Hans Rustad EUs toppleder, Herman van Rompuy, holdt tirsdag en tale i Berlin der han utla seg om euskeptisisme og krig på en måte som minnet om mor Nille i Erasmus Montanus av Ludvig Holberg.
Mr Van Rompuy and other senior EU officials are concerned about the spread of populist Eurosceptic groups, such as Ukip, beyond Britain to Germany and the Netherlands. The former Belgian Prime Minister, who was appointed as President of the EU Council a year ago, sees the new nationalism as being based on fear.
«The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear. Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war,» he said.
«Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others. Our Union is born out of a will to co-operate, to reconcile and to act in solidarity.»Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, which supports Britain leaving the EU, said: «This man is an overpaid catastrophe who wants to abolish our nation. Nation states will not disappear because they are the expression of peoples’ will. The EU is swimming against the tide of history. The number of nation states in the world is increasing all the time.»
