If I could look into my crystal ball to predict who the winners and losers of the global system would be by 2023 (the centenary year marking the founding of the Turkish Republic), do not expect me to give a rosy picture of the future for today’s 27-state European Union (EU). The current recession will no doubt ease by the end of this year, though the deep-seated systemic problems will remain, and companies will begin taking on workers again, signalling the end of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.