Word: eu
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Last Friday, while we all agonized about the impending U.S. elections, in Rome a singular political spectacle took place. On the Capitoline Hill, crowned by Michelangelo’s beautiful piazza, 29 European heads of government and of state met to sign the European Union (EU) constitution. The tulips were Dutch, the direction Italian (Franco Zeffirelli, of “Romeo and Juliet” fame) and all the politicians looked dapper indeed as they posed before the iconic statue of Marcus Aurelius. In true European style, however, the performance was surrounded by a flurry of chaotic disagreement...
...pretty bad day. Rome was chosen not because any of Italy’s neighbors particularly like Berlusconi (quite the opposite is true), but so as to hark back to the epochal 1957 Rome Treaty, which established the European Economic Community and laid the path to the current EU...
...signing of the EU constitutional treaty—which still must be ratified by all 25 member countries—Berlusconi was forced to withdraw Rocco Buttiglione, his appointee to the European Commission (the executive body meant to guide the EU) amidst threats from the European Parliament (the main legislative body) to veto the entire incoming Commission. Buttiglione, a minister in the Berlusconi government who has close ties to the Catholic Church, had expressed conservative personal views about homosexuality, describing it as “a sin,” as well as about women’s role...
That this dream of Europe is different than its predecessors was signaled by the presence of leaders from Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, all countries which have started EU accession negotiations. The three politicians also signed part of the document. “A united Europe is not only living up to its potential, it is also excluding war as a political means, since motives to conquer foreign territories will simply not exist in a united Europe,” said Croatian President Stipe Mesic the day after the event. Mesic, in Rome with observer status, hopes that his country will...
...Rome on Friday: Both outgoing and incoming commissioners crowded the Capitoline. The imposing neoclassical fresco of the Hall of the Horaces looked down on the heads of government as one by one they stepped up to sign the constitution. The constitutional treaty is a lengthy compilation of all previous EU agreements, meant to clarify the division of competences as well as afford the EU new powers, and is widely considered the ultimate political compromise. Only a relatively weak document could make all states content, and its final form required over a year of negotiations...