WHAT HAPPENED TO EUROPES DREAM OF UNITY?
Two recent events in Europe, Greece’s financial crisis and the Netherlands’ decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, call into serious question the viability of the European Union’s experiment with monetary union (EMU) and its members’ willingness to remain strong supporters of the Atlantic Alliance (NATO). For sixty-one years, since formation of NATO in 1949, European leaders dreamed of a time when their nations would unite in an economic and political union and be the equal of the two superpowers. The Common Market, a single currency (euro), and the new constitution for a European Union were seen as landmark steps toward that goal. What happened to dampen this dream of a united Europe? On the economic/financial side, many observers now conclude that Europe’s leaders overreached when they decided fifteen years ago to adopt the euro (Britain did not) without also and moving quickly to forge a political union, one that could exercise powers over individual countries on fiscal policy. Ther
