DER SPIEGEL Pfeil nach rechts An Essay by Ullrich Fichtner An Essay by Ullrich Fichtner Despite its long list of crises in recent years - including the most recent vaccine snafu - the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms. This has made the bloc a 21st century model. 04.02.2021, 16.36 Uhr Icon: vergrößern Fans of the European Union gather in front of the Opéra Garnier theater in Paris in 2020: A giant that is shaping the planet Foto: Bruno Levesque / IP3 Press / imago images I. In the cosmos of political cartoons, Europe has been depicted as a snail and as a hydra, as a snake pit or a pigsty. The European Union can be a sick man, an old woman in a wheelchair, a neglected child o a sad woman. Europe found itself mocked as a deflating balloon, as a race car without an engine, as a derailed train, as a sinking ship or as a jumbo jet too big for any runway. The Continent has been portrayed as a barren mountain range of EU summits, as a garbage dump of files, as a befouled land of plenty with lakes of milk and wine. Europe in caricature is a house of cards, a ramshackle home, a burning hut, a crumbling temple. It is always in ruins.