The creation of the European Union a few decades ago gave the old continent decades of growth and economic prosperity. Yet, now many are asking whether this economic union has a future as it faces immense internal and external socio-economic pressures. This year is going to be a tough one for the Union as it needs to address three important issues that will determine its future existence.

The first issue is one of security partially tied to the immigration inflow from Africa, the Middle East and other eastern countries ravaged by political unrest. So far the political class in Brussels as well as in the individual member states have bungled a solution that some argue does not even exist.

The US, Australia, Canada and South America managed equally massive immigration flows in the first half of the 20th century with much more success that any EU country has done in the past decade.

The return of the chilling winds of the cold war, the election of maverick politicians in the UK and the EU, the increasing belligerence of Russia and the increasing frustration of ordinary people in the western world could break the back of the EU as we know it today.

While the overpopulated army of eurocrats and politicians in Brussels pay themselves handsome salaries and pensions while spewing hot air in front of TV cameras, ordinary people have had enough of this posturing and demand real social and economic solutions to their problems.

If EU member states continue to live in denial about these critically important issues, the future existence of the Union will indeed be doubtful

Few serious analysts doubt that Europe is no longer the power house it used to be as the economic centre of gravity has shifted to the Far East emerging economies. Globalisation brought economic success and social upgrading to these emerging economies while it provided western citizens with cheap consumer goods, but diminishing job security and an increasingly ineffective social safety net.

The welfare state concept that has helped to bring equity in most post-war European societies is today a shadow of what it used to be. No wonder that millions of Europeans are feeling betrayed by the politicians who promise a lot but are impotent in creating jobs and providing the elderly with the level of care that was an unwritten social guarantee just a few decades ago.

Europe has already lost a generation of young people who have either never worked or just dabbled in the black economy with precarious conditions of work.

At the same time millions of ageing workers fret about the quality of life they have to put up with as public health services, care costs and pensions deteriorate because of insufficient funding. We still have to see how the new era of protectionism that is likely to be ushered by the new US president will affect jobs in Europe and elsewhere. Our own EU political leaders keep being ambivalent and often contradictory in preaching fiscal rectitude while at the same time announcing grand plans of public spending to improve the infrastructure, thereby creating more jobs.

The UK was the first EU country to realise that it needs to change course even if it still lacks a clear vision of what it intends to do to serve British people better. One UK minister that has for once spoken clearly about the need for cultural and lifestyle change is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. If only our own politicians had the courage to speak clearly to people about the inevitable changes that are needed to preserve what is still worth saving in the welfare state model.

When giving evidence in the House of Lords NHS Sustainability Committee, Hunt supported the ideas of the NHS head Simon Stevens who called for the setting up of a ‘triple guarantee’ which would see adults put money in a pot to pay for care, pensions and housing.

Hunt was blunt: “We need to get into the habit of saving when we are younger like we do for our pensions. In a nut shell we need as a country to start saving for our social care costs as we save for our pensions.”

Many long for the day when our EU and local politicians start to speak as clearly instead of kicking the can on pension’s reform, health care restructuring and the encouragement of savings to improve the quality of life of many ageing ordinary people.

If EU member states continue to live in denial about these critically important issues, the future existence of the Union will indeed be doubtful.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com

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