Today, on Remembrance Sunday, the United Kingdom commemorates the end of the first world war, which brought four years of intolerable carnage to an end. The second week in November is also the week of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, when freedom prevailed over totalitarian rule.
Both events symbolise the fact that our actions have implications. That political decisions have consequences. That history is shaped not by fatality, but by what we do.
The second week of November 2011 has seen turbulence of a different kind. The political and economic turmoil in Greece and Italy have affected us all. Today, markets trigger within seconds chain reactions to events that spill all around the globe. Economics is changing fundamentally but so too is politics. The bipolar system of the world before 1989 has been replaced by a multipolar, more unstable and more unpredictable world.
The first conclusion I draw is that as we witness fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order, Europe needs to advance together or risk fragmentation. The dynamic of globalisation in financial and economic terms, but also in geopolitical terms, confronts Europeans with a stark choice: live together, share a common destiny and count in the world; or face the prospect of disunity and decline. In this defining moment, we either unite or face irrelevance. Our goal must not be to maintain the status quo, but to move on to something new and better. » | José Manuel Barroso | Sunday, November 13, 2011
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