Micro-Europe
With the US crippled by Wall Street’s collapse, this should be Europe’s moment. Yet the EU’s share of the global economy is shrinking, its role in the world is weakening, and its only hope of reversing these trends is to devote its energy to addressing micro challenges rather than to promoting grand ideas.
STOCKHOLM – With the United States crippled by Wall Street’s collapse, this should be Europe’s moment. Yet the European Union’s role in the world is weakening; it is listened to less today than it was 15 years ago. As Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani, a prominent Asian diplomat and academic, puts it, “Europeans are irrelevant to the world’s great issues, obsessed by internal process, culturally arrogant, craven in the face of the US, and blind to the rise of Asia.”
STOCKHOLM – With the United States crippled by Wall Street’s collapse, this should be Europe’s moment. Yet the European Union’s role in the world is weakening; it is listened to less today than it was 15 years ago. As Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani, a prominent Asian diplomat and academic, puts it, “Europeans are irrelevant to the world’s great issues, obsessed by internal process, culturally arrogant, craven in the face of the US, and blind to the rise of Asia.”