The Egnatia Motorway across the north of Greece is one of the ‘largest road construction projects in Europe’. Six hundred and eighty kilometers long and 24.5 meters wide, it requires the construction of 1,650 bridges, 74 tunnels, 50 interchanges, 43 river and 11 railway crossings. A modern Greek marvel in the making where at least half of the costs are financed by the European Union. In Greece today, a plethora of public works are completed or in progress thanks to the generous aid of the EU. Billions in funds have been transferred southward to the EU’s only Balkan state member since its entry in 1981. By the 1990s, that assistance averaged about 3.5 per cent of GDP yearly. To put it in perspective, it would be as if the U.K. received around $87 billion from the EU in 2007. For almost a quarter of a century, Greece has been the beneficiary of a European willingness to become one cohesive whole, but despite all the bridges, ports, tunnels, roads and agricultural subsidies, Greece remains as far away from the European core as it did when it joined the Union.

Why do individuals and countries engage in self-destructive behavior? Many books have been written on the topic, but given the U.S. election campaign, it is worth examining why some politicians and other opinion leaders advocate policies contrary to both good theory and empirical evidence.

During the last quarter-century, most countries on the globe went through an economic renaissance as Austrian and Chicago school economists gained the upper hand from the old Keynesian and socialist policymakers. This was due to the political triumphs of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their many disciples around the globe.

A quote from The Daily Mail, 29 February 2008

You can get away with a lot as President of the French Republic. […] But one thing is absolutely out of the question. You cannot make the entire nation feel foolish. And yet that is how millions of French voters feel […] Already [Nicolas Sarkozy’s] behaviour has become so unpredictable that one Spanish newspaper has described the French President as "sick", while the media coverage at home has accused Sarkozy of "turning the country into a magnificent toy for a child" or of "staging Desperate Housewives at the Elysee Palace". […] [Sarkozy’s] characteristically impulsive behaviour confirmed [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel’s low opinion of the President, whom she considers to be disrespectful, overfamiliar, hyperactive and boastful. When she heard about his passion for Carla Bruni she even nicknamed him "President Duracell", after the long-life battery.

A quote from Victor Davis Hanson in the German weekly Junge Freiheit, 27 February 2008

[A]fter the fall of the Soviet Union, you [=Europe] diverged onto a secularized, affluent, leisured, socialist, and pacifist path, where in the pride and arrogance of the Enlightenment you were convinced you could make heaven on earth – and would demonize as retrograde anyone who begged to differ. Now you are living with the results of your arrogance: while you brand the U.S. illiberal, it grows its population, diversifies and assimilates, and offers economic opportunity and jobs; although, for a time you’ve become wealthy – given your lack of defense spending, commercial unity, and protectionism – but only up to a point: soon the bill comes due as you age, face a demographic crisis, become imprisoned by secular appetites and ever growing entitlements. […]

Last month, the exhibition Roma e i Barbari, opened at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The curator, Jacques Aillagon, a former French minister of culture, says that the aim of the exhibition is “to illustrate centuries of conflictual co-existence leading to the cultural integration of Barbarian populations into the pre-existing Roman fabric.” Aillagon says “Europe at the start of the third millennium is living through a cultural revolution not unlike that of the first.” The Economist, which reviewed the exhibition, writes that “the Romans decided that assimilation was the best form of defence.”

In the old days the BBC used to delight in prefacing anything to do with South Africa with the adjective ‘racist’ – the ‘racist government of South Africa’, for example. Well now comes the time when we may properly return the compliment and begin to refer to the BBC (al-Beeb to its many fans) as ‘the racist BBC’.

A quote from Srdja Trifkovic at the Chronicles website, 26 February 2008

The Palestinians “should follow Kosovo’s example and unilaterally declare independence” if peace talks with Israel fail, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to the PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared on February 20. “Kosovo is not better than Palestine,” he added. If the United States and the majority of the European Union “have embraced the independence of Kosovo, why shouldn’t this happen with Palestine as well?”

A quote from Carl Mortished in The [London] Times, 27 February 2008

Your greed is not good, say Britain and Germany, pointing accusing fingers at thousands of very wealthy clients of LGT, the Liechtenstein bank at the centre of a row over tax havens. But bend your ear and you might just hear, beneath the cries of moral indignation over alleged tax evasion, a compromise – sotto voce. Greed is not good, say Europe's finance ministers, unless we can have 40 per cent.

A quote from AnsaMed, 27 February 2008

Israel's largest circulation daily, Yediot Ahronot, has apologized for having published last week the controversial Danish caricature showing the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban about to explode. The picture was part of a report from Denmark. But, at the same time, some dozens of Arab readers wrote to the newspaper that they felt offended by the publication and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. "Yediot Ahronot respects the Muslims and their faith," editor Shilo De-Ber wrote to Arab representatives in Israel. "The editorial staff regrets and apologizes to those who have felt hurt by the publication".

When France ratified the EU’s Lisbon treaty, President Sarkozy went on television the following evening (10 February) to tell the French people that his refusal to submit the treaty to a referendum had been part of a “deal” with the other EU states.
 
“In order to convince all our partners to accept this new simplified treaty which we were proposing and which was no longer a constitution,” Sarkozy said, continuing with his pretence that the Lisbon treaty is more simple than the constitution, which it is not, “we had to promise to ratify it in parliament if we reached an agreement. If the condition had not been fulfilled, no agreement would have been possible.” [The allocution of the president of the Republic was posted on the Elysée Palace web site, 10 February 2008.]