When Europe starts to melt at the edges
By Gideon Rachman
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I once knew a senior European Union official – an Austrian – who argued to me that Greece had no place in the European Union. “Greece is not really culturally European, it’s part of the Middle East,” he insisted. “Just listen to their music.”
To this the Greeks might legitimately reply: “Plato, Aristotle and (on the musical issue), Demis Roussos.” But my Austrian friend’s views, while eccentric, touched on a real and sensitive issue within the Union: the fear that it is economically and politically divided between a northern hard core and a flaky southern fringe.
I once knew a senior European Union official – an Austrian – who argued to me that Greece had no place in the European Union. “Greece is not really culturally European, it’s part of the Middle East,” he insisted. “Just listen to their music.”
To this the Greeks might legitimately reply: “Plato, Aristotle and (on the musical issue), Demis Roussos.” But my Austrian friend’s views, while eccentric, touched on a real and sensitive issue within the Union: the fear that it is economically and politically divided between a northern hard core and a flaky southern fringe.
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