about these problems; if instead we do nothing and let the profiteering and institutional corruption continue to grow, some sort of collapse seems inevitable. [1] Econ professor at Brown University. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=674 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=674 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP6YSCpm8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP6YSCpm8g
danmaz74 11y ago
The situation in Europe now reminds me a lot of the situation of Italy and Germany before their own unifications: for external powers, it was easy enough to stoke up rivalries between the various statelets, and push even the most successful around. Without the EU, this is the future I see for us: as difficult as it can be to unite a continent which lacks a common language, the alternative is to become irrelevant on the world stage - and the world market.
SunShiranui 11y ago
I think the fundamental problem with the European Union is the way it's organized and governed. The reason we don't see a wholly European solution to many of these problems is due to the fact that the decision making progress is functionally biased towards each of the member's states unique interests. The most important institution we have in Europe is, in my opinion, the European Parliament. It is designed in a way that ensures fair representation of all countries and at the same time enables us to pass legislation for which there is collective support. Its members are elected directly by the people in the European elections, which are separate from national elections, for obvious reasons. All of this, however, is subverted by the existence of the European Council as well as the Council of the European Union (yes, the naming is a bit confusing). Their members are respectively the 28 heads of state of each EU country and members of their government. This means that, while the European Parliament is elected with the express purpose of dealing with EU law, the European Council and the Council of the European Union are fruit of very different elections and because of that, they are bound to put their national interests first, since they might lose votes at the national level otherwise. In my opinion, the European Council and the Council of the European Union should be replaced by a body elected directly by either the European Parliament, or in some way, the European population.
- aikah 11y ago
  > In my opinion, the European Council and the Council of the European Union should be replaced by a body elected directly by either the European Parliament, or in some way, the European population. The EU is never going to work because its people are too different, they don't speak the same language, don't have the same culture and its citizens aren't that mobile (good luck finding a job in France if you don't speak french, good luck expending your business to Germany if you don't understand the German market and law, thinking that the EU can copy the US in anyway is a huge mistake). We have already seen that with each crisis ( the Greek crisis, the refugee crisis ... ) that it is still everybody for himself and rightfully so. Mind you i'm not anti-european, I was fine with the EEC, the EU is an experiment and us citizens are the guinea pigs.
  - trw0012 11y ago
joostdevries 11y ago
I'm not terribly interested in the views of a billionaire investor on the EU. I have to say though that I searched for the original interview in Wirtschaftswoche and Handelsblatt Online. And I did not find words as strong as "on the verge of a collapse". Those articles read "on the future of the EU [he] is pessimistic" All the same the Schengen treaty is at risk with the current flood of immigrants. [1] As far as the EU goes: I'm a Dutch citizen. And the NL have a long history of belonging to a coöperation of nations. Just after WWII it founed the BeNeLux. And it was a founding member of the EU later on. So I lived in a supra-national organisation for as long as I live. And I have to say that when I work here in the NL with people from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, ... I truly feel that we're all Europeans. It's some feeling of shared fate, shared history, shared culture, speaking their languages, intuïtively knowing their characteristic strengths and foibles. So as far as I'm concerned even if the current EU would fail we'll just start anew with an EU 2.0. Less expansionist and less idealistic probably. Sadder and wiser surely. But in my estimation the sense of a shared EU identity has become stronger than even the current vicissitudes or the meddling from billionaire investors. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/dutch-pm-says-refugee-crisis-could-shut-down-europes-open-borders-for-good http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/dutch-pm-says-r...
- brownegg 11y ago
  Soros is definitely weird at times, and he is almost always too-certain. But your negative characterization of "billionaire investor" is a disservice to you and him. Rather than learn about the world by selling products or climbing a political ladder, he formed opinions and made bets. Massive, massive respect.
  - ginko 11y ago
    How does gambling in the finance market worthy of respect?
    - brownegg 11y ago
      If we throw out, even if momentarily, that there's more to success in the markets than pure luck, then people who have succeeded have done so in a very pure way: you can only make money in trading by being right. When you're right as often and to the extent that someone like Soros is, you have insight that 99.9999% of people don't.
Htsthbjig 11y ago
One of the things I recommend everybody to do is learning languages. This article is one of the reasons for doing that. You are manipulated by translators' interests. The original in "WirtschaftsWoche" does not use such a strong wording in my opinion. I am Spanish native but work using German most of the time in central Europe. In my personal opinion traveling around the world I find the Muslim countries in lots of ways having opposite principles to Western values. They are not compatible: Mohamed told them that adultery women had to be punished with stoning death, Jesus response was forgiveness. In Qur'an it is said that anyone that does not believe in Ala, Christians and Jews should be killed, including those that call their selves "Muslims", but are not real Muslims. Of course Mohamed could say who was real Muslim and who was not. In other words he could kill anyone he wished with no consequences. Jesus told everybody should be respected, including those that believe in something different, or did not believe at all. A great difference. Mohamed married a 5 year old girl and consummated the act when the girl was 10, so by Western standards he was a pederast. If you believe that Mohamed is God's prophet you have to believe all he did is ok if you do yourself. Muslim countries are not open, I have visited countries were they kill you if you define yourself atheist or homosexual. There are atheists there, they will tell you as foreigner, but they could not tell anybody in their own country. If Europe opens the gates to Muslims, Europe will became a Muslim territory. As a European I don't want this for Europe.
- nightspirit 11y ago
  Your post is borderline offtop and I can see it downvoted to hell, but you actually touch an important issue. Using the Internet for two decades I came across countless campaigns against systematic human rights violations or violence against women in Muslim states. The politicians and organizations supporting Syrian immigrants are yet to explain how exactly they want to instill into those millions of people the same values that allowed them to come to Europe in the first place. So far it seems that they tend to settle in isolated neighborhoods and continue living the way they've always been, occasionally causing some trouble outside (the forbidden t-word, rapes in Koln, etc). BTW, a friend of mine had seen a group of those refugees in Hungary. They didn't want to deal with local people, many didn't accept food or other help as if it was below their dignity or something. It appears that they have some kind of "give us welfare money 'cause we as victims deserve it and leave us alone" attitude. This isn't pretty.
petke 11y ago
Eu is a work in progress. Its end has been announced many times. With every crisis it changes a bit. Organically through pragmatism and consensus. What we end up with is not a thing of beauty but it holds together and works with the help of a bit of duct tape and grease.

