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I have just finished reading Tony Judt's essay on Europe, A Grand Illusion? - actually a collection of three lectures he gave in May 1995 followed by an afterword. In it, Judt memorably questioned the sustainability of the EU and the wisdom of Eastern enlargement. (1/n)
Reading Judt a generation later is surprisingly uplifting. He has a highly perceptive, even prophetic, analysis of fault lines in the EU & risks in Central Europe, not least of renewed nationalism. But his concluding predictions end up almost comically overpessimistic. (2/n)
Start with the predictions: enlarging the EU to former Communist countries would at best be "an act of charity", in any case it will never include the Baltics or Balkans, and the newcomers will never join Schengen or become member states on equal terms with the old ones. (3/n)
Perhaps most striking is how Judt's description of the EU's challenges a generation ago echoes those of today - but that's post-enlargement, whereas Judt thought these challenges would result in enlargement killing the EU as we know it. (4/n)
Typical quote in the preface (written in January 1996): "I am enthusiastically European (...) But it is my contention in this essay that a truly united Europe is sufficiently unlikely for it to be unwise and self-defeating to insist upon it." (5/n)
Meanwhile, the EU has gone through enlargement (broader and on far more equal terms than Judt envisaged in 1995), a major economic crisis (which he couldn't and didn't predict), and now deals with the prospect of Brexit (which wasn't on his radar). (6/n)
I'm not suggesting that the EU is safe or in perfect shape, but nor was it in 1995 - as Judt makes plain. My point is that its resilience, and continued relevance, are much greater than he prophesied at the time. (7/n)
And this is all as Judt is so humblingly perceptive. Example: "once the baby boomers begin to retire (around 2010 A.D.), the presence of a huge, frustrated, bored, unproductive, and ultimately unhealthy population of old people could become a major social crisis." Not bad! (8/n)
Another example of Judt's foresight in 1995: "If 'Europe' stands for the winners, the wealthy regions (...), who speaks for the losers – the 'south,' the poor (...)? The risk is that what remains to these Europeans is the 'nation,' or, more precisely, nationalism." (9/n)
Overall Judt's analysis is superb, even as his predictions (almost all at the very end of the book) were mistaken. Zero correlation between quality of insight and forecasting accuracy. Useful to remember when reading current commentary on EU or other matters. (10/10)
