This is no ‘journalism’—these are the tactics of the CIA and the KGB described in Cold War history books, played out in the 21st century in domestic contexts.

If both elites (those of the West and of Central Europe, respectively) are ready to follow a more pragmatic political action plan, and rely on a less exclusive and lecturing linguistic regime, we can avoid the worst case scenario, which is the split and break-up of the Union, and a potential internal conflict within Europe.

‘And yet, at poolside that summer of 1985, if a messenger had swum over to us and said to be of good cheer, because in four years, the Berlin Wall would fall, and Communism would soon cease to exist, both of us would have thought him a madman.’