85 points by nkurz 11y ago

Spaniard here. Unemployment has reached 20% after 2008 real state collapse, central government is corrupt and incompetent. I guess that any economic trouble could be fatal.

netcan 11y ago
I don't think we're there yet, but I think the EU could theoretically be a benefit. Eventually, I think the EU should be capable of limited direct transfers in times like this, but we're not really there yet. More immediately many young people stung by Spain's youth unemployment crisis are here (in Ireland) working and living for a few years, for example. Still close to home and planning to return. Flights are €40. They are not is Spain, but they aren't foreigners either. I like having them here and I'm glad they can get a job and live here as a right. Maybe one day I'll exercise that right in Spain. An EU working as it should should be of help, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters. I think we'll get closer eventually. Spain isn't doomed.
tormeh 11y ago
Does those 20% include Spaniards employed in other countries?
- marvel_boy 11y ago
  No. 20% is living from subsidies. When economy were at full speed there was 20 milion people working, now there is just 16 millions.
trw0012 11y ago
> central government is corrupt Yeah, not like regional governments at all, specially Catalonia and Andalusia. > and incompetent. Can't argue with that. After 4 years of the worst of a cuckservative government we're ready to jump from the frying pan into the fire now.

redsummer 11y ago

Why can't the 7 million refugees all go to Israel? It's the most developed country in the region and it has not even let in ONE refugee. Sure, the population would double, but think of all the multicultural benefits: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35353310 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35353310

k-mcgrady 11y ago

It's hard to care about articles like this anymore. They're like the SV bubble articles. Every month some other genius tells us the EU is about to collapse and they've been telling us this since 2008. The EU has faced some pretty massive hurdles in that time and managed to overcome them and I see no reason that can't continue with the new refugee crisis and the ongoing financial crisis in some of the member states.

rtpg 11y ago
It's like how people have been predicting the fall of the American empire for over 100 years now.
- lukasm 11y ago
  Isn't it a given? Historically every empire collapsed.
  - Wintamute 11y ago
    I'd say it's a hazard, but not necessarily a given. The current cultural and economic interconnectedness of the globe is profoundly unprecedented in all of human history, no reason why old patterns should repeat themselves.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    ... except those that are still around. I'm not sure how that logic can work. You're essentially saying "immortality is impossible because the people who are dead aren't still alive".
    - vidarh 11y ago
      He's essentially saying that historically the odds are vastly in favour of every empire eventually falling. The "American empire" is a historical shortlived blip compared to many other empires that eventually fell.
- threeseed 11y ago

