Europe

The rise of the European welfare state, the reduction of economic dynamism and the increasingly questionable legitimacy of the European project go hand in hand. ‘Panem et circenses’ could have been the motto of ­Europe’s post-World War II mixed economy model. It remains to be seen whether the EU will also share the Roman Empire’s fate.

After five tumultuous years of fighting the crisis arising from Europe’s monetary integration, leading European politicians are planning to go full steam ahead with the next level of integration. Their goal is the integration of fiscal policy.

Now that the Greek banks have re-opened, the third bailout package is on the way and something vaguely resembling normalcy is returning to Greece, we can finally deal with other things again: the euro crisis, for example.

Now that Greece is finally and officially bankrupt, perhaps we might eventually see something resembling a solution to the crisis. How about Greece exiting the eurozone, devaluing its new currency, default on its debt and reform its economy?

The Greek situation will only change for the better once the country is allowed to do what it should have done five years ago: default on its debt, leave the eurozone and regain competitiveness by devaluing its new currency.

It may be madness to do something over and over again while expecting a different result. But conversely, it is only reasonable to expect Europe’s next integration steps to be just as successful as the previous ones.

The euro crisis has caused considerable economic and financial damage already. We can now see some of the political and security implications of a weakened Europe.

Juncker has not even started his new job as President of the European Commission yet and he is already showing why there was so much resistance to his appointment, particularly in economically liberal and conservative circles. In the pursuit of his policies, he is free of any guiding economic principles and indifferent to legal constraints.