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Can the European Union (EU) survive and help the continent to thrive?

The EU is composed of countries with surprisingly little in common, other than geography. As such, the EU will not survive another ten (10) years and will begin losing its relevance in very short order.

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    Xavier Belvemont 30+

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    Feb 28 2013: The issue with the EU is its implementation, where it takes several rich nations and then opens the borders to dozens of poorer nation. (I don't see how anyone could have looked at Estonia, Romania and Latvia and thought adding these countries would have had all that much of a positive effect, if any).
    There was no reason why the EU couldn't have simply consisted of England, Germany, France, Italy and spain and simply opened trade with the others.
    You'd still have as much trade + you could restrict immigration to the required levels (and be more selective in immigration policy).

    The EU will survive, but like all thar came before it, its extensive expansion will lead to its downfall and discredit the point of its existence.

  • george lockwood 20+

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    Feb 28 2013: The only problem I see with the EEC is it got too big and too many poor members. Also - wouldn't it be better to have several such groups rather than trying to make one so large. Germany and France and some of the other members fit together well. Okay maybe we wouldn't want to pair Greece and Turkey together, but I see some real adbantages even there. Turkey, Iran, Iraq and a few others seem a good match. Why Jena wanted to leave India makes sense except history suggests Pakistan would have been better off in a richer greater India. Poland and the Baltics would seem to mesh well with the Old Russia, but they don't think so at all. Maybe I don't get it, but i feel smaller confederations of independent states is a better idea. Why can't these larger units work better together.
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    Theodore A. Hoppe 200+

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    Feb 28 2013: The European Union is the largest economy in the world right now. More importantly, it is outpacing the U.S. in switching to a more sustainable model. Jeremy Rifkin is the principle architect of the European Union's Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic sustainability plan to address the triple challenge of the global economic crisis, energy security, and climate change. The Third Industrial Revolution was formally endorsed by the European Parliament in 2007 and is now being implemented by various agencies within the European Commission as well as in the 27 member-states.

    "Why then.are so many Americans dismissive of Europe? To a great extent, the problem is that Americans have yet to grasp the fact that the 25 states that comprise most of the landmass of Europe are far more than a sophisticated free trade zone and, in reality, constitute a fledgling political union.We Americans,and most Europeans, still compare' individual European nations to the.United States when it comes to relative economic power.But in the commercial arena, such comparisons make less and less sense.'"

    • ZX Style 10+

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      Feb 28 2013: I cannot predict the future, but i know that the EU since 2000 is wrong.
      in 2005 we got a referendum to vote for or against a common constitution.
      The result of this referendum was that we didn't wanted an EU constitution.

      Now don't think that all the voters red the constitution, they were just expressing their negative feelings towards the whole EU integration of nations.
      Nevertheless a EU constitution was accepted and thus the democracy was ignored and our relation towards EU collapsed further.

      Now i and my fellow citizens have to pay for the mismanagement in southern European countries.
      It's just wrong..

      Nevertheless our debt is still not as high as the US debt so i don't think Americans should be dismissive.
      US debt 14 trillion (325Mi)
      EU debt 10 trillion (500Mi)
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    pat gilbert 50+

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    Feb 28 2013: No
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