Europe: A bold forecast

Amid the unprecedented sovereign debt crisis playing out daily in Europe, many analysts and European technocrats assert that true political union is the only way to avert a collapse of the euro. But the bulk of the most credible geopolitical forecasters say this is an impossibility. The nations of Europe, they boldly pronounce, will never cede their sovereignty to a foreign government. These leading forecasters combine keen insights into foreign affairs and history with the most advanced geopolitical intelligence available to engineer their forecast, and they are confident.

But they are dead wrong.

Here are a few examples of pundits saying that Europe, ultimately, will not unite.

Exhibit A is a commentary published last week in the Wall Street Journal. It’s written by Holman W. Jenkins Jr., a member of the WSJ’s editorial board. (The commentary is presented as a fictitious entry from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s diary.)

Look, the euro exists. It’s here. The only way to make it work is to reconcile it with the fact that we are, and will remain, sovereign independent countries. We all take turns whacking the Brits but it’s a self-delusional lie to pretend any of us are prepared to cede prerogatives of self-governance to foreign bureaucrats. C’est absurd! The more solvent the country, the less willing to tie its fiscal fate to its neighbors. We must stop pretending.

Next up is global strategist investor James Kostohryz, the former head of global equity proprietary trading for a major financial institution. Earlier this month, he wrote:

A true fiscal union invariably involves an unprecedented cession of national sovereignty on the part of member states in the eurozone. National budgets would be subjected to scrutiny and approval by a supranational entity whose power ultimately superseded national legislatures. The central issue in this regard is to understand what entity the citizens of European nations ultimately feel themselves identified with politically. For example, are Frenchmen first citizens of France, or are they first citizens of Europe? In my opinion, Europeans are not ready for fiscal union. … The German leadership has repeatedly stressed that the present financial and economic crisis must be fully “exploited” in order to fix the flaws in the original euro architecture and create a true fiscal and economic union to match the monetary union. While the German stance on fiscal and economic union is understandable, I believe that they have miscalculated politically.

Finally, we come to legendary geopolitical forecaster George Friedman, who is the founder, chief intelligence officer and ceo of the intelligence corporation Stratfor. In September he wrote:

The European Union was designed not simply to be a useful economic tool but also to be a means of European redemption. … The idea was that free trade regulated by a central bureaucracy would suppress nationalism and create prosperity without abolishing national identity. … Yet even during the post-World War ii era of security and prosperity, some Europeans recoiled from the idea of a transfer of sovereignty. The consensus that many in the long line of supporters of European unification believed existed simply didn’t. And today’s euro crisis is the first serious crisis that Europe has faced in the years since, with nationalism beginning to reemerge in full force. In the end, Germans are Germans and Greeks are Greeks. … The idea of sacrificing for each other is a dubious concept. The idea of sacrificing for the European Union is a meaningless concept. … Does Greece or Portugal really want to give Germany a blank check to export what it wants with it, or would they prefer managed trade under their control? Play this forward past the euro crisis and the foundations of a unified Europe become questionable.

These three examples are not unusual. Instead, they represent the consensus among many of the most well-credentialed forecasters, which is that European nations will not cede the right of self-governance to any foreign leader.

But the Trumpet firmly disagrees. We do not have all of the intelligence resources available to these analysts, or all of the credentials that fill their portfolios, but we have something they don’t have: the more sure word of Bible prophecy. And prophecy is inescapably clear about the outcome of the European Union: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength [i.e. sovereignty and ‘prerogatives of self-governance’] unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12-13).

Because of the Trumpet’s reliance on Bible prophecy, we cast a prediction that diametrically opposes those of the world’s leading forecasters, and we do so with unwavering confidence: Europe will unite. This is not a new message for us, but one we’ve been proclaiming since our inception in 1990. And our forerunner magazine, the Plain Truth, was trumpeting the very same bold warning since its first issue in February 1934.

We challenge our readers to watch closely to see whether it’s the Trumpet or the world’s foremost geopolitical experts that have it right.