Read more about the European Union puzzle in an insightful article by Christopher Bickerton in Le Monde Diplomatique. The author has given a pretty good panoramic description of the background behind current turmoil... Will the European Union have the same fate as the Soviet Union? But the Soviet Union was based on forceful integration and totalitarian, maximalistic perception of 'Union,' whereas the European Union is based on Western liberal democratic principles... But does it matter? Perhaps, the United States experiment cannot be duplicated? (of course, it took a very bloody war in the US to keep the Union). Perhaps, the 21st century that continued the late 20th century highly nationalistic and secessionist movements will result in the re-making of the world map even further.
Was Napoleon's dream of 'United States of Europe' so unrealizable? Skeptics should recognize though that the European countries are still moving towards integration, but on what terms, what conditions, and to what degree, that is the question...
It should also be remembered that integration takes much, much longer than disintegration, which only needs seconds... The Soviet Union was building up since 1920s and yet, it collapsed in the matter of 4-5 years... One of the theories of physics is that it takes longer for a soluble to be created than it takes for it to dissolve...
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