We have to be ready to defend Europe from itself. For us from the East, after the crumbling of the Iron Curtain, Europe came to symbolize not only a promise, but also a latent neurosis. The imperative of multilaterally developed socialism and of the compulsory climb towards communism was replaced by the imperative of European integration. Obviously this imperative is, unlike the previous one, a legitimate one, plausible and beneficial. But it is no less stressful.
Progress is difficult, and for two reasons.
Those in the West entertain, in my opinion, an image of the integration of the East that is far too simple, and those in the East, one that is far too complicated. Westerners see things too simplistically, for they have a tendency to reduce everything to a problem of economics or administration. The former communist countries are required to adopt hastily large quantities of legislation and to engage in monetary synchronizations, aimed to overcome, as quickly as possible, the rupture between East and West. I do not contest the urgency of such an evolution. But an exclusive emphasis on legal and fiscal integration transforms Europe into a scheme, a strictly technical framework, a simple managerial recipe.