Last month, world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Rio+20 conference. The event was billed as the follow-up to 1992′s UN “Earth Summit”, when over one hundred heads of state and government met in Rio to discuss the environment. The results of this year’s conference, however, have been criticised as “disappointing“, with many blaming the global economic crisis for pushing the environment down the international policy agenda.

The conference produced a 49-page non-binding document called “The Future We Want” . Critics pointed out that the document lacks hard timetables or targets, and fear that implementation will be difficult to enforce with the current global economic crisis as all eyes are now focusing on Europe's ability to bounce back it's woes and hence do business as usual. But are we focusing too much on economy? or could the eurozone crisis present an opportunity for a better analysis of the crisis entails in general?

In the past, the world was an aggregate of isolated parts, but as the network of global connections grew stronger, we found ourselves in a new, volatile, unpredictable World. The Eurozone crisis, where Germany and France were having to pay for bailouts and recuse programs of the PIIGS is one of many example of economic interdependence.

Europe’s main issue is in being too loosely connected in their “economic union.” They have no proven way of debating, adopting and then forcing solutions through lawful implementation, a strategy based on a consensus of views that will serve the general population to its best and fullest interests.In the past, the world was an aggregate of isolated parts, but as the network of global connections grew stronger, we found ourselves in a new, volatile, unpredictable World. The Eurozone crisis, where Germany and France were having to pay for bailouts and recuse programs of the PIIGS is one of many example of economic interdependence.

They have created a system of government that is not in balance with its many seemingly autonomous states. Those individual countries are in reality highly interconnected through the life blood of any society, its daily commerce. They must therefore work in unison to accomplish any long term goal of quality, to sustain the region’s population as a whole, to be an economically viable, healthy society, by forming a strong central government based on accepted laws that are agreed upon to truly be representative of the interpersonal relationships that bind them and all humanity. 

The continuous decline of the global economy is worrisome because it concerns more than our money. Economy is not a neutral network of industries, trade, and banking. More than anything it reflects our own ambitions and desires, our relations and the direction to which we are headed. Indeed, Eurozone had accomplished what otherwise could not have been, having highlighted its economic crisis to a problem in society- namely in human relations. 

There must be a grass roots, peaceful initiatives, to educate the population and its governments to use the continent’s individual and cultural egoisms, as a tool for developing and instilling a general willingness and compassion for the integral human that lives within the “European Citizen.” By uniting their governments into one, the interests of the European, instead of the interests of the self-centred national, will be more efficiently served and satisfied with a deeper connection in the relationships between its inhabitants. This will then dramatically improve all aspects of their lives, promoting solutions to their social and economic problems, in their political issues and more importantly, in the relationships within the basic units of all society.

Maybe that silent Ghost still intends in roaming Europe for a little while longer, what if we misinterpreted the tracks its attempting to lead us to?