The Future of Europe - a Conclusion
The Future of Europe remains gloomy. Globalization means equalizing opportunities worldwide. The rise of China and emerging markets means a bigger share of the World Economy for these nations, to the detriment of the US and the European Union, as explained in the following graph, where you can see that though US and EU had 30% shares each, in 2013 this declined to 23%:
How will Europe respond to the new reality? Europeans have made a big mistake; from which I consider there is not turning point in the short term. Following a period of extreme growth (and peace), from 1945 – 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall meant unipolarism. “The West” had no contestant. As opposed to the US, a more competitive culture were the focus is to remain being the most powerful nation in the world, Europe got lazy. The period from 1990 – 2008 saw the emergence of the Euro, intra-region migration and the beginning of the end. Even if most countries have good, solid educational systems, people just didn’t study. Noticing this is one of my main drivers for writing this book. Tired off explaining everything to Europeans, I decided to write a book so that everyone in Europe can be updated in events of the Past, Present and Future that concern them, as well as man-kind. Now, this wasn’t a problem in the industrial age. In an industrialized society, few hands are the owners of the means of production. It is them who establish companies and create the jobs. This is positive for cultures that are good for long term planning, like Northern Europe. A ten-year plan for industrial development can be set in place with collaboration from both the private and the public sector. The average citizen doesn’t have to be so knowledgeable, they just have to bother showing up to work. But what happens in a post-industrial society, were the main driver of an economy are not big companies but small businesses? The countries were people have invested the most in education will be privileged. Consider that education is easy available now, so it is not just about having the infrastructure and facilities, the students also need to have the will to study. This is more cultural than based on government efforts. It has to do with the education the children are given at home, and the values they grow up with. You can understand now my skepticism, what happens when a whole region was told how rich they are, how much better we have it compared to other countries? If your parents are telling you that you don’t need to study or worry about anything, because we have a great system and the government will take care of everything? Well, very clearly, people will not take initiative and wait for the government to resolve all their issues. Now, this could have worked in an industrial society, since jobs are created at a higher level. But in a Knowledge Based Economy, you as a citizen will have to take responsibility for your life. The government can only help so much, but it won’t be able to resolve the people’s problems, since people will more and more have the need to create their own jobs. With automation and robotization, there simply won’t be enough jobs for everyone. The job market will get more and more demanding. Unqualified people will find it easier and easier to be left out of the market. In such a type of society, what will happen to refugees? Besides the low educational level, Europe faces today another challenge: migration. Be it for
humanitarian or political reasons, Europe has been importing massive amount of refugees from non-european countries the last decades. Now, this people have no chance of entering the job market, especially in Northern Europe.
Consider two factors: 1. Many of them don’t even know how to read or write, they simply begin too low. In Northern Europe, even the lowest job in the pyramid requires intermediate language skills, and of course presence. Only cleaning jobs are available for people that do not have these skills, but there is only so many of them. 2. Historical reasons make it so at some European countries are better at absorbing foreigners than others. From the last perspective, some European countries do actually offer a better perspective than others. Consider the Three Europe’s I mentioned earlier: Roman Empire, Germanic and Slavic. These regions are very different, have never been integrated and never will (despite most countries belonging to the European Union). I will now detail my perspectives for each of these regions, which differ a lot.
Roman Empire Europe: it offers the best possibilities to integrate refugees (and their children). The reason is that the Roman Empire was a multicultural empire, stretching from North West (UK/Netherlands) to South (Italy/Spain/France) to South East (the Balcans/Greece/Romania) to Middle East (Turkey/Syria) to Northern Africa. The Romans were the experts on citizen rights. The most advanced and elaborated laws we have in the western hemisphere come from that period. The Roman Empire was about the dream of the citizen: it was possible under this scheme to escape slavery and become a full right citizen, able to vote and participate democratically. It was not so in the Greek empire, were 90% of the population were slaves. When the romans captured other regions, they absorbed many of their captives as soldiers for their armies. After many years of service, these people were granted freedom. This allowed the empire to expand rapidly. Extending this to today, we can see that Spain, Italy and France have received massive amounts of migration from Northern Africa and, even if huge levels of segregation exist today, they were mildly absorbed and integrated into society.
Germanic Europe: it has been historically much more isolated and less “contaminated” by migration. Societies remain “pure” to different degrees. This varies though: Germany and Denmark are more open, being a part of continental Europe, whereas Sweden, and to a higher degree Norway, are much more closed as societies. In Sweden and Norway, the children of the immigrants are still fighting for their rights, not being fully considered Swedish or Norwegian. In the article “Refugees welcome to Sweden you’ll get a job in a decade”[1], it is described how “only 53% of refugees that arrived in 2003 had found jobs by 2013. Of those who arrived two years ago, only about 30 percent are now employed. Sweden’s unemployment rate is currently 7 percent”. But consider the “Leanza Bøhnsdalen Social Exclusion Curve”. Even if government unemployment figures show 7%, levels of social exclusion reach over 20% of the population. They are the postindustrialized societies “New Poor”. Germanic Europe will clearly never absorb non-Northern Europeans, or their children, segregation reaching levels so high that Model countries like Sweden will become third world by 2030.[2]
Slavic Europe: consider that the Slavic countries that are in Central Europe were either a part of Germanic Europe or of the Roman Empire. Poland, one of the largest empires, actually disappeared as a country for a period of time during the Nazi period. However, after WW2 these countries were under the influence of the Soviet Union. Even if most Central European countries have been permanent members of the Euro Zone for many years now, they have never been fully accepted. From that perspective, Central Europeans could struggle in Western European job markets. However, the strong educational and healthcare systems make them different and much more prepared for the new economy. From that perspective they have much more potential. Their level of absorption of immigrants will differ depending if they were more Germanic or Roman influenced. Different is the case of Russia and Ukraine. The main influence here culturally was the Russian Zar period. Not being aligned to Europe politically or commercially, Russia will not face the challenges of Europe. Ukraine will eventually be forced to choose sides.
Final conclusion: it is difficult to say what will happen to the European Union. Some people think that it may dissolve. On a personal level, I consider it has never really existed. I mean, I don’t see any Union at all amongst Europeans here in Norway, and I do not think this varies in other countries. Tax barriers make it difficult to do business with each other in a region that should act as a free-market. Northern, Southern and Eastern Europeans appear more segregated than ever. Even if a European passport gives you the right to navigate freely through European job markets, in practice workers are expected to stay in their own regions. Noneuropean influxes of immigrants will of course turn the scenario even darker. If Europeans cannot collaborate with each other, can they collaborate with Latinos, Africans, Asians? I seriously doubt it… It is clear that the landscape of the region is to change drastically in the next 5 to 10 years. As other nations grow rapidly and Europe lags behind, it might just be that the European Dream has come to an End.
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