In the Social Contract Rousseau asks himself: “If Athens and Rome collapsed which state can last forever?”. “The political body, as the human one, starts to die from the moment of its birth and has in itself the causes of its dissolution.”
The history of the decay of an endless number of European states – from the kingdoms of Burgundy and Aragon to the Soviet Union – seems to confirm the theory of the French philosopher. The states, as all human institutions, sooner or later disappear. After 1989 the Deutsch Demokratischen Republik united itself with West Germany. Czechoslovakia divided itself in two after the pacific divorce between Prague and Bratislava, while Yugoslavia has been dismembered between 1991 and 2006. In the last years the map of Europe has changed according to the birth or death of national states and to the expansion of the European Union. Today the discussion is about which state will be the next to fall. Some say Belgium, others say Italy.
The world is assisting to the collapse of the Eurozone, which is not a sovereign state, but still is a political body, therefore subject to the whims of fate. Born twelve years ago, the Eurozone could soon enter the list of the organizations who died at a young age. It does not have a tax administration or a political government, and if it will not be able to transform itself it is destined to disappear.
The threat of a conflagration torments the euro-lovers and fills the euro-skeptics of schadenfreude, the pleasure given by others' misfortunes. The ones still hope in an intervention of the international cavalry, while the others wait with trepidation for the whole construction to blow into pieces. In the conservative British circles they are overjoyed and superbly maintain that the “The nosy bureaucrats of Brussels are finally getting what they deserve. Those Greek villains, that have falsified the numbers to get in the European Union, will do it again and hoping in other major rescues”. According to this analysis, in the European summits there is nothing but chatter going on. The piloted default is an illusion and the rescue fund of the Eurozone is half empty piggy-bank. The European Central Bank is impotent. There is no European treasury and the German tribunals are preventing any intervention. The politicians continue to quarrel and to defer the solution of the problems. Greece will also drag in its fall the French and German banks. And these will give the coup de grace to Italy, which will take Spain along with it in its downfall. Portugal will not wait long to follow the others and lastly it will be Ireland’s turn.
The banks of the old continent will shut down and the ATMs will be dry. Some volunteers will feed the hungry in the Roman squares, the Spanish plazas de toros will receive the indigent and the romantic Parisian bridges will pullulate with the unstable homes of the clochardes. Europeans will learn the art of bartering again and when the ATMs will start spitting out money again it wont be Euros anymore, but perhaps francs, marks, pesetas… or Dinhar.
One day history books will talk about the Euro crisis in this way: the disintegration of Euroland had led to dangerous political cracks and the refusal to approve a constitution for the whole EU had brought it to a paralysis.
When, in April 2012 Greece goes into default and exits the EU, a European Rescue Committee (ERC) meets in Luxemburg and suspends the treaties. Leaders of this committee are the polish premier Donald Tusk and the former chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel. With the approval of 16 states among the 27 of the Union, the committee claims to act in a democratic way. “We have already seen, more than once, a system fail”, claims Tusk “we will not let it happen again”. The president of the Commission Jose Barroso and the president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy leave the scene. In the mean time a self-styled Committee of the free nations of Europe is called in London by the conservative William Hauge and challenges the ERC. The two organisms accuse each other of being illegitimate. The disintegration is happening: two separate single markets, three areas of free trade and twenty monetary regimes.
The French and the Flemish pull up the draw bridge, the channel tunnel is closed. The ports and the airports controlled by the ERC confiscate the loads coming from Great Britain. The requests of London to the IMF for the reimbursement of the 75 billion pounds contribution for the third rescue of Ireland go unheard. The economy is paralyzed. The line of trucks exiting the country in the port of Dover is hundreds of kilometers long. Fuel is running out. London is devastated by riots and Barclays' headquarters are going up in flames. Hunger hits England. After the votes the Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg declares that there is no more EU whatsoever and that, therefore, England’s adhesion has no more reason of being. The ERC has not yet abandoned its plans for a monetary union and a European integration. To keep the nationalist sentiments under control the word “euro” is cancelled and the national governments can give a new name to the common currency. A Constitutional Commission is back to work.
To make matters worse, the day that Great Britain abandons the Union, the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, makes public that he has achieved a financial agreement with Poland, Germany and Luxemburg. Before the great depression of 2012-2014 it seemed as if Salmond only wanted more autonomy for Scotland, but the crisis pushes him to ask the referendum for independence. “Brave Scots”, says Salmond to his fellow citizens, “do you want to continue being subdued to London, as it has happened for Greece, Sicily and Latvia? Or do you want to revive the historic mission of Scotland, and be part, together with other European nations, to the Union, as a free, sovereign and proud reign?”. 
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