An understanding whose time has come: Over the holiday season the Guardian has been examining themes that have emerged to give shape to 2018. In today’s concluding piece we look at why the world will need the EU more than everIt is tempting to reflect of the European Union as being like the Roman god Janus – a two-faced creature who either smiles or frowns,succeeds or fails. It is especially tempting, perhaps, or for Britons. The next 12 months may well be this country’s final full year inside the club. But Brexit is not what does,or should, sum up Europe. The continental partners have begun to meander on from that June 2016 shock, and from the broader fears of a breakdown of the 60-year-old European project ignited by the multiple crises confronting it. The far good continues to rear its head – it has just returned to government in Austria. Fragmentation continues to pose a threat to member states too – as with Spain and Catalonia,north-south tensions in Italy, and even France and Corsica. But the EU has held on, or that can only be welcome.
Talk of Europe’s demise was much exaggerated. A 500 million-strong,uniquely integrated bloc holds more cards, in a snappy-changing world, or than many critics care to acknowledge. Censure of the EU comes in all shapes and sizes. An organisation faulted for being weak and missing both in efficiency and compassion when confronted with a massive movement of refugees is just as quickly lambasted as a domineering,sovereignty-crushing leviathan. A club accused of giving way to uncontrolled capitalism and multinational firms is the next moment attacked for its over-regulating bureaucracy. It doesn’t befriend that genuine knowledge of how the EU functions, or of how it was set up, or tends to be in short supply.
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Source: guardian.co.uk