institutions amounts to a culpable
inconsistency. When the German government produces its new proposals for
reforming the treaties in the coming months, nothing says these reforms
will be more satisfactory than those of 2012. But rather than just sit
on our hands waiting, what is needed is finally to start a constructive
debate in France so that we finally have a social and democratic Europe.

Friday, February 21, 2014

The Economist dedicates today three pieces to the debate on Scottish independence. In the editorial, it criticizes the Scottish prime minister, Alex Salmond, for underestimating the financial costs of independence, and for trying to convey the message that independence will be easy and smooth. In a specific article on monetary options, the magazine says that politicians from the main Brittish political parties plus the governor ofthat national independence in Europe, by the UK, Scotland, Catalonia or Germany in the XXI century is absolute nonsense.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

The book "Before and Beyond Convergence. The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe", by Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and R. Bin Wong, is much more than a comparative history of China in Europe in the last ten centuries, although it is also that. It is a vindication of the importance of the spatial dimension of polities. In particular, it criticizes the notion that political competition between jurisdictions has advantages similar to economic competition between firms, in terms of fostering innovation and better tayloring of public action to the preferences of citizens/consumers. The history of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire in the first centuries of