The EU’s fundamental achievements since the end of World War II are the open borders, the movement of labour, the single currency and the notion that membership of the Union was a marriage for life. Increasingly, many are asking whether these achievements will indeed last for decades to come as they see the EU facing formidable challenges.

The problem of mass migration from the Middle East, Asia and Africa has now become a reality that can no longer be tackled by individual member states. It is not possible to say any longer that this is an issue that should be tackled at national level by each country. When Malta cried out for the introduction of ‘burden sharing’ as thousands of immigrants from Africa reached our shores, few larger countries in the EU cared much about what our political leaders were saying.

Now the story is changing. The problem of mass immigration – especially from war-torn Syria and Iraq – is nudging the larger EU countries to take some action. Initially, German Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted to appear magnanimous and welcomed with open arms the thousands of Syrian and Iraqi immigrants who were crossing the EU borders from Hungary and proceeding via Austria to Germany.

This was the right thing to do. But few anticipated the extent of the immigration problem. The initial trickle turned into a flood and Hungary started to build a barbed-wire fence to protect its borders. Controls were tightened on the French-Italian border as thousands of African immigrants were rescued from the Mediterranean and then left to march north to cross the border into France, hoping to eventually get to Britain through the channel tunnel.

Soon the notion of open borders will become a thing of the past as no country, much less the Union itself, has a coherent strategy to tackle this latest challenge. If the EU concept of free movement of people and labour can no longer be taken for granted, then so does the concept of the EU’s single market.

The notion of open borders will become a thing of the past

The immigration problem has relegated the euro issue to second place in the political leaders’ agenda. European leaders continue to tweak, hoping that the euro’s structural problems will disappear. They are now pressing hard for a banking union that will see major EU banks in all eurozone countries abiding by a given set of rules that should reduce the risk of their having to be rescued by taxpayers as was the case some years ago.

But nothing short of a fiscal union can resolve the challenges being faced by the eurozone. The risk of the eurozone breaking up is still a real one. Some southern European member states remain vulnerable with high unemployment, low economic growth and with less than ideal political leadership that kills the feel-good factor that both ordinary people and investors need to encourage optimism about the future.

While for most of this year many were expecting that Greece would have to leave the eurozone, so far this has not happened. If, as some analysts are predicting, Greece will not be able to stick to the onerous terms agreed with the European Central Bank, it may still be forced out of the eurozone. But what is really worrying EU aficionados today is what will happen to the EU if the British people were to decide in a referendum to be held in 2016 or 2017 to leave the EU.

With the growing immigration problem, more Brits are swinging in favour of leaving the Union as they see the organisation failing with no real political leadership in sight. If Britain leaves, one can then expect the possibility of even more defections. The election of a left-wing leader of the British Labour Party makes the possibility of Britain remaining in the EU that much more uncertain. Previously the Labour Party was very much in favour of EU membership. Today, doubts linger as to whether Jeremy Corbyn and his left-wing shadow cabinet are committed to EU membership.

The real risk that the EU faces is not that it will suddenly disappear. Large organisations, including institutionalised religions, rarely collapse suddenly. They simply gradually become irrelevant. The EU may continue to have magnificent buildings in Brussels with an army of bureaucrats, but it will matter less in peoples’ lives.

If today’s political leaders are unable to show that they can work collectively to tackle the Union’s cocktail of problems, the EU may join the list of European failed empires and alliances.

johncassaarwhite@yahoo.com