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...thing straight: Europe is a remarkably good place to live. Many of the E.U.'s member states are among the richest in the world. Workers in Europe usually enjoy long vacations, generous maternity leave and comfortable pension schemes. Universal health insurance is seen as part of the basic social contract. Europe is politically stable, the most generous donor of development aid in the world. Sure, taxes can be high, but most Europeans seem happy to pay more to the state in return for a higher - and guaranteed - quality of life. "The E.U. offers an attractive social, economic and political model...
Beyond its neighborhood, however the E.U. has rarely punched its collective weight. The main reason for that, of course, is that member states still like to defend and pursue their own national interests, rather than subsume them in a multinational body. There's also a case - and plenty in Europe make it - that Europe is better off continuing to aim low. "Very few European countries see the role of the E.U. as a power," says Moïsi. "They see Europe as a place - with a common market, a common currency, but not a power that should project itself onto...
...stronger European voice. Capitals from Pretoria to Washington are constantly urging more from their European allies. As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip H. Gordon said to the House Foreign Affairs Committee after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty last year: "We hope E.U. member states will invest the post-Lisbon institutions with the authority and capacity to make concrete contributions to the pressing global challenges we face together." In Africa, India, Latin America, leaders would fall over themselves to engage more closely with a power that's neither the U.S. nor China - both nations...
...Luis Rodríguez Zapatero Position: PM of Spain, holder of rotating presidency Powers: The long-term Council President should make this role irrelevant. Member states may disagree...
...they contemplate the future, leaders of the E.U. can no longer avoid the hard question: Is a common foreign policy what its member states - and their domestic political constituencies - really want? If it isn't, then the rest of the world can adjust its expectations accordingly. If it is, then Europeans can start the real work of public diplomacy, speaking out for their asserted virtues of tolerance, compromise and liberality, not in a condescending way, but in one that explains how the world's true dark continent in the 20th century found a path to peace. And the E.U. could...