DISPATCH FROM THE PROBABLE FUTURE — If prediction markets prove prophetic, the European Union will enter 1930 — pardon, 2030 — with its membership intact. Kalshi traders, wagering some eighteen thousand dollars on the question, place the odds of losing a member before decade's end at a mere sixteen percent. Long odds, yes, but not negligible ones.

The context demands attention. Britain's celebrated exit in 2020 proved that departures, once theoretical, can become Tuesday's headline. Since then, Eurosceptic movements have flickered across Italy, Hungary, and the continent's eastern flanks. No conflagration has taken hold — but market consensus, at sixteen percent, suggests the embers have not entirely cooled. One in six dollars wagered anticipates a fracture the chancelleries prefer not to discuss aloud.

A deepening economic recovery, renewed NATO solidarity under external pressure, or simply the procedural agony of any exit could push those odds lower still. Leaving, as Britain demonstrated, is rather easier promised than executed.