netcan 11y ago

I like Angela Merkel, and I live in the EU (Ireland). I think she's wrong about a lot of things though. The EU is on shaky foundations. The original principles of free movement, free trade, solidarity & peace are great. I totally support them. They move the world in a liberal (ie liberty) direction and they really do promote the central goal, centuries of peace. Europe has been at peace for a logn time. It's an achievement, and we need to defend that. But, there was never a truly agreed upon and understandable basis for how these would be promoted and protected and an explicit definition of where and how the EU's authority ends and the State's begins. This has left our national governments with a nice scapegoat, great for populists, nationalists and fringe politicians to use for their purposes. The Greek saga is a perfect example. Rather than an intelligent abstract policy of allowing Greek to make their own decisions, support with limited liability for the Union we get a German style bureaucratic approach. Regulation an oversight. I also appreciate her refugee policy. My grandparents (like many's) were refugees in WWII. I think it came from a genuine place of human solidarity. I hope it doesn't sting Germany too badly. I hope that the EU gets another round of constitutional, foundational work. Take as long as it takes, but do it right. This is for the next 200 years. The problem, as I see it, is that politics has polarized into pro and anti EU. Anti-EU political outsiders from either (or neither) traditional wings using anti-EU rhetoric as an easy populist tools and pro-EU insiders defending the EU as a bureaucratic status quo. One thing I think needs to change urgently is an exit policy. We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option. Similar for Greek. No hard feelings, civilized-like, we can still be friends, just do what the people want.

digi_owl 11y ago
Most of the peace was achieved by having two superpowers use Europe as their high noon staring contest location. Most of Europe was exhausted from two generations of war at that point, so having another would be a fools errand. Also, i don't think Merkel has much say in any of this. Its her finance minister and his buddies at the ECB that is running the show.
icebraining 11y ago
Is there really a strong anti-EU movement? Admittedly I don't really follow the nationals politics of the other member states, but at least from my position - living in one of the PIGS - what I see is mostly a movement against the Euro. I mean, sure, Merkel, Schäuble and Juncker are demonized quite a bit, but I think the argument is for improving the EU, not leaving it.

ane 11y ago

Soros has insightful opinions regarding Orbán and the internal political struggle arising within the EU, but caveat lector: Soros has a large, literally vested interest in seeing the Euro collapse. That is to say, he has bet a huge amount of money on it collapsing. So he paints a bleak picture about the future of the Euro, because it is the future he desires.

jap 11y ago
Source?
- eps 11y ago
  Soros is a very manipulative gentleman looking exclusively after his own interests. When he says A it doesn't mean it's true, it merely means that saying A benefits him the best.
  - meric 11y ago
    But if he didn't think it would be true he'd bet the other way. Of course he's going to put his money on what he thinks/thought was going to happen. I can see how it's not true but I think it's likely he believes what he's talking about.
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    You're probably right (and you'll remain right if "Soros" is replaced with the name of many, many people), but I don't think you're the kind of source the grandparent asks for; I think they wanted evidence that Soros shorted the euro or something similar. Even if he's short the euro, it kinda seems that no single famous, connected billionaire can make or break the euro. It's, like, a really, really big, erm, thing. He ought to believe his bet to be correct rather than hope that him talking about it will move the market very much. So if he's indeed short the euro, I'd guess you're hearing his true opinion (which doesn't make him right, it's not like he's never lost money, it just probably means he's honest in this particular instance.)
    - 11y ago

mahouse 11y ago

Says the guy who has put his money to keep the Eastern European countries heads low.

VeejayRampay 11y ago

I'd be cautious about an in-depth article about the state of the European Union where the protagonists never bring up the subject of France. Not once. Kind of strange.

gal_anonym 11y ago

The whole world today is based on countries and their respective borders. When you want to travel between countries anywhere in the world you must have valid passport, to prove your identity. Countries can issiue or choose not to issue visa, so not everyone can pass every border. Things are working this way, and have worked this way for very long time. A very basic principle. Why is that? Many reasons, and the main is national security. EU opened borders between their own countries. This is a good thing, it allows free travel and flow of products and money between EU countries. But EU still borders countries that are not in EU. Now they are allowing everyone without valid documents to pass EU border in Greece and Turkey. You just need to say that you are a Syrian refugee and that you are going to Germany. Sane countries like Poland and Hungary are only reacting to this insane situation. Racism is not involved here, only logic.

