The three threats to European Unity could be fatal... And they are still growing.
1. In addition to the External Threats referred to by President Donals Tusk, there is the growing threat of (former?) ally Turkey, to the security and stability of European countries, as both Germany and the Netherlands recently experienced. When Erdogan manages to impose his constitutional amendments - with the help of his Turkish subjects living abroad (with double nationality) - Europe will be confronted with another authoritarian regime inside its own borders. At the same time, Trump's America not only might cease to remain the reliable ally, but might even turn into a direct threat to the survival of the European Union.
2. The internal threat is still growing. The much commented Dutch elections (March 15) did not produce a defeat to the populists, on the contrary. The strength of the populist vote in Parliament has grown, though shattered over more political parties. In addition to the "official" populism personified in President Trump and Theresa May (Brexit), Europe faces similar leaders in Hungary and Poland and maybe more EU member states. All these leaders seem to forget that nationalism is war.
3. The third threat in the state of mind of the pro-European elite is just as dangerous, as I already referred to in my volume on "European Unification in the Twenty First Century." Conceding to the populists, too many of our political leaders have become fashionable Eurosceptics. In the recent Dutch elections Europe was hardly mentioned, except by the D66 party, otherwise known as extremely secularist and anti-christian. We must, sadly enough, be reminded that European unification was a profoundly Christian project - Schuman and Solidarnosc. Disowning such inspiration will be the end of European unification in solidarity and reconciliation.