RAFAEL BARDAJÍ: The world without Europe.

Europeans are becoming less rich and more poor and feel assaulted on their soil and threatened by another foreseeable great war. Without a change in the continent’s political elites, it is very difficult for Europe to emerge from the current impasse. Unfortunately, E.U. leaders are hellbent on preventing such a change. Hence their growing authoritarianism and their disdain for the deep values of democracy. Spain is a particularly acute case in this area, as its current prime minister has transformed Spanish democracy into a completely hollow shell of values and respect for democratic procedures. But the United Kingdom is going in the same direction, not to mention France and Germany. People are being arrested for praying in the street, but only if they are Christians; people are being fined and imprisoned for giving opinions contrary to government policies because any criticism is judged a hate crime, especially if it deals with immigration. It aspires to judicially eliminate opposition leaders outside the establishment and promotes the illegalization of parties that are not part of the grand consensus born after World War II.

But while this incipient “cold civil war” is taking place, Europe has become invisible as an actor in the rest of the world. It is not a player in the Middle East (for the better); it aligns itself against dictatorial change (see statements on the capture of Maduro or on the Iranian regime); and it believes that by getting cocky in front of its main ally, the United States, it becomes stronger. In Moscow and Beijing, there must be many people laughing loudly.

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