“Speaking to a receptive audience, Dennis L. Meadows of MIT drew up a dark future for the Earth at HAS on 29 April. We only have approximately 30 years before a devastating ecological and social crisis sets in, provided we do not move quickly towards sustainability, he said. Professor Meadows came to Budapest to launch the new Hungarian edition of his 1972 ?Limits of Growth? volume that he had co-authored and since revised. ….

Cont @ The Limits of Growth Revisited

Seems a bit alarmist to me but then Prof Meadows is trying to re-launch a book he wrote over 30 years ago!

Be careful here, it depends what comes next. Change may or may not be an improvement.

“Gripes about freedom of movement, Schengen etc.”
Couldn’t agree more. People seem to forget that it is a lot easier to knock walls down than it is to build anything. We’re seeing that now in Iraq, but the lesson was already there to be see in the eastern european transition. 15 years after things are begining to find a level.

“40 to 50 years before some of these states gain parity with the old EU”

Keynes famously said that in the long run the only thing we know for sure is that we’re all dead. 40 to 50 years from now I certainly will be.

All things are - as Heraclitus notoriously suggested - relative. With the quickening pace of change I am reluctant to take too seriously anything which claims to look too far ahead in economic, social or political terms. 2010 seems like the long term to me.

Obviously with things like climatic change, or demographic processes, the situation is different: you need to make some kind of long term projections if you are to take any kind of decision now.

What I am saying is that on the economic and social level I am sure we will see many changes, and most of them we won’t be expecting.

I do agree that the accession of the 10 new members last year was a “happy event”. I would also add that without the economic, political, and legislative blueprint that the EU offers prospective members, the countries of Central Europe would not be where they are today in terms of economic growth, and democratic stability. Gripes about freedom of movement, Schengen etc. tend to be exaggerated by the media and politicians. It is widely accepted that it will take as long as 40 to 50 years before some of these states gain parity with the old EU; the people have been told that on numerous occasions in the past few years, as least they have in Hungary.

As for the Franco-German “axis”. The sooner Chirac and Schroeder are out of the way the better off the EU will be. They, and those of a like mind, are holding back progress, and, for populist reasons, struggling to retain the illusion of Franco-German supremacy in an EU in which they can now be outvoted.