'We Are Still Doing Too Well' spiegel.de
About the article excerpt:
In a SPIEGEL interview, Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash discusses the current crisis in the EU and the apparent lack of political passion for the project in the Merkel-Sarkozy generation. The author also explains why he believes young Europeans will start to mobilize if they fear the freedoms of their "easyJet Europe" are under threat.
Another excerpt from the end of the article:
SPIEGEL: The United States of Europe should no longer be the goal?
Garton Ash: We certainly have no lack of rhetoric. What we do lack are the emotions and the passion to say to people: Do you really want to risk what we have? The fact that a young man in Greece or Estonia can get on a plane in the morning and fly to Paris or Rome, without border controls and without exchanging money, and perhaps find a wife or friends there, decide to live or find a job there -- this is progress that no one should put at risk. It must be made clear to people that their "easyJet Europe," as I call this European freedom we experience every day, will be in jeopardy if the euro zone falls apart.
SPIEGEL: Are you saying that if the euro fails, Europe too will fail?
Garton Ash: No, but I believe that we, most Europeans, are still doing too well or, to put it more brutally, not badly enough yet. Europe's biggest problem is its success, which is taken for granted even by young citizens of the Baltic countries, which didn't even exist on the map of Europe 21 years ago. I travel in Poland a lot and it's exactly the same thing there. But if the "easyJet Europe" of freedom is threatened, we will see a mobilization of young Europeans. I'm certain of that.