Question

Provide three predictions of items you think will happen in Europe in the next 10 years. Why you think these items will happen?

Answer 1

The greatest overarching need is for Europeans to respond to the harsh winds of potential political globalisation. Political globalization is more than just the commercial globalization that has been constantly debated over the last decade. On a world that has outgrown its mere regional framework, it is a search for democratic order. It will pull the Europeans out of their comfortable, U.S .- subsidized corner of comfort, where constitutional democracy, pluralism, political stability, and the absence of significant conflict were taken for granted in some way.

So my first prediction is that further convergence of European foreign policy, and even security and defence, will take place in the medium to long term. Not before tremendous suffering, and much opposition at national level.

My second hypothesis is that the euro won't be part of a potential European Union. The national currency is a zero requirement. I am not suggesting it was a bad idea for the euro. Indeed, I think it was a very good idea and I hope that Europeans can continue to keep it alive by establishing the political union that is needed to do so.

Third, after heavy pains, I foresee a more full Single Market, and also a specific EU approach to migration — although not to migrant integration, which will remain primarily a national question. More closely aligned markets in Europe are enormously needed. The high degree of economic integration is what gave Europe its strength in economic globalization and this integration will play an enormous part in the survival of Europe in the age of political globalization.