Guest post by Ted Malloch, author of ASPEN, DAVOS & YALE

Everyone knows that the precursor to the EU was created with the so-called “ideal” of unifying the European people after two devastating world wars.

It more or less worked as a mechanism for limited economic cooperation until it got greedy and took on zealous imperial political ambitions.

But then mass migration, youth unemployment, job precariousness, globalist bureaucracy, and a rise in extreme poverty have shown that project is completely failing.

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After the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of populist governments voicing increasing opposition to EU policies in Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Italy, as well as growing nationalist movements in Germany, France, and now Spain and elsewhere, it’s quite clear there is deep and widespread discontent across the EU today.

The EU parliamentary election results show nothing less.

Europe is fragmented and in utter turmoil.

The monetary portion of the union was created to coordinate the money supply and interest rates through a central bank in Europe.

It put the cart before the horse.

It was sanctioned by the nonsensical Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and later established through the creation of the Euro currency adopted by 19 member-state countries.

The European Central Bank (ECB) was in turn created to coordinate interest rates – a ‘one size fits all’ approach to vastly differing economies and differing fiscal needs.

Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe suffered most, failing to meet the unrealistic economic directives and demands imposed by the centralized authorities, more often than not at the behest of wealthier, northern member states.

Germany – whose economic strength is largely predicated on a mercantilist trade surplus with the US – dominates the EU.

German banks invested heavily in southern European countries with interest rates they were unable to pay back.

As a consequence, Merkel demanded the countries implement austerity policies with disastrous consequences.

German government figures show the country made billions from Greece’s debt crisis.

Economic stagnation – and worse – followed…. but who really cares now?

A monetary union without a fiscal union meant that richer countries were unwilling to provide for countries facing hardship.

And so the rich became richer, and the poor became poorer.

Imagine for a second if the U.S. government provided loans to its poorer states, demanding a return with a high interest rate, all the while cutting spending and increasing taxes if they were unable to pay back on those loans.

In other words, imagine a central government practicing usury on its own citizens, profiting from them getting poorer.

This is what we now know is the Eurozone.

But then the EU was also created to unify countries with historically distinct national identities.

Each European country has its own language, tradition, and way of life – with regions within said countries exhibiting drastic differences, beyond.

Syrian and Iraqi refugees reach the coastal waters of Lesbos in Greece, after having crossed from middle eatern/Turkey.

Asking distinct nations to give up part or all of their identity for a larger, common, fictitious “Pan-European identity” might have worked if a European identity had been established during the advent of Union itself.

Fundamental questions, such as: “What does it mean to be European?” were left unanswered.

So much for describing the “liberal values of diversity.”

Instead of celebrating the diversity of the many sovereign nations and regions within Europe, the EU sought to create a new kind of diversity by celebrating identities from outside of Europe and demonizing those inside.

National patriotism was made into hate speech.

In Europe, this genuine pluralism is manifested in the distinctive individuality of the states it comprises, resulting in an authentic collection of cultures.

Italian culture cannot be reduced to a generic “European” culture, and nor can French, German or Polish culture.

Attempts to so homogenize European norms and regulations so that all member states look and act exactly alike do violence to the rich history and individuality of each people and culture—and deprive Europe and the world of the creativity that lies within these dynamic traditions.

It seems evident to me that the recent growth of populist movements throughout Europe is a direct result of an instinctive understanding that the fundamental principle of subsidiarity is no longer duly respected or appreciated.

A top-down approach to governance, where the smaller is subsumed into or supplanted by the greater, is in fact oppressive and ultimately unsustainable.

With the migrant and refugee crisis in 2015, Merkel and Juncker allowed millions of people from outside of Europe to enter indiscriminately.

No distinction was made between migrants and refugees at the border. (Does this sound vaguely familiar in our country?)

The failure to establish vetting procedures hurt actual refugees the most, as their genuine claims for asylum were not prioritized over migrants without any justification to enter.

Criminals and terrorists took full advantage.

This open-border policy resulted in a rise in Islamist terrorism in Europe, alongside ethnic and religious tensions between both the new arrivals and the people receiving them.

As a consequence, and not surprisingly, anti-mass immigration movements began to rise in Western Europe.

Lega in Italy, the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the Rassemblement National in France, and now Vox in Spain have all surged.

These parties, which previously barely received 5 per cent of the national vote, are now an integral part of parliaments across the continent.

Their voting bases are constituted of working and middle-class people, many of whom previously voted for more left wing, socialist parties.

Rassemblement National’s, Marine Le Pen might be about to wipe emperor Macron’s ass.

Most of these people switched allegiance in large part because of immigration; when they saw their governments take care of foreign needs before their own, and when they were facing unfair competition with cheap labor from abroad.

The left-wing parties that previously represented working-class needs focused instead on advancing the interests of a new proletariat of foreigners and an abstract globalist ideology out of touch with reality.

On the issue of immigration, the EU continues to actively neglect the needs of Europeans.

It is now a supra-national body, which means it takes away the sovereignty of individual nations in order to make decisions for nations as a whole.

This overly complicated and convoluted system doesn’t allow European citizens to choose or hold accountable the people drafting their laws, directives, and regulations.

They have little to no control over their money, borders, trade or laws.

The European Commission is weak and its legislative process is unresponsive to people’s needs.

Moreover, their President has little experience and few qualifications in being the head of the legislature of 28 European countries and 513 million people.

They are not even democratically elected.

The next one will evolve through insidious insider backroom bargaining.

So, is it unsurprising that the EU’s greatest proponents are polling at record lows, while nationalists like Trump, Modi, Orban, Bolsonaro, Salvini, and Le Pen are confounding their critics with high approval numbers—in Europe and everywhere.

The European Union and its globalist ideology are in tatters.

In a recent poll most Europeans said it wouldn’t even exist in fifteen years.

Why wait so long?