Already jittery because of the financial crisis, members of the European Parliament spilt their coffee when the Polish finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, addressed them this week. “If the eurozone breaks up, the European Union will not be able to survive,” he said, as MEPs bleakly contemplated their vanished expense accounts and sandwiches instead of long lunches in Brussels and Strasbourg.
But there was much worse to follow. Dr Rostowski, a British- born economist, former Tory party member, and Solidarity activist, told them about a chance meeting with an old friend at an airport.
As they discussed the eurozone crisis, the friend warned there would be “war in the next 10 years”. Rostowski added with a final flourish, “War! Ladies and gentlemen, those are the terms he used,” as the massed MEPs mentally translated wojna into guerre and Krieg.
It was not supposed to end like this, for the European project has always had more than economic goals, as Rostowski confirmed when he said that “Europe’s great achievement is political peace. But it is not eternal”. As a Pole, he knows. » | Michael Burleigh | Thursday, September 15, 2011
I concur with Dr. Rostowski. War will inevitably follow if the EU breaks up. It won't be this year, or next year. But in the not-too-distant future, war will be the inevitable outcome. The people who are against the EU are myopic, and lack any understanding of history. Yes, there is much wrong with the EU; but yes, too, there is much right with it. What is wrong with it can be changed. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater! – © Mark
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