“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Harry Lime’s speech – delivered by Orson Welles – at the end of the The Third Man (1949) is a great cinematic moment. It also poses an interesting choice.
For roughly 500 years, Europe was the political, cultural and economic centre of the world. But bloodshed and suffering accompanied all this power – culminating in two suicidal wars in the 20th century.
Since 1945, Europe has become increasingly prosperous, peaceful and comfortable – and irrelevant. So should a united Europe attempt to reclaim its place at the centre of world affairs? Or should we settle for comfortable irrelevance?
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For views and opinions on the European Union from Peter Spiegel, Joshua Chaffin, Alex Barker and Stanley Pignal, follow the 