It seems like almost a lifetime ago after all that's happened over the past couple of years, but there was a time when most people in the continent spoke of a "common European home", but those days seem to be long gone as centrifugal processes tear at the bloc's unity and are poised to reshape its very existence.
Germany's EuroLiberal policy of allowing the unrestricted admittance of all civilizational dissimilar migrants regardless of their assimilation and integration intentions is thought to have been the main reason why Brexit won, so now the bloc is sans one of its most important members while several of its Central and Eastern European ones are also openly resisting Brussels' demands for the forced relocation of these same individuals. Poland and Hungary have led the charge in this regard, and both EuroRealist countries are also cooperating on the "Three Seas Initiative" alongside the rest of the EU's regional members in striving to create a pro-sovereignty reform movement within the organization, which some suspect is the real reason why the bloc now wants to sanction Warsaw.
Elsewhere in the EU, the Catalan separatists in northeastern Spain were emboldened by the union's visible weakening and sought to unsuccessfully secede from Spain, sparking an ongoing crisis in the peninsular country and raising questions about the nature of "freedom" and "democracy" within the bloc. Furthermore, the Catalans' Europhile policies also generated discussion about whether it's time for the EU to move beyond a club of states and towards a federation of regions, suggesting that this is the most effective model for seizing the bloc's populist and separatist trends and redirecting them towards a pro-Brussels agenda for strengthening the union.
Outside of the EU but in what's commonly regarded as the forgotten corner of the European continent, the Balkans continue to simmer. Bosnia hangs in the balance as Sarajevo attempts to move closer to NATO much to the consternation of the constituent Serbian half of the state, while the Republic of Macedonia is attempting to do the same as well, though only if it can agree on a renegotiated constitutional name together with Greece. As for Serbia, it just announced that Russia will be invited to mediate the Kosovo issue if its separatist counterparts bring the US into the talks.
Far from being over, Europe's cascading crises seem to have only just begun.
Evans Agelissopoulos, political commentator from Greece joined us to discuss this issue.
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