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As a European I would like to see Europe begin afresh to pull its weight as a collective entity on the world stage. The first time Europeans went abroad was as

As a European I would like to see Europe begin afresh to pull its weight as a collective entity on the world stage. The first time Europeans went abroad was as colonialists, the second as neo-colonial capitalists, next time it will have to be as equals. The cynic might point out that (geopolitically) Europe has no other choice but to go abroad as equals. Europe has been eclipsed by its former American colony in the West and the Middle Kingdom's re-ascendancy eclipses Europe to the East. Where does that leave Europe? Once the global engine of growth for ideas, innovation, trade, you name it... Europe nowadays is looking a tad stale. Economics: Europe needs to close down tax havens within European borders and sphere of influence. Needs to negotiate a fiscal transfer framework to save the € and work to make the € more of a global reserve currency, that means fixing the € project so that the UK gives up the £. Implement a variant of the Tobin tax. Science: Europe needs to bulk up ESA and promote a private space industry. Needs to double down on projects like CERN and ITER. Needs to get Galileo up and running. Needs to invest more in nuclear and renewable power, wean itself off coal. Politics: Needs to re-make the UN security council. Needs to work harder towards sorting out Israel/Palestine. Needs to disengage from NATO. The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon. Welfare: Needs to move Europe as a whole towards the Scandanavian model which has shown itself to be fairer, more progressive, and more forward thinking. Perhaps needs to experiment with basic income because tech automation seems to be replacing jobs faster than they are being created.

