The future of European hegemony: "geo-economics"?

In the Guardian today:

On Monday the former president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, argued that the EU was becoming both dominated and neglected by Germany.

"Is the Europe that is emerging from the euro crisis a German one? During the euro crisis, power in the EU seems to have shifted towards one national capital in particular, Berlin," she wrote in Warsaw's Gazeta Wyborcza, together with Portugal's former European commissioner Antonio Vitorino. "Germany, it seems, is becoming a 'geo-economic power' driven by the needs of its export sector.

Britain in a nutshell: queuing and apathy

Truly vintage Brooker:

... The low turnout has been blamed on bad weather, which was almost certainly a factor – but on the other hand, if you won't vote because of drizzle, you weren't that arsed in the first place. People will queue in the rain to see Kasabian in concert. They'll queue in the rain to enter Abercrombie & Fitch. They'll queue in the rain for any old shit, as long as it isn't democracy.

Funny because it's so very, agonisingly true.