Thought for the Week

Thus, just when nation states began to lose their primacy as economic actors, Brussels created the supernation state. This is ironic, it is also tragic. Of all the developed world, Europe has the richest and densesthistory of regionalism. In a borderless world, it could draw upon and leverage that heritage with immense profit. Instead it has purposely tried to stamp that heritage out.

Kenichi Ohmae The End of the Nation State

The European Union has been designed to combat globalisation, by creating a larger unit, which can resist the global forces. The fact that globalisation is an opportunity not a problem, means that we have built a defence when we should have been honing our attack abilities. Mr Ohmae argues that economic units have become regions, rather than nations, the best example being Silicon Valley. Economic growth comes from diversity of such clusters. In such an environment, to build the state on a larger scale is folly of the most extraordinary kind.