Is Europe Striving To Be Too Much Like U.S.?

Europe wants too much to be like the United States, criticized Vaclav Havel. The former president of the Czech Republic and a leading figure in Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution of 1989 said that the EU lacks the visionary politicians that marked its beginnings directly after World War II and that it has now reached a "critical junction" in its development. Speaking at the European Policy Centre in Brussels on May 10, the 68-year old outlined his view of European civilization which he said now had a "double meaning." On the one side, he argued, the EU is focussing on maximizing production and finding new ways of communicating, but at the same time "something very unpleasant is happening." The EU "would like to be like the United States," he added.

Short-term politicians

Havel criticized the current batch of EU leaders for thinking too much in the short-term. Long-term thinking and a restructuring of values which will "not necessarily be very popular" is needed. He said that there is a gap between reality and the political elite, who try to push forward the debate on European integration by saying that citizens should identify with the EU as they do with "their families, towns, regions and countries." Politicians should be "somebody other than a bureaucrat ... or an economist. They should be charismatic," the former playwright said. (EUobserver.com)