Speaking of “dissolution” would be perhaps too radical at this stage. Having said that, though, I think there is little doubt that the EU has lost most of its luster in the eyes of Europeans. The EU’s image as a huge, cumbersome bureaucracy pursuing its own self-aggrandizement strategies is now well established in the eyes of public opinion. There is no doubt that a process of gradual de-legitimation of what the EU does and says is under way. The absence of sound leadership and the continuing quarrels among member states do not augur well for the future. European citizens realize that an EU run by unelected officials controlling a rich budget with total unaccountability is inherently not a good thing. And this is just one aspect of public dissatisfaction. The economic crisis provided ample opportunity for significant socio-political fissures to appear. The perceived German attack on EU countries of the South, for example, is just one aspect of the advancing fracturing of the original assumptions about a community of European nations.... Read more
