EUROPE’S POST-COLD-WAR history can be conveniently divided into three decade-long phases. The first, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the introduction of the euro in 1999, was marked by institutional expansion. The period from 1999 to 2009 was one of geographical expansion as the union took in 12 new members. But since 2009 crisis has dominated: in the euro zone, in the EU’s near-abroad from Ukraine to Syria, in trans-Mediterranean migration flows, in Britain’s decision to leave and in the transatlantic alliance under President Donald Trump. Once benign-seeming actors like China and Silicon Valley technology firms …read more
Source: The Economist
