Disintegrating Europe

by Noriko Hama

Since the Maastricht Treaty of December, 1991, Europe has experienced rising nationalism and regionalism - both centrifugal effects working against union - and above all scepticism toward the Union concept itself. As certain of the member states fragment, or turn inward, a turning-point in history has been reached: it is the end of the post-War Europe. As such, is it even necessary for Europe to be united at all? Is the unification ideal too large a political concept, one that has been hot-housed and pushed ahead of economic conditions and realities? Is the ideal of European unification dying, and have the concepts enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty become museum pieces? These are among the incisive questions asked by writer-economist Noriko Hama, in Disintegrating Europe. Hama likens the situation to Wagner's cycle of operos, Der Ring, and wonders whether the European Union idea is as imperishable as the Europeans themselves maintain. When Wagner's hero Siegfried dies, the existing or