The EU is crumbling

And it’s not just the eurozone. Every major project of the European Union is faltering. France and Italy are suggesting that the achievement of the Schengen area, with no border controls, should be chipped away – just because a few thousand people from convulsed north Africa have taken refuge on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Many European countries are already in a panic about the integration of immigrants and people of migrant origin, especially those who are Muslims. Solidarity and social justice – central values of the post-1945 European project – are in retreat almost everywhere, as a result of growing inequality and spending cuts to tackle public debt.

In the Arab spring, Europe faces the most hopeful set of events in the 21st century so far, comparable in scale and potential to 1989; but its collective and institutional response to this historic opening has been feeble beyond belief. Yet this was meant to be the year in which the EU got its act together in foreign policy. Even in the most hopeful cases – Tunisia and Egypt – we may have only a few months in which to prevent the Arab spring becoming an Arab autumn; or, as the Americans would say, an Arab fall. The disappointed hopes of that half of the population that is under 30 would then produce further, larger migrant surges to Europe. In their own countries, Islamists would exploit the chances and the confusion of semi-freedom. It doesn’t have to happen, but it easily could.