In this essay, Paul Scheffer discusses the waning of the European powers at the expense of new economies like Brazil, India, and China, and raises the question how Europe manages to deal with this change. He argues the perception of Europe in the new economies will acquire ever greater significance for European societies. This, according to Scheffer, presents an invitation to write history in a new way.

Problems such as unemployment, low salaries, loss of economic competitiveness, social tensions let to the definition of this period as the one of a new depression, part of a broader structural change in the world ́s balance of power. These trends were representative of change in Western societies, that seemed to reach the limits of their development and dynamism, which was being expressed by popular protests and the loss of international projection. 

Karine Lisbonne speaks at the Dwarfing of Europe event in Amsterdam