Barrage of EU crises not getting any better

I've been covering European topics of one sort or another on and off during more than 50 years of journalism, and I can safely say I've never seen the European Union besieged by such a set of problems as it now faces.

Unprecedented waves of migrants, divisions over the future of the single currency, a tottering freedom of movement policy, a lack of cohesion over what policy to adopt toward China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a ramshackle reaction to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, and now the awful specter of terrorism raised by last week's brutal attacks on the streets of Paris.

In addition Britain, new best friends with China, is now facing a make-or-break referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union, a policy known in newspeak as "Brexit".