rbanffy 11y ago
That'll only happen if Europe moves as one and doesn't fragments itself back into competing states. Sadly, this risk seems real.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Language barrier may be the single most important obstacle for further integration. English fluency is growing too slowly due to political reasons, so universal translators may be the one technology EU needs to become and act as a single entity.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    I've lived for > 1 year at the time in quite a few countries of Europe. Europe is not a single entity and never will be. The language is a part of this, but the mentality from country to country is a far larger component. Within Europe you have cultures and mentalities as diverse as you can imagine. Language is the least of the problem. This is also why many well-meaning individuals, NGO's, governments and other institutions that try to apply knowledge about something that 'worked' in one EU country to another invariably fail. Comparing Greece to Sweden, The UK to Romania, Serbia to Portugal, Italy to Scotland, Poland to France and Spain to Germany can shed some light on what makes - and keeps - Europe as fragmented as it is. The Euro, with all its faults, has done more for European unification than any other measure, Schengen being a close second. Now we're looking at a slow but sure decline in that feeling. Most people have an identity rooted in some rough geographical location, I've yet to hear someone call themselves a European first.
    - igravious 11y ago
      Exactly. € and Schengen erase currency and national boundaries. They rock! Whenever I travel to a country within the EU that is not in the €-zone I cringe. While cultures and mentalities _do_ indeed vary quite a lot let that be seen as a _good_ and healthy thing. I consider myself European first, British Islander second. Have to figure out what other boundaries can be erased while at the same time respecting difference. More integration and yet more federation at the same time. The EU could pour money into pre-third level foreign language learning and into machine translation projects? That'd be cool.
    - vitobcn 11y ago
      > "Europe is not a single entity and never will be." Having lived in several European countries myself (Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland) I can only agree with the first part of the statement. It is not like California and Kansas are very similar either, yet they are part of the same country. To me the current issue is not the people but politics, and the desire of sovereign countries not to relinquish power to a supranational entity. This is a process that takes time (and typically requires a catalyzer). Whether the union will succeed or not, time will tell, but in the last 15 years Europe has clearly been converging (Schengen and currency being important aspects, to which I would add Erasmus programs and low-cost flights). It is not there yet, and with the financial crisis from the last few years, the situation is more difficult at the moment; however, in my opinion if Europe wants to play a relevant geopolitical role vs the US, China, Russia, etc. it will be forced to step up its union efforts.
- igravious 11y ago
  I agree. It's a constant real risk. Most people are reflexively and unthinkingly tribal and parochial. Europe needs to celebrate its multi-cultural diversity. Homogeneity is boring. Ok, there is a need for harmonisation of standards and markets and laws, but at the same time cultural diversity is healthy. I think student Erasmus schemes are great, allows young to people to experience how brilliant and non-threatening the variations within Europe are. The EU really needs to step up on the propaganda :) I would like to be an optimist on this one.
- danmaz74 11y ago
  The biggest problem here is how to create a pan-EU public opinion with so many different languages... as things are now, it's very easy for those who don't want a united EU to play divide et impera.
tajen 11y ago
I don't agree. Once you've experienced the creation of a company, you realize that when a company gives 25€ to an employee, 68€ was was given to the tax and 7€ to people who help dealing with the tax complexity (accountants, lawyers, inspections). Total 100€, the price the customer pays. And I think those 68€ are too much. So: Tax Heavens: In Argentina you're not allowed to transfer your money abroad, unless approved by the government. I call that a dictatorship. We must not do the same. Tax heavens exist for a reason. We must rather fight tax complexity. Complexity is a weight on every CEO, it's a hidden tax on every worker. No to Tobin tax. Science: Stop exploring the outer space. Let the money for each company/person to hire more employees. When you're old but not disabled yet, don't you want to hire an Au Pair to take care of your laundry? Our people needs money to pay for their local jobs, not for space rockets. Politics: Dismembering NATO and UN is not any kind of solution. We need our own successful startups (I mean the size of Google and Apple) - Why wouldn't we have those in EU? Then we can equally deal at a worldwide level, menace of spying on the world's emails and businesses, or better, we can equally negociate with US a worldwide non-spying treaty. Welfare: The Scandanavian model has become a gimick. My flatmate in Australia was born in Thailand on the countryside and at 22 he was making $1000 a week as a waiter in a hotel. That's what I call: One person, one chance.
- igravious 11y ago
  No offence. I don't even no where to start in responding to you. In reverse order. Welfare: a single anecdote is no rebuttal, how could it ever be? I've lived in Finland, I've _experienced_ the Scandinavian model first hand and I keep up-to-date on global stats. Granted, they are not perfect places but in terms of inequality (hint: this metric _really_ matters), social inclusion, access and quality of healthcare, education, public services and so on the countries of Scandinavia frequently come out on top _globally_. That is uncontested. Yay for your Thai friend. Maybe they would have made €700 (going rate) a week as a waiter in a hotel in Scandinavia? Politics: I _said_ re-make the UN _security council_. Not dismember the UN! I can't take you seriously if you don't give an honest reading of what I said. But yes, I am advocating disengaging gradually from NATO, it is a source of tension in the world _and_ importantly for Europeans it makes Europe subservient to US foreign policy. The rest of what you say there I cannot understand. Science: Eh hello? All our eggs in one basket? We need to become multi-planetary ASAP. The tech discovered in attempting to do so will actually help improve life on earth. Not a zero-sum game, sorry! Tobin tax: You may not have noticed the recent implosion of the world economy a.k.a. The Great Recession. And the subsequent bailing out of the financial industry. Inequality growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Most people know that the one way to make the financial sector subservient to the rest of the economy and not the other way around is to implement some form of Tobin tax. The UK is quaking in its boots in the EU because it recognises that France, Germany and others want this. Without context your numbers are meaningless. With all respect, you need to realise that anecdotal unreferenced data-points are not a rebuttal to statements of general opinion. For instance you need to assert what you think is wrong with the Scandinavian model, wrong with the idea of a Tobin tax, and so on. Tax havens: You're happy with people scamming the system. I'm not. This process is already well under way by the way.
smhg 11y ago
Good summary! I only want to add that it would be nice if most of this would be a global effort. All these borders create fake differences. We're all the same: human. However mellow that might sound.
- igravious 11y ago
  Thanks. Agreed that Europe (as EU) needs to think global, act local. Need to realise that helping our neighbours helps ourselves. Witness the ongoing tragedy of mass death of migrants. Regarding borders, if we tried to improve things _over there_ then they wouldn't want to create terror or mass immigrate over _over here_. There's only one thing wrong with democracy at the barrel of a gun and combating terrorism with drones. It does not achieve what you want it to achieve.
mschuster91 11y ago
> The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon. With Erdogan behaving like a little dictator more and more, this can not ever happen. Turkey is getting more and more Islamistic and less European every day.
- Renaud 11y ago
  Some proponents of Turkey joining the EU actually hope that being part of a more global economic and cultural whole would offer more opportunities for the Turks and temper Turkey's potential risk of becoming more religiously extreme.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Yeah, but as it is, Turkey is developing into a mini-Russia. How do you deal with that?
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      Turkey is worse than Russia, imho. Erdogan is a religious extremist nutcase, Putin is just a "power player." Power plays can be predicted and mitigated, religious extremism not.
  - igravious 11y ago
    This is the idea. The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence. Ease of travel and trade should integrate Turkey into Europe rather than the Near or Middle East. Turkey will qualify for regional development funds. EU gains as well by enlarging the market. Should be win-win.
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      > The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence. We don't even manage to integrate the Brits into the EU, and there is not even a religious issue.
    - 11y ago
venomsnake 11y ago
> Politics: Needs to re-make the UN security council. Needs to work harder towards sorting out Israel/Palestine. Needs to disengage from NATO. The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon. Not while islamists are in power. After another Kemal Ataturk style coup that enshrines secular character of the country, we could talk about it.

