Can the EU Bicycle Turn into a Jet Plane by 2020?

As part of the EuroFuture paper series, the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is releasing a paper I wrote entitled, “Can the EU Bicycle Turn into a Jet Plane by 2020?.“

In the paper, I explain the theory that says the EU only moves forward in a crisis, and that it must do so for the “bicycle” (that the EU is seen to be) not to fall. But in order for the EU to continue to move forward, its leaders need to turn that bicycle into an airplane, to give flight to their imaginations about what the EU could and should be and do. Rather than mechanics as its means of locomotion, the EU needs aerodynamics to make its increasingly complex interdependence work successfully.

I propose two scenarios, based on the assumption that the eurozone will move towards closer economic and political integration:Deep economic and political integration that produces a flourishing EUtopia; or shallow economic and political integration that produces a stagnating dystopiEU.

The EuroFuture paper series features strategists from around the world who will analyze how their country or region will position itself vis-à-vis a changed Europe. GMF in-house experts will also explore the implications of the crisis through different national and regional prisms.