“The death of the European dream” de Gideon Rachman (Financial Times)
With the enactment of the Lisbon treaty late last year, some European leaders allowed themselves to dream of a new world order – one in which the European Union was finally recognised as a global superpower, to rank alongside the US and China.(…)
However, the European economic crisis has made life much harder for those Americans or Asians who want to argue that the rest of the world should learn from Europe. Last week I met a member of the Japanese establishment who was guffawing at the idea that his prime minister had ever believed that Europe could be some sort of model. In the US, the European financial crisis has been seized upon by conservatives, who argue that Mr Obama’s alleged embrace of European-style “socialism” will bankrupt America.
While the EU’s foreign admirers are on the defensive, international Eurosceptics are in the ascendancy. Charles Grant, head of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-EU think-tank, says he has been struck on his recent travels by the growing disdain for Europe in Delhi, Beijing and Washington. “We’re seen as locked into permanent economic and demographic decline, and our pretensions to hard power are treated with contempt,” he laments.
A few years ago Jeremy Rifkin, an American author, published a book called The European Dream, which made a great splash in Brussels. Mr Rifkin, who perhaps not coincidentally also wrote a book called The End of Work, argued that Europe was a model for the future. “While the American spirit is languishing, a new European dream is being born,” he wrote. “It is a dream far better suited to the next stage in the human journey – one that promises to bring humanity to a global consciousness befitting an increasingly interconnected society.”
Reading those words today, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Pedro Sette-Câmara
André Azevedo Alves
Carlos Guimarães Pinto
Helder Ferreira
Bruno Garschagen
João Luís Pinto
LA
Bruno Alves
Miguel Botelho Moniz
ruicarmo
Miguel Noronha
Elizabete Dias
António Costa Amaral (AA)
LT
Rui Oliveira
BZ
dos ∫antos
André Abrantes Amaral
planca12
rui a.
Rodrigo Adão da Fonseca
Adolfo Mesquita Nunes
Michael Seufert
Luciano
Carlos M. Fernandes
Maria João Marques
jtcb
Nuno Branco
elisabetejoaquim
filipeabrantes
Tomás Belchior
Bruno Gonçalves
Ricardo G. Francisco
Tiago Loureiro
Ricardo Campelo de Magalhães
Filipe Faria
Ricardo Arroja
Ricardo Lima
Miguel
É difícil ler os americanos sobre o fim do euro quando percebemos que é esse “o seu sonho”.
Cada vez mais sinto um arrepio quando os leio. Será porquê?
Ana (ainda traumatizada com a promulgação presidencial, ontem)
Comentário por agfernandes — Maio 18, 2010 @ 09:12
Os europeus ainda sonham com um mundo que já não existe.
A Europa vista da Ásia ou da América é um continente sem futuro demográfico, sem projectos e sem ambição.
Pela ordem natural das coisas, deveria ser a Europa, com os seus superavits de economia madura e desenvolvida, a
financiar os projectos e as oportunidades das economias emergentes.
O que se passa é o contrário, e bem podem os europeus “dar lições ao mundo” que ninguém os leva a sério.
Comentário por ricardo saramago — Maio 18, 2010 @ 14:24