The European Union is increasingly facing existential crisis, both old and new.
The potential exit of Greece and Britain are old and yet potent risks to the integrity of the union. The huge influx of Middle Eastern refugees and the recent Islamic terrorist attack in Paris have posed new threat to the grand European project. However, such inconveniences should not be allowed to undermine the grand European project, which has delivered peace and prosperity to the continent for 70 years.
Although the heavily indebted Greece might have averted its immediate collapse, it is still on life support -- teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe. It might eventually have to pull out of the euro so it can manipulate the exchange rate to make its …show more content…
Britain will have an in-out referendum on the Union membership in 2017. Several public opinion surveys show that the majority of the British want their country to leave the union and to have economic relations with it similar to Norway. If the real vote mirrors the opinion polls, Britain would leave the union.
Britain 's exit will open the door for other members to quit. Several members want to regain the control of their borders, policies and finances, more than now. It could sound the death knell of the union.
The huge influx of Middle Eastern refugees has posed another risk to the integrity of the European Union. So far this year alone, more than a million refugees arrived ing in Europe in dinghies and flimsy boats and over land. They have forced the union to ditch the Dublin principle on refugees and to apportion refugee quota for each member state, generating opposition from some members. Germany and Sweden, the most welcoming of migrants, have also become weary, because of serious, if not insurmountable, political, economic and security consequences.
Some Eastern European members have even fenced their borders with barbed wire to stem the flow of the flood of migrants. Evidently, the union is fraying at the …show more content…
The London and Madrid attacks happened years back, by the Muslim fundamentalists that were born and grown up in the West. But the increased threat has prompted Shengen members to suspend free movement people across the borders of and to restore border controls, besides trying to take measures to contain them near the sources.
Preventing migrants from leaving their countries and region will not be easy as long as Western countries continue to be a party in the trouble spots in the Islamic world. The University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole wrote in The Washington Post that the United States was fundamentally responsible for the creation and spread of the Islamic State. As Western countries escalate attacks on ISIS in Syria, terror threats will increase accordingly.
You cannot do the same thing again and again and expect a different outcome each time. Augmented Western attacks on ISIL in Syria will increase the flow of refugees to Europe forcing it to restrict free movement across borders and certainly undermine the fundamental objectives of the European
The potential exit of Greece and Britain are old and yet potent risks to the integrity of the union. The huge influx of Middle Eastern refugees and the recent Islamic terrorist attack in Paris have posed new threat to the grand European project. However, such inconveniences should not be allowed to undermine the grand European project, which has delivered peace and prosperity to the continent for 70 years.
Although the heavily indebted Greece might have averted its immediate collapse, it is still on life support -- teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe. It might eventually have to pull out of the euro so it can manipulate the exchange rate to make its …show more content…
Britain will have an in-out referendum on the Union membership in 2017. Several public opinion surveys show that the majority of the British want their country to leave the union and to have economic relations with it similar to Norway. If the real vote mirrors the opinion polls, Britain would leave the union.
Britain 's exit will open the door for other members to quit. Several members want to regain the control of their borders, policies and finances, more than now. It could sound the death knell of the union.
The huge influx of Middle Eastern refugees has posed another risk to the integrity of the European Union. So far this year alone, more than a million refugees arrived ing in Europe in dinghies and flimsy boats and over land. They have forced the union to ditch the Dublin principle on refugees and to apportion refugee quota for each member state, generating opposition from some members. Germany and Sweden, the most welcoming of migrants, have also become weary, because of serious, if not insurmountable, political, economic and security consequences.
Some Eastern European members have even fenced their borders with barbed wire to stem the flow of the flood of migrants. Evidently, the union is fraying at the …show more content…
The London and Madrid attacks happened years back, by the Muslim fundamentalists that were born and grown up in the West. But the increased threat has prompted Shengen members to suspend free movement people across the borders of and to restore border controls, besides trying to take measures to contain them near the sources.
Preventing migrants from leaving their countries and region will not be easy as long as Western countries continue to be a party in the trouble spots in the Islamic world. The University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole wrote in The Washington Post that the United States was fundamentally responsible for the creation and spread of the Islamic State. As Western countries escalate attacks on ISIS in Syria, terror threats will increase accordingly.
You cannot do the same thing again and again and expect a different outcome each time. Augmented Western attacks on ISIL in Syria will increase the flow of refugees to Europe forcing it to restrict free movement across borders and certainly undermine the fundamental objectives of the European