lispm 11y ago

Soros would be probably the last I would listen to. Money and politics is a toxic mix. He influences politics and markets to create chaos to make profit out of it. He is still upset that his manipulations against the EU and the Euro has failed. In the last few years the news of the collapse of the Euro was daily in the headlines of interested newspapers and magazines, manipulated by persons like Soros. The Euro is still there and the EU, too. Don't hold you breath to see them collapse.

matt4077 11y ago
I don't think Soros' civic engagement is connected to his investments in the ways you think I've been involved in some of the projects run by his OpenSociety Foundation and the work they do is clearly Pro-EU.
- DominikR 11y ago
  Clearly Pro EU work like handing out guides to immigration to people in the Middle East and inviting millions to come over here. We are all very happy about that here in the EU! There have been more than 800 arson attacks on refugee homes in Germany alone in the last year. One more summer like this and you're going to regularly see German mobs beating up random Arab looking persons on the street.
- iofj 11y ago
  This is how George Soros became a billionaire : http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank-of-england.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank... Of course he's pro-massive bureaucracies. He thinks it'd be excellent if he could repeat this action. But let's not confuse that with being pro-Euro. He wants a bigger Eurozone because it'll be more exploitable. He's just a wolf advocating for fatter sheep.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- joeyspn 11y ago

ju-st 11y ago

> “Chancellor of the Free World.” Merkel took only charge because everybody else didn't and the other European leaders indirectly expected her to lead them in the Ukraine crisis and the refugee crisis. In my opinion there are two problems with the refugee crisis: (1) for many years the calls for help from Spain/Italy/Greece have been ignored and the refugee problem was swept under the mat. And now since Syria everyone is unprepared because no sensible policy was created back then. (2) the EU members from eastern europe wanted to join the EU for economic gain and protection from Russia. Now they have to realize that the EU is a union and not a economic aid programme. But this is also a consequence of problem nr.1 because it was politically ignored to set policies for distributing refugees in the EU.

pdkl95 11y ago

EU is in a risky position, but the article seems to only tangentially mention the main problem: shared money without a proper merging of monetary policy. The 5 trillion euro bank bailout abused Greece with idiotic austerity policies a left quite a few countries (France in particular) with banks that are leveraged many times larger than their host country's GDP. Mark Blyth[1] has a very good explanation[2] of this mess that covers a lot of the history. More recently, his analysis has unfortunately changed for the worse[3]. We find ourselves in a precarious situation on both sides of the Atlantic, and I hope we can find enough good men willing to actually do something about these problems; if instead we do nothing and let the profiteering and institutional corruption continue to grow, some sort of collapse seems inevitable. [1] Econ professor at Brown University. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=674 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=674 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP6YSCpm8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP6YSCpm8g

danmaz74 11y ago

The situation in Europe now reminds me a lot of the situation of Italy and Germany before their own unifications: for external powers, it was easy enough to stoke up rivalries between the various statelets, and push even the most successful around. Without the EU, this is the future I see for us: as difficult as it can be to unite a continent which lacks a common language, the alternative is to become irrelevant on the world stage - and the world market.

SunShiranui 11y ago

I think the fundamental problem with the European Union is the way it's organized and governed. The reason we don't see a wholly European solution to many of these problems is due to the fact that the decision making progress is functionally biased towards each of the member's states unique interests. The most important institution we have in Europe is, in my opinion, the European Parliament. It is designed in a way that ensures fair representation of all countries and at the same time enables us to pass legislation for which there is collective support. Its members are elected directly by the people in the European elections, which are separate from national elections, for obvious reasons. All of this, however, is subverted by the existence of the European Council as well as the Council of the European Union (yes, the naming is a bit confusing). Their members are respectively the 28 heads of state of each EU country and members of their government. This means that, while the European Parliament is elected with the express purpose of dealing with EU law, the European Council and the Council of the European Union are fruit of very different elections and because of that, they are bound to put their national interests first, since they might lose votes at the national level otherwise. In my opinion, the European Council and the Council of the European Union should be replaced by a body elected directly by either the European Parliament, or in some way, the European population.

