Turbulent and Mighty Continent - 9780745680972

Winner of the 2014 European Book Prize.

A "United States of Europe", Winston Churchill proposed in 1946,could "as if by a miracle transform" that "turbulent and mightycontinent". "In this way only", he continued, "will hundreds ofmillions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopeswhich make life worth living".

Today, nearly seventy years later, over 500 million people live inthe member states of the European Union – a greater numberthan in any other political community save for China and India. Thecurrency of the Union, the euro, is used in economic transactionsworld-wide. Yet the EU is mired in the greatest crisis of itshistory, one that threatens its very existence as an entity able tohave an impact upon world affairs. Europe no longer seems somighty, instead but faces the threat of becoming an irrelevantbackwater or, worse, once again the scene of turbulent conflicts.Divisions are arising all over Europe, while the popularity of theUnion sinks. How can this situation be turned around?

It is a mistake, argues Anthony Giddens, to see the misfortunes ofthe euro as the sole source of Europe's malaise. The Union facesproblems shared by most or all of the developed states of theworld. Reform in Europe must go far beyond stabilizing the euro,formidable and fraught though that task may be. Introducing anarray of new ideas, Giddens suggests this is the time for afar-reaching rethink of the European project as a whole.