Craig Rowland - Why the Euro and European Union Will Fail

Everything I needed to know about why the European Union would fail I learned at a truck stop.

It was in 2001 when a bus tour I was on stopped at a truck stop on the German Autobahn. For the American readers, you must understand that European truck stops are much different from what you get in the states. In Europe, the facilities are clean and the food is actually decent. They don’t have the same hot dogs sitting in the cooker for five days. And no, you can’t buy six gallon soda cups.

As it were, in this truck stop the inside was what you expect to see in Germany. It was clean and efficient. You grabbed your tray, stood in line quietly, pointed to the food for the scowling German lady cook to serve you, and moved to the next station. It had just enough order, cleanliness, and gray color inside to remind you that you were in Germany, but without making you feel like you were in East Germany.

As the bus wound its way across Europe we eventually stopped in Italy at the identical chain of truck stop. This is where I had an epiphany about the European Union, the Euro, multiculturalism, and why it’s all a bunch of garbage.

Italy is a great country, but nobody is going to tell you it’s like Germany unless they are a completely clueless moron. Instead of the quiet line of people collecting their food and proceeding to the next station, you instead had a mob of people yelling, waving their hands, and rushing the counter in a huge mass. If you didn’t push forward, you didn’t get food. In other words, it was Italian.

This is when I realized the EU and the Euro would never work. The idea that you were going to get Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, French, Dutch, etc. to live under one government and one currency is simply madness. Not only are the Germans far too impatient to deal with the hyper-emotional Italians, but the Italians are far too laid back to want to deal with a bunch of controlling Germans. This of course applies to the other countries as well. The Dutch really don’t like the French telling them what to do. The French don’t like the Germans. The Germans don’t like the Spaniards (or anyone else), and everyone dislikes the Swiss mostly because they were smart enough to not join the EU and share the misery.

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