Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Europe is in the worst crisis since World War II.

European Union (EU) as we know it is approaching the end of times.

Many media analysts and economists, parroting each other, have put the euro on the endangered specie(s) list.

Anyone watching the "crisis" unfold in Europe from this side of the Atlantic through the lenses of the mass media cannot help but get the impression that the euro – and possibly the EU – is doomed.

In Age of Globalization, we understand only too well that if Europe fails or China bails, we are in a heap of trouble. It's one small step from a panic-induced run on the banks in Europe to panic on Wall Street and a full-scale worldwide depression. Let's be clear: if it happens it will be the bitter fruit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, not a fundamental failure of Europe's single market economy. Even so, it's the nightmare scenario to which we are all being treated on the nightly news.

But it's dead wrong because it's based on a gross misconception, a failure on the part of the two main English-speaking countries – the United States and the United Kingdom – to understand Europe.

The US misses the point because Americans are insulated from the outside world by two vast oceans; because we dominated our NATO allies for nearly half a century during and after the Cold War and therefore didn't have to understand them so long as they obediently followed our lead; and because we tend to look at Europe and see only what a snapshot of the day's headline events in Athens or Berlin or some other European capital reveals.

The UK see what it wants to see: namely a European Union that is fighting to save a currency (the euro) they (the British) have never liked and never adopted.

Anyone familiar with the history of European integration over the past six decades is constantly reminded of Mark Twain's comment after hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Time and time again, Eurosceptics and naysayers have pronounced the "European project" dead on arrival.

Time and time again, Europe's leaders have proven the pundits wrong.

The odds that Europe, the EU, and, yes, the euro will survive the current crisis are actually very good. Here's why:

1) No key player wants the EU to fail – not Germany or France, not the US, not China, not the European Commission or the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, and certainly not private investors, or the leading multinational banks, virtually all of which have extensive exposure to eurozone sovereign debt; French banks, for example, have the largest holdings of Greek and Italian debt.

2) Historic enemies Germany and Poland are now allies and, along with France, constitute an impressive bulwark for the defense of the euro; together, these three countries at Europe's geographic center of gravity account for 37% of the total EU population; Germany and France are the two largest national economies in the euro zone; Poland is by far the biggest former Warsaw Pact state in NATO and the EU

3) The EU, which began as a collection of six countries in the early 1950s now encompasses 27 member-states; several others including Turkey with a population of over 82 million are waiting in the wings, wanting to join, nobody is heading for the exits, and the candidate-members are as anxious as ever to get in

4) Despite all, the euro remains remarkably strong, one euro is still worth about $1.35 – in other words, it's still worth 35% more than the dollar

5) Germany, long Europe's most vibrant and stable national economy, is not as dysfunctional as Washington. Last week, the German Bundestag overwhelmingly approved a measure that will raise Germany's contribution to the bail-out fund – aka, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – from $166 billion to $285. Imagine the US Congress voting across party lines and against a rising tide of public opinion to bail out Canada!

In many ways, the EU, a collection of disparate nations and sovereign states with a history of hating and killing each other, is demonstrating greater coherence and cohesion than the United States these days. For example, the EU Commission, with strong backing from France and Germany, has recently proposed a financial-transactions tax (FTT). The UK and some others will most likely oppose it, but there is talk that the 17-member euro zone may go ahead with it anyway. If and when it goes into effect the FTT will tax securities transactions in EU with a view to reducing volatility in financial markets as well as raising revenue to help balance member-state budgets.

Given the volatility in global financial markets over the past 3 years, the FTT sounds like a sensible attempt to take at least a small step in the right direction – namely toward a more stable and sustainable world economy.

In today's world, words like "bankrupt" and "dysfunctional" are frequently used to describe the condition of both individuals and governments. Europe is neither.