The Greek crisis

The Melbourne Age has run as its main opinion piece today a column on the Greek crisis. Unusually for The Age the piece, by Simon Jenkins, has a hint of traditionalism about it. Jenkins's argument is that closer European union is a mistake because it is an attempt to force uniformity on significantly different cultures:

Closer European union, so called, was a bad idea for precisely the reason now seen on the streets of Athens. It was an attempt by a supranational economic authority to supersede national democracy. Bluntly, it assumed the commercial culture of ''greater Germany'' could be imposed on a wide variety of cultures by virtue of geographical propinquity. Countries with a high propensity to work and save would discipline those with a lower one. Banks would finance it all. It was fantasy born of utopia, the perfect precondition for a sovereign credit bubble

He writes too:

The lesson is clear. Sovereign states with distinct political cultures should never surrender control over internal affairs to foreign agencies

Federation can make sense when people share a common tradition, as was the case when the Australian states federated. But that's not so much the case in Europe. The English have a long history together distinct from the Russians who are again distinct from the Spanish. The European project ought to have been one of co-operation between sovereign nations rather than an imposed, top down, bureaucratic move toward federation.