sunt la viena. o conferinta pe ue si rusia: competitie si cooperare in balcani si caucaz organizata de ivan krastev. destul de interesant. maine vorbesc despre PEV comparat cu PRV. gasiti mai jos un post recent de pe blogul meu pe eu observer. am hotarat sa public si textele integrale alke posturilor pentru a le pastra mai usor in arhiva acestui blog. 

Is the EU a mistake of history?

The EU likes to think of itself as post-modern. The superior embodiment of soft-power and post-national politics, where interdependence and the pooling of sovereignty makes it possible to move beyond decades and centuries of animosities, conflicts, and narrow state interests. The EU clearly achieved that. But the bigger question is whether the EU as an experiment is indeed a qualitative change of international politics that will affect the course of history, or just a temporary experiment.

Many Russians I spoke to think the EU is only a temporary phenomenon. L’exception qui fait la règle. When this experiment will fail, everything  will return to “normal”: power politics, “concert of europe”-style diplomacy, inequality of states, spheres of influence, and interests, not values, as the  driving forces behind international politics. Their relations with many EU member states only reinforce this belief.

I also assume that such scepticism is quite wide-spread throughout the world. The EU as a project has to unconfirm history. I am sure the EU, as such, is a temporary phenomenon. It will dissapear – in 50 or 300 years. The bigger question is whether the “EU way of doing things”, its “post-modernity” as a successful experiment will survive, be exported to other regions and change international politics as we knew it. Will EU’s post-modernity survive beyond the EU, a bit like ancient greek philosophy, or roman law survived ancient greece and the roman empire. No one knows whether the EU will change the course of history and the way international politics will be done in the future, but we better realise it is an uphill struggle.