The EU Is on the Verge of Collapse–An Interview with George Soros
I like Angela Merkel, and I live in the EU (Ireland). I think she&#x27;s wrong about a lot of things though.<p>The EU is on shaky foundations. The original principles of free movement, free trade, solidarity &amp; peace are great. I totally support them. They move the world in a liberal (ie liberty) direction and they really do promote the central goal, centuries of peace. Europe has been at peace for a logn time. It&#x27;s an achievement, and we need to defend that. But, there was never a truly agreed upon and understandable basis for how these would be promoted and protected and an explicit definition of where and how the EU&#x27;s authority ends and the State&#x27;s begins. This has left our national governments with a nice scapegoat, great for populists, nationalists and fringe politicians to use for their purposes.<p>The Greek saga is a perfect example. Rather than an intelligent abstract policy of allowing Greek to make their own decisions, support with limited liability for the Union we get a German style bureaucratic approach. Regulation an oversight.<p>I also appreciate her refugee policy. My grandparents (like many&#x27;s) were refugees in WWII. I think it came from a genuine place of human solidarity. I hope it doesn&#x27;t sting Germany too badly.<p>I hope that the EU gets another round of constitutional, foundational work. Take as long as it takes, but do it right. This is for the next 200 years. The problem, as I see it, is that politics has polarized into pro and anti EU. Anti-EU political outsiders from either (or neither) traditional wings using anti-EU rhetoric as an easy populist tools and pro-EU insiders defending the EU as a bureaucratic status quo.<p>One thing I think needs to change urgently is an exit policy. We need a way for countries that don&#x27;t want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option. Similar for Greek. No hard feelings, civilized-like, we can still be friends, just do what the people want.