Sir, – The EU now resembles China in the 14th century: a rich, civilised and culturally accomplished empire in which political power was usurped by a vast unelected, unaccountable and un-removable bureaucracy (the mandarins).
The result in China was the suppression of dissent from bureaucratically policed orthodoxy, suppression of free enterprise, freedom of ideas and speech and the abandonment of scientific rationality. The entire edifice stagnated socially, culturally, politically and economically and became internationally and intellectually irrelevant. This status lasted until the last decades of the 20th century – more than six centuries!
In the 14th century Europe was entering its golden age; throwing off the shackles of its own mandarinate (the Church of Rome, the Papacy and the Vatican) and progressively embracing intellectual freedom, social enlightenment, external exploration, science and rationality, free enterprise and the freedom of speech.
The roles are now reversed and Europe has a new mandarinate (the EU Commission) – unelected, unaccountable, non rational and imposing its own orthodoxy having grasped control of the continent via the euro and the ECB. Without a total transformation of the EU political model or break-up of the union, Europe is doomed to repeat the failure of China under the mandarinate: international decline, economic and intellectual stagnation accompanied by a continuous decline in living standards.
Meanwhile China prospers having embraced the model Europe pioneered but has now abandoned! – Yours, etc,