Europe does not seem to be a "house"?

China and even Australia has said that Europe should “restore its house”. This was the apparent conclusion from the G20 meeting in Cannes last week. The problem seems to be that Europe is not a house even if it needs to be. Wolfgang Münchau, at the Financial Times, wrote that if Europe saves the Euro, EU will fall. You will get Euroland and some peripheral countries. According to David Rennie at The Economist, British tabloids already write about “The Fourth Reich”. One of the peripheral countries is Sweden which does not have a majority for the Euro. I am particularly curious about Poland. Last time they chose Britain they ended up in Russia for a while. I’m asking this because people that write about such things tend to group Sweden, Norway, Poland and Britain together.

There is so much writings about Greece, a country with only 2% of the EU budget, that I have gotten the feeling it is to gloss over the fact that global governance via G20 is dead. Anne Marie Slaughter, in her book A New World Order from 2004, wrote about the globalization paradox. Global governance is not possible, even if needed, it is a threat to individual liberty, and should and have been replaced by networks of specialists like presidents, ministers of finance, and regulators that interact outside of the state function, even if the state and regular diplomacy is still important. The EU has been used as the ultimate example of such networks but if it now breaks up this is yet another proof of the difficulties with global governance.

A while ago The Economist wrote that there are the Chinese economy, the US economy and the European economy now. If you add the Indian and the Japanese, that seems to be just right. My question is if not the globalization phenomenon is being followed by a regionalization? There is going to be more and more focus on saving jobs locally even if you can save a few dollars by sourcing the job. The East Asian assertiveness depends on globalization and might be combated by regionalization. The French and the Germans saved their car industries for example. The race for education, to out-educate, to out-compete, will also lead to regionalization. There will be emphasis on preventing brain-drain, which is a means of eviscerating the US who depend on highly skilled immigration.