Of antibiotics and globalisation

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: Europe’s leaders began 2009 in a spooked frame of mind, and not just because of wars over Gaza and gas. The street riots in Greece before Christmas left several fretting that conditions may be ripe for wider unrest, even a “European May 1968”. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was so alarmed by his chats with fellow European Union summiteers in December that he went home and postponed a school reform that was sparking protests.

As unemployment rises, governments are sure to face calls to shield their voters with protectionist barriers to trade. Most EU leaders are sensible folk who know that such policies may look attractive to individuals but would harm the wider public. Whether they are brave enough to explain this to their voters is another matter. Even if they are, voters in some countries may refuse to believe them, taking the view that their rulers are liars, interested only in looking after themselves.

Without a crystal ball, it is impossible to predict where political trouble might strike. So Charlemagne has a suggestion. There has been much recent research into a public-health problem that shares some surprisingly similar features: the overuse of antibiotics. Consumption of these drugs varies strikingly across Europe, with Greeks, the heaviest users, taking three times as many as the Dutch, who use the fewest. Rather like trade protection, popping an antibiotic offers false comfort to individuals. In a 2008 survey, Greek paediatricians said that 85% of parents demanded antibiotics for children with the common cold virus. As with political debates over free trade, some people appear to suffer from a corrosive lack of trust when the authorities tell them that they are demanding the wrong thing. Even when told that antibiotics cannot fight viruses, 65% of Greek parents in the survey insisted they did until their doctors gave in.

Scientists talk of a broad north-south divide in Europe, with the Dutch,