and will continue to crumble until a new "Phoenix" of smaller states and city states arises, a 21st Machivellian political society. This was predicted as long ago as the late 1970s - I attended a political workshop on European Perspectives and Trends that forecast the splintering of Europe to this model driven at the centre by a powerful D/F/Nl and a rogue called the UK who didn't know whether it was coming or going - i.e. on the inner track or out there in boogie land withe second and third division. What they did not forecast was just how far East the EU would extend....