Michal Mocek on a Europe that is becoming frayed

Michal Mocek maintains that it's not just in the east and the Balkans that Europe is "becoming frayed". "There are many more places where it has worn thin. The whole of Western Europe is peppered with such places. Calls for more autonomy or complete independence are becoming more vocal in Galicia, Catalonia, the Basque country, Brittany, Flanders, Sicily, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are nationalist groups all over Europe. While in the east states are splitting up, in the west individual states are also witnessing sometimes unexpected changes. In London the question of whether Scottish and Welsh MPs should be allowed to vote on issues which affect England alone is currently the subject of heated debate. If England gets its own parliament, a very different Great Britain would emerge… It's mainly thanks to the EU, which provides the scope for greater autonomy, that Western Europe is not breaking up like into smaller pieces like Eastern Europe. The advantages of a single market remain, regardless of the size of the individual states."

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