In this column, Professor Joaquín Roy, Professor of European Integration and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami, argues that although the United States and Europe are in crisis, they are still a magnet for the rest of the world, as shown by the ceaseless waves of migrants they attract.

BARCELONA, Jul 14 2014 (IPS) - A few decades ago, even before the end of the Cold War and before and after Ronald Reagan's election to the White House, analyses regularly referred to U.S. decadence. At other times, it was Europe's turn for pessimistic descriptions, especially when it could not overcome its ambivalence over deepening integration, and above all because of the failure of its constitutional project. 

The West was in crisis. And now the pair are apparently going through a similar phase, with each one trying to outdo the other in inferiority.