Europe's troubled future

The European Union is not going to have a good year.

The current Greek financial crisis is the most dramatic, but events in Eastern Europe show that there are even more structural problems facing the European Union.

Hungary, a former Soviet bloc nation with a developing free market economy, has turned into an impoverished state in need of IMF bailout money in the course of a few years.

Economic problems there have led to widespread political dissatisfaction.

The right-wing Fidesz party came to power on a wave of public outrage after socialist former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was caught on tape admitting that he had lied about the state of the economy throughout the election campaign.

Right-wing politicians regularly employ anti-Semitic and nationalist rhetoric to gain support.

Additionally, recent economic trouble has revealed that the E.U. rushed Eastern European nations through the admissions process without adequate preparation for the membership requirements.

The European Union as a whole is now vulnerable to crises and problems that were at one time merely local concerns. The political turmoil in Hungary is exposing the difficulty of building a unified political structure, a “United States of Europe” that some had hoped for.

E.U. officials incorrectly thought that quickly integrating the continent was more important than following their own rules.

Instead of helping Eastern Europe grow, this merely postponed inevitable economic problems and now risks splitting the E.U.

Despite internal difficulties, the E.U. is an important trade partner with the U.S. and China, and the euro is a major currency in the international financial system.

The disintegration of the E.U. would cause massive economic dislocations around the world.

The European Union was originally intended to prevent a repeat of the World Wars by making all the European powers interdependent.

The economic competition and angry editorials in Europe today are preferable to any actual war, and the E.U. has been successful in fulfilling its original mandate.

But short-sighted eagerness to expand the E.U. and the misapplication of a one-size-fits-all policy are now reversing this success.

European leaders’ unwillingness to take the cultural divides within Europe seriously and dismissal of Euroskeptics as fringe extremists have increased the risk of political polarization in member states.

They need to admit that a limited trading union or a complete political integration are the only viable routes to stability.

Going back to a simple trade union now would be admitting defeat for many Europhiles. Fully integrating the continent would be a complicated, decades-long process that would anger many nationalists. But half measures and compromises have proved to be less stable than either of these options.

In fact, it now seems possible that the European Union will be destroyed by the misguided actions of its own supporters.

­— jzsoldos@indiana.edu