rbanffy 11y ago

That'll only happen if Europe moves as one and doesn't fragments itself back into competing states. Sadly, this risk seems real.

vdaniuk 11y ago
Language barrier may be the single most important obstacle for further integration. English fluency is growing too slowly due to political reasons, so universal translators may be the one technology EU needs to become and act as a single entity.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I've lived for > 1 year at the time in quite a few countries of Europe. Europe is not a single entity and never will be. The language is a part of this, but the mentality from country to country is a far larger component. Within Europe you have cultures and mentalities as diverse as you can imagine. Language is the least of the problem. This is also why many well-meaning individuals, NGO's, governments and other institutions that try to apply knowledge about something that 'worked' in one EU country to another invariably fail. Comparing Greece to Sweden, The UK to Romania, Serbia to Portugal, Italy to Scotland, Poland to France and Spain to Germany can shed some light on what makes - and keeps - Europe as fragmented as it is. The Euro, with all its faults, has done more for European unification than any other measure, Schengen being a close second. Now we're looking at a slow but sure decline in that feeling. Most people have an identity rooted in some rough geographical location, I've yet to hear someone call themselves a European first.
  - igravious 11y ago
    Exactly. € and Schengen erase currency and national boundaries. They rock! Whenever I travel to a country within the EU that is not in the €-zone I cringe. While cultures and mentalities _do_ indeed vary quite a lot let that be seen as a _good_ and healthy thing. I consider myself European first, British Islander second. Have to figure out what other boundaries can be erased while at the same time respecting difference. More integration and yet more federation at the same time. The EU could pour money into pre-third level foreign language learning and into machine translation projects? That'd be cool.
  - vitobcn 11y ago
    > "Europe is not a single entity and never will be." Having lived in several European countries myself (Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland) I can only agree with the first part of the statement. It is not like California and Kansas are very similar either, yet they are part of the same country. To me the current issue is not the people but politics, and the desire of sovereign countries not to relinquish power to a supranational entity. This is a process that takes time (and typically requires a catalyzer). Whether the union will succeed or not, time will tell, but in the last 15 years Europe has clearly been converging (Schengen and currency being important aspects, to which I would add Erasmus programs and low-cost flights). It is not there yet, and with the financial crisis from the last few years, the situation is more difficult at the moment; however, in my opinion if Europe wants to play a relevant geopolitical role vs the US, China, Russia, etc. it will be forced to step up its union efforts.
igravious 11y ago
I agree. It's a constant real risk. Most people are reflexively and unthinkingly tribal and parochial. Europe needs to celebrate its multi-cultural diversity. Homogeneity is boring. Ok, there is a need for harmonisation of standards and markets and laws, but at the same time cultural diversity is healthy. I think student Erasmus schemes are great, allows young to people to experience how brilliant and non-threatening the variations within Europe are. The EU really needs to step up on the propaganda :) I would like to be an optimist on this one.
danmaz74 11y ago
The biggest problem here is how to create a pan-EU public opinion with so many different languages... as things are now, it's very easy for those who don't want a united EU to play divide et impera.

