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3/12/07

The Daily Star - The European Union is ailing? If you think so, look again - by Giles Merritt


For the complete report from the The Daily Star click on this link

The European Union is ailing? If you think so, look again - by Giles Merritt

As the European Union prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome later this month, the EU is widely perceived to be on its knees. European integration is felt to have somehow met its Waterloo in 2005, when referendums in France and the Netherlands unexpectedly torpedoed the draft EU constitution. Media stories have focused on the paralysis that is said to have gripped EU decision-making, but the reality is different. Far from suffering an irreversible decline in its fortunes, the EU has been conducting business as usual, quietly getting on with the job of constructing new policies and pursuing new projects.

Take a look at some recent headlines. The EU is putting together an energy and environment strategy that aims to end the self-defeating competition within Europe for oil and gas, while also establishing Europe as global leader in the effort to halt climate change. The union's common foreign and security policy may not yet mean that Europe speaks to the world with one voice, but this unity is taking shape and has already healed some of the wounds inflicted by disagreements over the war in Iraq. Of equal importance, Europe's economic integration continues to move ahead, with the euro's value buoyant and a single marketplace for financial services now coming into sight.The global pressures pushing European nations closer together are as strong as ever, so the impasse over the EU's constitutional treaty was never going to push Europe off course for very long. The EU's problem is not its so-called "constitutional crisis," but rather its lack of a recognizable political identity.

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