Publisher's Synopsis
Solidarity and Survival: A Vision for Europe provides the ideal background to understanding the 'make or break' time that lies ahead for the European Union. It evaluates the Union?s future in terms of its ability to respond to the major challenges with which it is faced: the inexorable rise of unemployment; the planet-wide threat to the environment; local conflicts within Europe. The author, John Lambert, has been involved in the European integration scene since the start, as 'Eurocrat', journalist and anti-nuclear campaigner. Now he steps back, to present a broad view of four decades of attempts to unite Europe, concluding that the story has been 'one of the greatest failures in history' (the fault, he argues, of outdated notions of sovereignty above all in France and Britain). The author develops the contrasting view that only a new political economy, based on solidarity and backed by a democratic federal system, can help to halt the advancing process of self-destruction. Solidarity and Survival: A Vision for Europe is a mix of contemporary history, political analysis and sharply observed anecdote. It covers Europe?s rapidly changing political mosaic, tells how European Community policies have been shaped, explains why Maastricht was not the historic event it purported to be, and assesses the significance of the growing pressure for a European constitution.
