Once upon a time I was balancing my interests between technology and world politics. Ultimately technology won, and that’s what I’m doing now.

However, I take world politics (and geopolitics) very seriously. In 2006 I participated in the 36th Saint Gallen Symposium. There was a financial crisis at the time and it was an incredible experience to hear bankers and politicians talk about what to do. Kofi Annan even gave a speech regarding his views on the crisis and how to get out of it. Although there was some talk about the crisis, the main topic of the conference was Europe, and the European Union, which is in the midst of an identity crisis with its recently rejected constitution.

To participate in the symposium I wrote a small article entitled “The Consolidation of European Ideology”. In the essay I argue that for better integration, countries must abandon nationalism and a true federation must be formed. In this regard I propose a series of institutions and programs across Europe. Very important in this ideological consolidation is expanding programs such as Erasmus (where students can complete one or two semesters in another European country) to the elderly population. The way to do this, in my opinion, is through the State Association. Through state associations, the adult populations of both countries should engage in cultural exchange that will ultimately result in a better understanding of each other. This program, quite ambitious and probably very expensive, will create a European narrative on an individual level.

Countries Associations: This is most controversial of all the institutions here proposed and still needs a lot of work on the idea itself. As a mean to integrate European nations with each other, targeting mainly the adult population, this work proposes to create couple of countries. Two countries would be a couple for some time period. During this time the population of the two of the countries will, by law, join special programs of cultural, economical, training, etc. The couples would be changed every 2 or 3 years. As in some countries the population has to go every single year during the entire life to give some few months military service, the European population sponsored by the government could do this as well. Indeed this is a proposal for the ideology consolidation among the older people.


What I want to emphasize with this post is that this idea is not so crazy. In a recent article in the Social Europe Journal, sociology Professor Ulrich Beck of the University of Munich and the London School of Economics proposed something similar:

We need to ask how an individual can become engaged with the European project. In that respect I have made a manifesto, along with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, called “We Are Europe”, arguing that we need a free year for everyone to do a project in another country with other Europeans in order to start a European civil society.


I read the manifesto and WOW!!! That’s the way (author’s bias here). Having lived in Europe for many years, I can see how this could really benefit the aging population, and especially people with less exposure to European labor mobility (Danish gardeners). I’ll be following up closely with what happens with the manifesto, it’s great to see I’m not completely lost in my previous ideas 🙂