The challenge of Eurozone--Social & Culture
On the first day of 2001, European Union begins to issue its own money, the Euro. This is a milestone in the history of the whole world. The Euro is more than a currency, it is the determination of the European Union member. For sharing the same currency, the countries must be able to work together (Wolf, 2011). But working together and coordination for so many countries is easy to say than done. The Eurozone is a test field of multicultural integration.
The most important challenge in social field is the integration of different cultural and the mutual existence of different religian. No matter how far this union have gone, the integration of cultural is never an easy things to do. As a matter of fact, anything involve religian is not suppose to be easy.
To begin with, the members of the union are all sovereign states, unlike the America. They have different cultural interest and different cultural appeal which bring up many conflicts to political game, some of them may even become bitter quarrel and confrontation. At the present time, the management layer of the Union do not concern about the exact same thing the normal public do. The union worry more about the development of the union and increase the influence of the union, but the public worry about the thing they can easily feel,such as the economic recession and the unemployment and impoverished it bring to them.
Beside, to gain a stable and development of the Europe, the European Union have to expend. As a matter of fact, the union is now gradually expending to the east, but the expansion will bring much more conflict in cultural or religian area. The Islam for example is a region that can not be neglected at this time. Jose Barroso, chairman of the committee of European Union have announce on the European Union religious BBS in Brussels claiming that the Islam is part of the European society, the religian is not a a cultural invasion( Jose, 2008 ). But the leader ‘s opinion is serve no more than a guideline. Many people do not buy it. It is not news that many European countries’ s people go to the street and yell to the Islamist to go back home( Malik, 2004 ). There is also much sound of “Islamic Invasion” , the Turkey have not yet join in the Union mostly because it is thought to be a Islamic countries. The fear of another culture and another religian will make the normal people to hate and against them. All these factor will make the European Union more unstable in cultural region and bring more difficulties to the integration (Aggestam & Hill, 2008).
There is an old saying that the things that can not kill a man will only make him strong. The challenge of the Eurozone will be the same. If the challenge and crisis can not break up the euro and the European Union, then they will only make the it stronger(Michael, 2010).
Reference:
Aggestam L. & Hill C.(2008) “The challenge of multiculturalism in European foreign policy[J]”. International Affairs, 84(1),97-114.
Malik, I.H. (2004). Islam and modernity: Muslims in Europe and the United States[M]. Pluto: Puerto Rico.
Wolf, M.(2011) "The 'grand bargain' is just a start"[Online], FT.com, Available from:http://www.mauldineconomics.com/images/uploads/overmyshoulder/Martin_Wolf.pdf (Accessed: 20 December 2014)