‘EU dream is DEAD’ – Juncker’s plot for EU superstate is over and MORE members will leave
EUROCRATS’ dreams of a European superstate are “breaking down” and another member state could follow Britain out of the bloc in the near future, a leading geopolitics consultancy has predicted.
By HARVEY GAVIN
Express.co.uk
Fri, Jan 19, 2018
The EU27 is faced with a series of long-term challenges which, combined with Brexit, are causing “a lot of friction beneath the surface”, experts from Stratfor warned.
And one of the geopolitcal firm’s specialists claimed the only way Brussels would realise its dream of a United States of Europe would be if the bloc “removed three-quarters of its members”.
Speaking during a rundown of the “top geopolitical risks for 2018”, expert Rodger Baker said the EU was moving towards “disintegration”, despite hopes from some of its key figures for closer cooperation between members.
Asked by Express.co.uk if the rise of Eurosceptic and anti-establishment parties in countries such as Italy, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic could destabilise the bloc, Mr Baker said the tension would not result in “the collapse of the EU”.
But he admitted the dream of a superstate is in breakdown.
Mr Baker said: “What you do see is that the dream towards the multi-state entity that truly subsumes the concept of sates underneath it is really going to start dissipating and we are seeing it break down.
“It wouldn’t be beyond the pale to see in the next three to five years to see somebody else leave the European Union.
“We don’t in the long term expect to see the entity disappear, but certainly its dream of extreme tighter integration, unless it removes three-quarters of its members, is probably not going to happen.”
Mr Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at Stratfor, said ever since the 2008 financial crisis, the bloc has been pulled in different directions by “two countervailing forces”.
He said: “One is those who still are holding that dream of removing the idea of nation, for idealistic purposes or this long-term dream that was the path you were going on, and they are pushing for that tighter integration right now.
“But the reality that underlies it, from the ability to set national fiscal policy to different social norms to longstanding views of self-identification and nationalism, these are those countervailing forces we are seeing.”
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