I Love This Country, But The Union

I'm A Historian By Training And By Conviction. And So The Thing That Has Throughout Informed My Thinking About International Relations Is History. I Think, For Example, The Reason That I Was Perhaps Able To See Sooner Than Some Others That The Soviet Empire In Eastern Europe Was Decaying--if Not Disintegrating--was That I Came To It Through History And Through Germany, Rather Than Through Sovietology And Through Moscow. And Therefore The Starting Point Was That No Empire In History Has Lasted Forever, And This One Won't Either.

It Is Not Just That It Is Profoundly Offensive To The Leaders And People Of A Democratic Germany To Paint Hitler On The Wall (or On The Remnants Of The Wall). It Is Also Consummately Counterproductive. Such Sauce Does Not Make The Meat Of Substantive Criticism More Interesting. It Means That The Whole Dish Is Pushed Away. It Does Not Mean That Britain's Voice Is Listened To More Attentively In The Councils Of Europe. It Means That It Is Listened To Even Less.

The Trouble Is That Privacy Is At Once Essential To, And In Tension With, Both Freedom And Security. A Cabinet Minister Who Keeps His Mistress In Satin Sheets At The French Taxpayer's Expense Cannot Justly Object When The Press Exposes His Misuse Of Public Funds. Our Freedom To Scrutinise The Conduct Of Public Figures Trumps That Minister's Claim To Privacy. The Question Is: Where And How Do We Draw The Line Between A Genuine Public Interest And That Which Is Merely What Interests The Public?

The Whole Project Of European Union Is One In Deep Trouble.

As One Looks Back, One Sees That The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Opened The Door To Three Developments - The Eurozone, Which Was Crafted Around German Unification, The Free Movement Of Peoples Within Europe, Particularly People From The New Democracies Of Eastern Europe, And, More Broadly, It Opened The Door To Globalization.