A Point of View: The European Dream Has Become A Nightmare

An end to the European project in its current form could bring a new dawn, says Will Self.

As in Greek mythology the sun god Apollo Helios drives his chariot across the skies to both create the day and engineer its duration, so the charioteer and four horses that surmount the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin embody the idea of contemporary German nationhood - and, by extension, engineer the destiny of the European Union.

The quadriga - as such a statue is known, after the original triumphal classical grouping from which all modern ones derive - is everywhere in Berlin.

As you disembark at Schoenefeld Airport and stump through the beige corridors towards immigration and customs, you're treated to a series of large and jocular advertisements for the Berliner Morgenpost featuring the stony equestrienne and her team, cut out of their familiar context and instead pasted down in the Vatican, or cantering across the green swathe of a football match, or keeping pace with a caroming military transport plane as it deploys infantrymen in some dusty Middle Eastern theatre of war.                   More