The EU’s Viennese Mirror
If a European Union bureaucrat could travel to Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century, he would be surprised by how closely the Hapsburg Empire resembled today’s EU. By learning from Austria-Hungary's mistakes, today’s Europeans may yet be able to reform and reinvigorate an empire whose most important work still lies ahead.
https://prosyn.org/avNz495
If a European Union bureaucrat could travel to fin de siècle Vienna, he would be surprised by how closely the Hapsburg Empire resembled today’s EU. Like the EU, Austria-Hungary was an experiment in supranational engineering, comprising 51 million inhabitants, 11 nationalities, and 14 languages. Presiding over this microcosm of Europe was a double-throned Emperor-King and twin parliaments representing the largely independent Austrian and Hungarian halves of the realm.