Europe as nightmare, Europe as model

The business newspaper Les Echos analyses how Europe is perceived in other regions of the world, concluding that for all its internal bickering, the old continent still exerts a strong appeal: "Europe has tough luck. Geographically it is 'the smallest and most poorly-defined continent', as one reads in Le Petit Robert. Politically, it is apparently condemned to remaining 'a small island' between a swollen America and an Asia on the rise. ... Nevertheless Europe is not just an institutional nightmare. ... Like the princess in Greek mythology who is kidnapped by Zeus and who gave Europe its name, the continent exerts a seductive power over other regions. ... This is one of the greatest paradoxes of the dawning 21st century. On the one hand, Europe is sinking once more into 'Europessimism'. The idea of the nation-state, of national sovereignty and the fear of immigration are dangerously on the rise among the peoples of Europe. On the other hand, European construction exerts a powerful attraction on other regions of the world. In April a Japanese think tank proposed taking the European path as a model for furthering Sino-Japanese reconciliation."

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