It is common to use the example of Ancient Egypt to explain why humans moved, after thousands of years, from a tribal structure to a state structure: the need to group around a single command to carry out large public works for the benefit of the community. In the Egyptian case, it was the canals created so that the periodic floods caused by the Nile Delta did not destroy crops and farms, as well as ensuring fertility to a group of lands bordering the desert. The tribes, each on their own, would not have achieved this. Already in ancient times it was known that size matters and something was needed to unite the different clans; from there arose kings, religions, laws (the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi, the first code of rules that we have evidence of, is about 4 thousand years old) … that is, the state, and with it nationalism. Even then, attempts were made to create structures above this nationalist conception, although in the West, especially after the fiasco of Alexander the Greatwhich was too far-reaching, only Rome was truly successful, uniting different peoples far from each other and building structures to exercise a certain sovereignty. Its fall was very bad news for the technological evolution of Europe, not only because of political fragmentation, but also because of the decline in trade.
With more modern means than the Romans, Spain and England They managed to build large empires that lasted for centuries but ended up collapsing again due to nationalist tensions and, to sum up, we arrive at the present day in which there are up to seven states with more than 200 million inhabitants, although the economic and geopolitical importance is focused above all on China, the United States and Russia (the least populated, with about 140 million inhabitants, half that of Indonesia), which is expected to soon be joined by India, which is the country with the largest population in the world, around 1.4 billion. What seems clear is that a small and sparsely populated country cannot exercise global leadership, and decades ago some in Europe realized this and began a process to have more economic and geopolitical weight.
The case of Minister Ribera
The Eurozone has resulted too ambitious a project The EU is a country that has betrayed the spirit of the Maastricht Treaty, which was to be strict with public accounts, after the 2008 crisis and, above all, after the sovereign debt crisis that began with the first bailout of Greece. The EU was a very good idea, and if it did not exist, something similar would have to be created. However, it is clear that its structure can be greatly improved and that current politicians are not willing to do so. In fact, there has not been a single consequence after the United Kingdom’s disaffection, they have limited themselves to criticising Brexit without learning anything so that another country does not do the same. We have just seen the scant enthusiasm that is aroused by the elections to the European Parliament, where so many do not see themselves represented (after all, everything important is still decided in meetings between governments) and where the parties place their politicians out of the loop, or where they do not take their seats so as not to leave office, as Minister Ribera did.
The EU was a very good idea, and if it did not exist, something similar would have to be created. However, it is clear that its structure could be greatly improved and that current politicians are not willing to do so.
This disaffection towards the EU is good news for our economic and geopolitical rivals: being patriotic, being nationalist, does not have to be at odds with the idea of achieving a Europe that can have a single voice that can confront the Europeans on a relatively equal footing. United States, China and RussiaWhat we need to do is improve the EU, avoid internal disputes and intra-community stabs.
The great challenges are global: the artificial intelligence revolution, the risk of climate change, the ecological degradation of the planet, the possible end of fossil fuels, the overpopulation of some areas that affects all, the ageing of the population in the most developed countries that also has an impact on a global scale, the fall in productivity, high levels of debt (now getting into strictly economic issues)… etc. If the pandemic did not open our eyes to the impossibility of solving a problem that affects everyone from a common position, I don’t know what else is needed.
The inevitable globalization
Whether we like it or not, globalization is a fact: we cannot fight pollution if Europe’s efforts are not reflected in China; we cannot isolate ourselves from AI or controversial genetic manipulation (if a technology exists, surely someone will end up using it) with rules that our rivals will ignore; we cannot renounce sources of energy without alternatives as Spain does with nuclear energy, we cannot lack a common migration policy that seals the borders against undesirables and opens them to the working youth that our aging continent so badly needs; we cannot ignore new technologies and settle for a service economy with hardly any production of our own; and of course we cannot continue living off of bringing money from the future via debt. The slogan (which is more than a century old although several organizations have tried to appropriate it) that says “Think globally, act locally“It makes perfect sense, but in the EU what we do is either the first without the second or the second without the first.
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