Hannan's primer on why the Europe Union isn't working

Noble intentions of a Euopean Union devolved into tense relations among nations in A Doomed Marriage: Britain and Europe.

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A Doomed Marriage: Britain and Europe
Daniel Hannan
Notting Hill Editions

The founders of the European Union had a noble intention: surveying the ruins of a continent ravaged from 1914 to 1945 by war and genocide, they decided that nationalism was the root of the continent's ills and that a pan-European identity was needed to supplant the old national feelings.

The resultant EU, says Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Parliament, was expressly and intentionally designed to be a technocratic, not a democratic, polity, with wise men guiding the continent into the sunny uplands of a post-national future.

However, those noble intentions have now ossified into an ideology that is willing to sacrifice Greece, Spain, Ireland and others, because the project must continue. Far from bringing peace worthy of a Nobel, says Hannan, the EU and its endless Euro-crisis bailouts have brought relations between Greece and Germany, for instance, to their lowest pass since 1945.

Hannan's sharp analysis is not without flaws - he is far too starry-eyed about what Greece and other countries can do to resolve their difficulties - but as a primer on why Europe isn't working, it's very useful.