tajen 11y ago

I don't agree. Once you've experienced the creation of a company, you realize that when a company gives 25€ to an employee, 68€ was was given to the tax and 7€ to people who help dealing with the tax complexity (accountants, lawyers, inspections). Total 100€, the price the customer pays. And I think those 68€ are too much. So: Tax Heavens: In Argentina you're not allowed to transfer your money abroad, unless approved by the government. I call that a dictatorship. We must not do the same. Tax heavens exist for a reason. We must rather fight tax complexity. Complexity is a weight on every CEO, it's a hidden tax on every worker. No to Tobin tax. Science: Stop exploring the outer space. Let the money for each company/person to hire more employees. When you're old but not disabled yet, don't you want to hire an Au Pair to take care of your laundry? Our people needs money to pay for their local jobs, not for space rockets. Politics: Dismembering NATO and UN is not any kind of solution. We need our own successful startups (I mean the size of Google and Apple) - Why wouldn't we have those in EU? Then we can equally deal at a worldwide level, menace of spying on the world's emails and businesses, or better, we can equally negociate with US a worldwide non-spying treaty. Welfare: The Scandanavian model has become a gimick. My flatmate in Australia was born in Thailand on the countryside and at 22 he was making $1000 a week as a waiter in a hotel. That's what I call: One person, one chance.

igravious 11y ago
No offence. I don't even no where to start in responding to you. In reverse order. Welfare: a single anecdote is no rebuttal, how could it ever be? I've lived in Finland, I've _experienced_ the Scandinavian model first hand and I keep up-to-date on global stats. Granted, they are not perfect places but in terms of inequality (hint: this metric _really_ matters), social inclusion, access and quality of healthcare, education, public services and so on the countries of Scandinavia frequently come out on top _globally_. That is uncontested. Yay for your Thai friend. Maybe they would have made €700 (going rate) a week as a waiter in a hotel in Scandinavia? Politics: I _said_ re-make the UN _security council_. Not dismember the UN! I can't take you seriously if you don't give an honest reading of what I said. But yes, I am advocating disengaging gradually from NATO, it is a source of tension in the world _and_ importantly for Europeans it makes Europe subservient to US foreign policy. The rest of what you say there I cannot understand. Science: Eh hello? All our eggs in one basket? We need to become multi-planetary ASAP. The tech discovered in attempting to do so will actually help improve life on earth. Not a zero-sum game, sorry! Tobin tax: You may not have noticed the recent implosion of the world economy a.k.a. The Great Recession. And the subsequent bailing out of the financial industry. Inequality growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Most people know that the one way to make the financial sector subservient to the rest of the economy and not the other way around is to implement some form of Tobin tax. The UK is quaking in its boots in the EU because it recognises that France, Germany and others want this. Without context your numbers are meaningless. With all respect, you need to realise that anecdotal unreferenced data-points are not a rebuttal to statements of general opinion. For instance you need to assert what you think is wrong with the Scandinavian model, wrong with the idea of a Tobin tax, and so on. Tax havens: You're happy with people scamming the system. I'm not. This process is already well under way by the way.

smhg 11y ago

Good summary! I only want to add that it would be nice if most of this would be a global effort. All these borders create fake differences. We're all the same: human. However mellow that might sound.

igravious 11y ago
Thanks. Agreed that Europe (as EU) needs to think global, act local. Need to realise that helping our neighbours helps ourselves. Witness the ongoing tragedy of mass death of migrants. Regarding borders, if we tried to improve things _over there_ then they wouldn't want to create terror or mass immigrate over _over here_. There's only one thing wrong with democracy at the barrel of a gun and combating terrorism with drones. It does not achieve what you want it to achieve.

mschuster91 11y ago

> The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon. With Erdogan behaving like a little dictator more and more, this can not ever happen. Turkey is getting more and more Islamistic and less European every day.

Renaud 11y ago
Some proponents of Turkey joining the EU actually hope that being part of a more global economic and cultural whole would offer more opportunities for the Turks and temper Turkey's potential risk of becoming more religiously extreme.
- tormeh 11y ago
  Yeah, but as it is, Turkey is developing into a mini-Russia. How do you deal with that?
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    Turkey is worse than Russia, imho. Erdogan is a religious extremist nutcase, Putin is just a "power player." Power plays can be predicted and mitigated, religious extremism not.
- igravious 11y ago
  This is the idea. The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence. Ease of travel and trade should integrate Turkey into Europe rather than the Near or Middle East. Turkey will qualify for regional development funds. EU gains as well by enlarging the market. Should be win-win.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    > The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence. We don't even manage to integrate the Brits into the EU, and there is not even a religious issue.
  - 11y ago

venomsnake 11y ago

> Politics: Needs to re-make the UN security council. Needs to work harder towards sorting out Israel/Palestine. Needs to disengage from NATO. The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon. Not while islamists are in power. After another Kemal Ataturk style coup that enshrines secular character of the country, we could talk about it.