aikah 11y ago
> In my opinion, the European Council and the Council of the European Union should be replaced by a body elected directly by either the European Parliament, or in some way, the European population. The EU is never going to work because its people are too different, they don't speak the same language, don't have the same culture and its citizens aren't that mobile (good luck finding a job in France if you don't speak french, good luck expending your business to Germany if you don't understand the German market and law, thinking that the EU can copy the US in anyway is a huge mistake). We have already seen that with each crisis ( the Greek crisis, the refugee crisis ... ) that it is still everybody for himself and rightfully so. Mind you i'm not anti-european, I was fine with the EEC, the EU is an experiment and us citizens are the guinea pigs.
- trw0012 11y ago

joostdevries 11y ago

I'm not terribly interested in the views of a billionaire investor on the EU. I have to say though that I searched for the original interview in Wirtschaftswoche and Handelsblatt Online. And I did not find words as strong as "on the verge of a collapse". Those articles read "on the future of the EU [he] is pessimistic" All the same the Schengen treaty is at risk with the current flood of immigrants. [1] As far as the EU goes: I'm a Dutch citizen. And the NL have a long history of belonging to a coöperation of nations. Just after WWII it founed the BeNeLux. And it was a founding member of the EU later on. So I lived in a supra-national organisation for as long as I live. And I have to say that when I work here in the NL with people from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, ... I truly feel that we're all Europeans. It's some feeling of shared fate, shared history, shared culture, speaking their languages, intuïtively knowing their characteristic strengths and foibles. So as far as I'm concerned even if the current EU would fail we'll just start anew with an EU 2.0. Less expansionist and less idealistic probably. Sadder and wiser surely. But in my estimation the sense of a shared EU identity has become stronger than even the current vicissitudes or the meddling from billionaire investors. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/dutch-pm-says-refugee-crisis-could-shut-down-europes-open-borders-for-good http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/21/dutch-pm-says-r...

brownegg 11y ago
Soros is definitely weird at times, and he is almost always too-certain. But your negative characterization of "billionaire investor" is a disservice to you and him. Rather than learn about the world by selling products or climbing a political ladder, he formed opinions and made bets. Massive, massive respect.
- ginko 11y ago
  How does gambling in the finance market worthy of respect?
  - brownegg 11y ago
    If we throw out, even if momentarily, that there's more to success in the markets than pure luck, then people who have succeeded have done so in a very pure way: you can only make money in trading by being right. When you're right as often and to the extent that someone like Soros is, you have insight that 99.9999% of people don't.

Htsthbjig 11y ago

One of the things I recommend everybody to do is learning languages. This article is one of the reasons for doing that. You are manipulated by translators' interests. The original in "WirtschaftsWoche" does not use such a strong wording in my opinion. I am Spanish native but work using German most of the time in central Europe. In my personal opinion traveling around the world I find the Muslim countries in lots of ways having opposite principles to Western values. They are not compatible: Mohamed told them that adultery women had to be punished with stoning death, Jesus response was forgiveness. In Qur'an it is said that anyone that does not believe in Ala, Christians and Jews should be killed, including those that call their selves "Muslims", but are not real Muslims. Of course Mohamed could say who was real Muslim and who was not. In other words he could kill anyone he wished with no consequences. Jesus told everybody should be respected, including those that believe in something different, or did not believe at all. A great difference. Mohamed married a 5 year old girl and consummated the act when the girl was 10, so by Western standards he was a pederast. If you believe that Mohamed is God's prophet you have to believe all he did is ok if you do yourself. Muslim countries are not open, I have visited countries were they kill you if you define yourself atheist or homosexual. There are atheists there, they will tell you as foreigner, but they could not tell anybody in their own country. If Europe opens the gates to Muslims, Europe will became a Muslim territory. As a European I don't want this for Europe.

nightspirit 11y ago
Your post is borderline offtop and I can see it downvoted to hell, but you actually touch an important issue. Using the Internet for two decades I came across countless campaigns against systematic human rights violations or violence against women in Muslim states. The politicians and organizations supporting Syrian immigrants are yet to explain how exactly they want to instill into those millions of people the same values that allowed them to come to Europe in the first place. So far it seems that they tend to settle in isolated neighborhoods and continue living the way they've always been, occasionally causing some trouble outside (the forbidden t-word, rapes in Koln, etc). BTW, a friend of mine had seen a group of those refugees in Hungary. They didn't want to deal with local people, many didn't accept food or other help as if it was below their dignity or something. It appears that they have some kind of "give us welfare money 'cause we as victims deserve it and leave us alone" attitude. This isn't pretty.

petke 11y ago

Eu is a work in progress. Its end has been announced many times. With every crisis it changes a bit. Organically through pragmatism and consensus. What we end up with is not a thing of beauty but it holds together and works with the help of a bit of duct tape and grease.