{"id":1564,"date":"2021-10-31T02:53:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T01:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibiworld.eu\/en\/?page_id=1564"},"modified":"2022-02-26T02:29:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T01:29:05","slug":"the-european-union-at-the-usual-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ibiworld.eu\/en\/the-european-union-at-the-usual-crossroads\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CHALLENGES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”63px”][vc_column_text]\"\"<\/p>\n

EDITORIAL: THE EUROPEAN UNION, A DREAM THREATENED BY MAJOR DICTATORSHIPS AND POPULIST EGOISM<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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On 1 November 28 years ago, with the Treaty of Maastricht, the European Union was born – an attempt to achieve, in the long term, a federal state uniting the whole of Western Europe and the westernmost part of the former Warsaw Pact countries. An attempt born of the painful lesson learned from the barbarity of the Second World War, which taught everyone that we Europeans are much closer to each other than our rulers claimed.<\/p>\n

It is a difficult attempt, fraught with obstacles, because the long wave of the Congress of Vienna, which in 1815 established the notion that international law was based on the recognition of the inalienable rights of individual nation states, has not yet been absorbed by the sands of history. It is an attempt born of the prospect of a customs union, which has brought wealth, but which is now no longer sufficient, and must become a fiscal, legislative and military union.<\/p>\n

In the political and lobbying dialectics of every single constituent country of the Union, the most recurrent element is that of blackmail: if you want progress in European unification, then you must accept this or that exception that guarantees advantages to one party, one region, one industrial group. On the one hand, German, French, Italian and Spanish corporations use all methods, legal or illegal, to gain market shares, while in national parliaments populist forces carve out spaces of power by exploiting the ignorance, superficiality, fear and superstitions of a significant part of the population.<\/p>\n