The new old Europe

Europe is in dan­ger of losing its crea­tive juices through self-sel­ec­ted iso­la­tio­nism. Austria’s cou­rage and entre­pre­neur­ship in inves­t­ing in the CEE region fue­led the eco­no­mies but more importantly, pro­vi­ded reco­gni­tion and hope. Inte­rest in lear­ning local lan­guages and under­stan­ding the cul­tures may be due to a shared past but the com­mit­ment is still note­wor­thy. If Aus­tria had not inves­ted, per­haps the EU may have asked all wes­tern count­ries to pro­vide sub­stan­tive sup­port, per­haps the EBRD would have step­ped in. Ins­tead pri­vate busi­ness led and is now cri­ti­cally viewed by those with slower growth rates, those now choo­sing iso­la­tio­nism, local jobs for locals only. In 2000 eco­no­mist Jef­frey Fran­kel poin­ted out that the grea­test num­ber of patents were in the USA, but the grea­test num­ber of uni­ver­sity gra­dua­tes were in Europe. It seems iso­la­tio­nism, pro­tec­tion­ism cut off the crea­tive inter­ch­ange. Immi­gra­tion offe­red the US its com­pe­ti­tive advan­tage. In 2009 Pre­si­dent Obama wants a clo­ser rela­ti­onship with Europe. But can Europe have a close rela­ti­onship with itself ?