The United Christian Confederation of the Mediterranean

So, the EU and the Euro are doomed, they say. But this doesn't necessarily mean that economic trade zones between similarly placed nation states was a hopeless or bad idea, does it? Whoever thought Germany and Greece were a heaven-made economic match must have been smoking something very interesting, but is there something wrong with the basic idea of economic trade zones?

I've been thinking lately about what is going to happen after the EU slides into the metaphorical sea. Maybe a single currency and the lumbering EU Leviathan-Superstate were a bad idea, but what about smaller more subsidiarity-minded countries in similar regions, with similar economic factors, getting together and hammering out smaller agreements to foster mutual support and similar interests while actually respecting (instead of paying sneering, patronising lip service to) national sovereignty?

And why does it have to be limited to state bodies? Why not regions? And why limit it to economic interests? Why not promote similar cultural interests?

Just thinking out loud here, but what about, for instance, a confederation of Christian Mediterranean states and regions like Malta, Greece, Sicily, Spain, Cyprus and Croatia? I'm reading an interesting book about the physical, anthropological, economic and political history of the Mediterranean, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time that the various places around this ancient basin have banded together for mutual help. (Of course, we've occasionally had to call this "banding-together" things like "the Roman Empire" ... but I'm sure we could manage something useful without all that palaver about elephants and triremes this time.)

And I'm pretty sure we're going to have to start thinking very hard and realistic thoughts about the defence of (what's left of) Christendom, quite soon. It is precisely these kinds of hard and realistic thoughts, thoughts that do not easily accommodate utopian nonsense, that the EU is famously good at not having.

The EU's thesis that a heavily regulated economic superstate will eliminate the ancient political and social tensions ("tensions" being their polite word for mutual, violent loathing and lust for conquest) and bring an endless, fluffy, pink-tinged peace and prosperity are going up in the noxious smoke of torched cars and tear gas canisters. We know that the sudden resurgence of what the papers like to call "extremist nationalist groups" has been due at least in part to the attempt by these (*cough*ex-soviet*cough*) Eurocrats to reboot their youthful utopian dreams. And it seems to be going the way of all utopian dreams.

But is anyone working on ideas for what to do when the inevitable comes?



~