DD Support Board and Research Team

[janice shell]

Do Europeans dislike each other on all levels?

No, not really. It's mostly a sort of petty rivalry thing. The Italians dislike the Swiss (who of course aren't part of the EU) simply because they're boring. They make fun of Germans who come on vacation. They don't seem to dislike the French most of the time.

But of course there are deeper resentments now. The more prosperous northern nations aren't happy with their poorer southern neighbors. The southern countries aren't happy about the northerners' condescension and insistence that they aren't doing things right.

And the northerners blew it in the wake of 2008 by insisting on extreme belt-tightening. Economies don't grow when extreme austerity measures are imposed. That was a major blunder.