BRUSSELS, May 29 (Xinhua) -- To save a beleaguered European Union (EU), the soon-to-be 27-member bloc should set "multi-track Europe" instead of "multi-speed Europe" as its goal, Hungarian-U.S. financier Geroge Soros wrote in an article posted on Project Syndicate website Tuesday.
In the article titled "How to save Europe", Soros argued that there is no longer any point to ignore the reality that a number of EU member countries have explicitly rejected the EU's goal of "ever closer union."
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the EU seems to have lost its way, he noted, highlighting that retrenchment programs have transformed the eurozone into a relationship between creditors and debtors.
"Creditors set conditions that debtors had to meet, yet could not meet," he wrote. "This created a relationship that was neither voluntary nor equal -- the very opposite of the credo on which the EU was based."
As a result, many young people today regard the EU as an enemy that has deprived them of jobs and a secure and promising future, he lamented.
The refugee influx of 2015 dealt another hammer blow to Europe. Many Europeans "became disillusioned by the failure of the authorities to cope with the crisis," Soros noted.
Worse still, the United States has added insult to injury by ditching the landmark Iran nuclear deal.
"By unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, U.S. President Donald Trump has effectively destroyed the transatlantic alliance," Soros wrote.
To extricate the EU from various challenges, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last year unveiled a white paper laying out five scenarios for the EU's remaining 27 member states after Britain leaves the bloc.
The third scenario "Those Who Want More Do More," envisaging a selection of willing member states doing more together in specific areas, is widely deemed as a route heading for a "multi-speed Europe," although the white paper shirked naming it directly.
But Soros argued that instead of a "multi-speed Europe," where all members are still heading toward the same destination, the goal should be a "multi-track Europe" that offers member states a wider variety of choices.
He reckoned that a "multi-track Europe" would have a far-reaching beneficial effect, as "currently attitudes toward cooperation are negative: member states want to reassert their sovereignty rather than surrender more of it."
"But if cooperation produced positive results, sentiment might improve, and some objectives, like defense, that are currently best pursued by coalitions of the willing might attract universal participation," he wrote.
Soros, 87, is chairman of Soros Fund Management and chairman of the Open Society Foundations.
The Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire, who funds rights NGOs around the world, has become one of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's main enemies, who has also attacked NGOs, accusing them of intervening in Hungarian domestic politics in favor of Soros.
