The Savior of Europe?

Stratfor analyst George Friedman recently reported: “According to a report in German magazine Der Spiegel, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are drafting a plan to stabilize the system. Under the purported plan, all eurozone members would be required to balance their budgets. Borrowing would be permitted only if approved by a Europe-wide finance minister... If all of Europe is going to be responsible for sovereign debt issued by member countries, then the stakeholders who have the most invested in the European project must have control over borrowing… If the right to borrow is transferred from national governments to unelected functionaries appointed by a multinational entity, a profound transformation of democracy in Europe will take place” (June 12, 2012).

The problem in the past—and now—is that the various peoples the Eurozone still see themselves first as Greek, French or Spanish, according to their nationality, and as Europeans in only a secondary sense. As a result, they do not want to subordinate their national sovereignty to a central European body. What will it take to get them to come together as a federal European state?

Cato Institute fellow Gerald Driscoll, in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, wrote: “If Europe had made a political decision for a federal state, a single currency would have been a natural outcome. When 17 states decided to adopt the euro first without political union, they got it backward” (“How the Euro Will End,” June 13, 2012, p. A15).

The European leadership is using the current crisis of the euro to form the federal state that probably would not have been achievable at the outset. Can they go back to their old national currencies without economic disaster? Many think that the Eurozone has passed the point of no return and must go forward.  But how? What can pull the Europeans together?

Everyone in the Eurozone is now stuck with dealing with the consequences of having “a currency without a country… The euro zone is in a crisis, in the correct sense of the word, a turning point from which it will recover or enter a terminal phase. One important factor that may determine the outcome is the degree of leadership in Europe” (ibid.).

This leadership can come from either a man or an institution—or both.

 “The concept of extended integration can work, but not without the passion that moves a Greek or a German to protect his and his country’s interest. Without that, the glue that holds nations together is missing in the European Union. The greater the integration, the more this will reveal itself” (Friedman, op. cit.).

Pope John Paul II said that the true gluethat holds Europe together is the Roman Catholic Church: “The history of the formation of the European Nations keeps abreast with their evangelization. Consequently, despite the spiritual crises that have marked the life of the Continent in our day, its identity would be incomprehensible without Christianity. For this very reason, the Church has made many contributions in recent years to the consolidation of Europe’s cultural and spiritual unity… Only a Europe that does not eliminate but rediscovers its Christian roots, will be able to take up the challenges of the third millennium… All believers in Christ of the European West and East are required to make their own contribution through open and sincere ecumenical cooperation” (John Paul II, REGINA CÆLI, May 2, 2004).

Perhaps the Europeans are about to come to that same realization also, and will embrace a charismatic religious figure as their savior. But the outcome will be quite different from what they expect. Request our free booklet, The Beast of Revelation: Myth, Metaphor or Soon-coming Reality?