ABSTRACT
Arvind Virmani (2004), a distinguished Indian scholar, envisages for 2050 a tripolar world in which the three powers would be the United States, China and India. In a very short paragraph, he dismisses the perspective that the European Union would become one of the poles in such a world, saying that (a) its population is on a declining trend, and (b) that it would require the unlikely formation of a ‘virtual state’ in which nation-states would surrender power to a European government. Consistent with this view, his entire analysis is conducted on the basis of comparisons between states, and the European Union as such is entirely ignored.
