European Network

Over the last few years, I have at times believed that Europe had the better model for how to relate states to each other, with a more 'networking' relationship between the countries of the EU (and less top-down control), versus the heavily subordinate role of the American states.

With uncertain leadership and few powerful collective institutions, the European Union is struggling with the strains this crisis has inevitably produced among 27 countries with uneven levels of development.

The traditional concept of “solidarity” is being undermined by protectionist pressures in some member countries and the rigors of maintaining a common currency, the euro, for a region that has diverse economic needs. Particularly acute economic problems in some newer members that once were part of the Soviet bloc have only made matters worse.

But the 'networking' aspect of their political relationship may well be their undoing, as stated well here:

“The European Union will now have to prove whether it is just a fair-weather union or has a real joint political destiny,” said Stefan Kornelius, the foreign editor of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We always said you can’t really have a currency union without a political union, and we don’t have one. There is no joint fiscal policy, no joint tax policy, no joint policy on which industries to subsidize or not. And none of the leaders is strong enough to pull the others out of the mud.”

I think it is still possible that the European model will prove superior, but right now, the strains in Europe are pretty great, as shown in this piece from the NYT. What I now realize is that the newer EU nations were much more heavily dependent upon the American economic model, which is now going down the toilet, and this has put them at odds with the more heavily regulated economies of France and Germany, which in turn do not feel much sympathy for their poorer brethren.

Having watched the Soviet Union collapse, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe embraced the liberal, capitalist model as the price of integration with Europe. That model is now badly tarnished, and the newer members feel adrift.