In this unsettling world order, polite, middle-size democracies are easy prey for bullies. It is time to reassert European power<\/p>\n
Squeezed between US oligarchy<\/a> and Russian and Chinese autocracy, Europe\u2019s democracies stand out like a relic from a bygone age. The euphoria and sheepish groupthink on display at Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration last month may well herald either a new US \u201cgolden age\u201d<\/a> or a hubristic bubble bound to burst. It is possible that China will succeed in reshaping the world in its image, or it may succumb to demographic decline<\/a> and economic stagnation<\/a>. Europe is not alone in being at a historic crossroads, but it is exclusively mired in pessimism<\/a>, despondency and self-doubt.<\/p>\n In 1492, as Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas and Spain embarked on its own siglo de oro<\/em>, or golden age, Spanish troops were readying to take over large parts of Italy. Europe\u2019s highest concentration of wealth was to be found in cities such as Florence, Milan and Venice. Cities of beauty and civility, industry and trade; cities, above all, so mesmerised by their particular identities that they refused to form a unitary state. The eventual result was the partition of the Italian peninsula. There was no space for rival city states in a world of nations.<\/p>\n Lorenzo Marsili is a philosopher, activist, author and director of the Berggruen Institute Europe<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this unsettling world order, polite, middle-size democracies are easy prey for bullies. It is time to reassert European power Squeezed between US oligarchy and Russian and Chinese autocracy, Europe\u2019s democracies stand out like a relic from a bygone age. The euphoria and sheepish groupthink on display at Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration last month may well … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}