Eurozone's hard times to hammer strong bonds
EPA/FRANK RUMPENHORST
Never in the past has the European project occupied such a central and crucial position in the national politics of any EU member state than in the Greek and French elections of 6 May.
In an indirect way, Europe is also the focal point in the British political landscape, with the possibility of a referendum for the UK to stay or leave the EU, and playing a central role not only in the country's politics but in the internal power struggle for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
The same is true for Germany, with the government and the opposition parties being judged by voters according to their policies and proposals for the European project, and more so for what is happening in the Eurozone. Everybody in Germany has strong ideas about the way their country should act and react to what is happening in other Eurozone nations, feeling deeply that those developments are vitsal for Germany.
The same is true for the countries which are supporting Brussels and Berlin-inspired economic policies aimed at countering public debt problems. Governments in Rome, Madrid, Dublin and Lisbon are judged by their electorate according to their successes and failures in relation to Europe.
Each and every citizen in Greece, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and elsewhere in the Eurozone knows that his or her future depends now on what is happening in the other member states. The same is true for the ten EU member states who are not participating in the Eurozone. In many cases the European project was already one of the their most important national issues, like in the cases of Bulgaria and Romania. But in the old member states European issues tended to attract the interest only of particular social and economic groups, like farmers, and very rarely did Brussels or the other major EU capitals play a crucial national role elsewhere in the Union. Now things are completely different.
Of course, the whole issue that brought us to this point is the Eurozone's financial crisis and the way to counter it. And understandably this is a negative story threatening to tear the Eurozone apart. If however, the Eurozone and the entire EU manages in one way or the other to overcome the present minefield and remain in one piece, then the bonds binding its member states together will be of a different quality. Strong friendships are being hammered in the difficult times and people do not forget who were for and against them. The idea that the notion of 'one boat' may be true, will solidify the bonds at least between the Eurozone member states.
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