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Journalism of Courage
British PM Tony Blair on Thursday warned that Europe faces ‘‘grand strategic failure’’ if it shies away from urgent economic reform while emerging giants like India and China power ahead.
Setting out his vision for Britain’s six-month Presidency of the European Union, he said he supported a ‘‘social Europe’’ but said the continent’s generous unreformed welfare model will not work for the 21st century.
‘‘The USA is the world’s only superpower. But China and India, in a few decades, will be the largest economies, each of them with populations three times that of the entire EU,’’ he told EU lawmakers. ‘‘If European nations, faced with this immense challenge, decide to huddle together, hoping we can avoid globalisation… then we risk failure. Failure on a grand, strategic, scale.’’
His comments come as the 25-nation EU grapples with an unprecedented crisis sparked by a popular rejection of its first-ever constitution, but also by failure to agree its long-term budget at an acrimonious summit last week.
‘‘I don’t think we quite realise in Europe the competitive economic challenge we face today. It is serious and it is urgent,’’ he stressed. —PTI
