“Even before it began, Europe’s moment as a major world power in the 21st century looks to be over.” — Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations
THE GLOBE AND MAIL: Never in history has such an elaborate institutional structure been built to so little effect. Even in EU-besotted Brussels, people are daring to wonder if the dream is finally over
Sixty years ago this week, a congenial French foreign minister named Robert Schuman stepped into the gilded rococo splendour of the Quai d’Orsay clock chamber and presented his German counterpart, Konrad Adenauer, with a plan to bind together the economies and laws of these former enemies.
To prevent another war, they and their European neighbours would put an end to borders.
It was an unlikely plan involving, as its civil-servant author wrote, “the abnegation of sovereignty in a limited but decisive field” in order to obtain what Mr. Schuman that day called “a Europe that is firmly united and solidly built; a Europe where living standards will rise as a result of the pooling of production and the expansion of markets.”
The plan would eventually be known as the European Union. It worked extraordinarily well, until that rise of living standards and expansion of markets came to a crashing halt in 2010.
Now, many here fear, with good reason, that it is all unravelling back into chaos. >>> Doug Saunders | Friday, May 14, 2010
