Social Europe We Need

"Europe today faces three shocks which threaten its social institutions and aspiration for an independent role in world affairs. They are the shock of rampant United States power, the shock of Anglo-Saxon economics, and the shock of a poorly planned European Union enlargement. While these processes have a long-term character, they now possess enough concentrated force to paralyze European institutions, and to subject the continent to corporate-led globalization domestically and to United States ""leadership,"" as the White House now calls its imperial role in global affairs. This is not the Europe the world - or its own citizens - needs. Because the European Union is, at present, the only global entity with an economic weight and political potential equal to that of the United States, it has - in principle - the best possibility of defying the new hegemon. This should not at all be a question of making Europe more like the United States - a process which has already gone too far - but, instead, of ensuring that Europe represents a different social model and that on the international stage it refuses to chain itself to the charlot wheels of the Bush regime."Blackburn, Robin is the author of 'Social Europe We Need ', published 2004 under ISBN 9780851247038 and ISBN 0851247032.