The hollow nature and intrinsic inutility of the EU has been exposed:
Now, the outrage over what the open borders principle made possible – the untrammelled movement of organised murderers into and out EU countries – is being appeased with emollient talk about how Schengen might be limited to a smaller number of states or be modified to allow random checks of individuals. But the talking shops of EU ministers can churn out as many of these mock solutions as they like: governments are still (mercifully) accountable to their electorates. They will do whatever their people believe to be necessary for their own security, and they will be justified in doing that.
But it is not only the free movement of peoples and goods (which turned out to include Kalashnikovs) which has come into question. Along with the right to “tighten” France’s borders, whatever that turns out to mean in practice, François Hollande also demanded – and got – permission to ignore EU budget limits so that he could increase government spending on security and defence.
So, to return to my original question: what’s left? If national borders may be reinstated by individual governments either with hasty barbed wire or officially reconstituted checkpoints, and EU budget rules can be thrown out whenever circumstances require, what does the authority of the EU Commission and Council and Parliament amount to? Possible answer: a largely useless, self-perpetuating, massively overpaid bureaucracy presiding over Potemkin institutions whose deliberations count for nothing when the lives of real people living under real governments are at stake.
Being newer and less stable, the EU will be the first multi-national “empire” to break up. It hasn’t delivered on ANY of its promises; it was never anything more than the usual credit bubble surfing and elite resource extrication. However, it should be noted that it won’t be too much longer before the USA begins to follow suit. The United States is no more a nation than the EU is, the only significant difference is that it has rival ethnicities and cultures rather than national fault lines.
Bob Prechter predicted both failures long ago. And while he hasn’t been right about everything, I see absolutely no sign whatsoever that he hasn’t gotten both of those calls right.