USC Center on Public Diplomacy

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Published: MAR 30, 2007 - 1:17PM PDT

Special Reports
Special reports are articles collecting the most relevant public diplomacy articles and information on topical issues, and are posted periodically by our research team at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

THE EUROPEAN UNION, A “QUIET SUPERPOWER” OR A RELIC OF THE PAST
MAR 30, 2007 - 1:17PM PDT
by Iskra Kirova

On March 25, the European Union celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding Treaty of Rome. This momentous event and the Berlin Declaration drafted by the German presidency to mark the occasion and preset a "road map" for the Union, sparked discussion on the successes and failures of the integration community, its utility today, and its role in the future. The wrangling over the text of the Declaration highlighted current foreign policy disagreement between member-countries and the fresh memory of the 2005 "no" vote on the constitution in the referenda in France and the Netherlands. In the end, the Berlin Declaration avoided tackling controversial issues, and focused on the euro, the common market, social responsibility, human dignity, equal rights, peaceful resolution of global conflicts, fighting poverty, and climate change.

Europe's intellectuals offered conflicting visions in explanation of this landmark stage for the Union which now houses 480 million people and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, from the north-west Russian border to the south-west border of Turkey. Long-time advocates of the European idea, Joschka Fischer and Jacques Delors proclaimed that the E.U. is in stalemate and risks unraveling. According to the likes of Dominique de Villepin, the European Union is suffering a welcome "crisis of growth." Others placed an emphasis upon the Union's soft power appeal and saw Europe advancing in a positive direction with its values spreading across the globe -- far more attractive than those of America. While crediting the E.U. for the reunification of the continent and its transformative influence upon ex-Communist regimes, other experts suggested that further enlargement might not be the only effective policy for stabilization and peace, and argued that the E.U.'s Neighborhood Policy, falling short of full admission for some of the membership aspiring countries, could become an instrument for stimulating development and reform, much as the Marshall plan once was for western Europe.

The discussion on the future of the European Union has direct relevance to the study and practice of soft power and public diplomacy. Being the most successful advance in voluntary international cooperation in modern history , the European Union has made soft power by far the most prominent instrument in its foreign policy. The E.U.'s power of attraction is based upon values of peaceful cooperation through dialogue manifested in 50 years of deepening integration; the common market of free movement of people, goods, services and capital; and the European social model of the modern welfare state, which accounts for the prosperity and social stability of the region today. As a result, the prospect for accession has stimulated wide ranging reform and ultimately an irreversible transition to democracy for many of Europe's former Soviet Block countries, making enlargement the Union's greatest public diplomacy achievement. For Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia, the E.U. has become an impetus for change as they strive to align their political and economic practices and adopt its democratic values.

However, these tenets of the "European dream" have not translated into a shared European identity. The peace and prosperity of Europe today are largely taken for granted by the European people. In the eyes of the average citizen, the European Union has come to be associated at best with a cumbersome bureaucratic system setting the maximum curvature of bananas , and at worst with all negative forces of globalization threatening identity and independence. Ironically, this crisis of legitimacy is most pronounced in the countries which have most benefited from a united Europe. This ambiguity in European public opinion is reflected in recent polls according to which while criticizing Brussels for being unable to deliver, E.U. citizens simultaneously expect that Europe will not reduce itself to being a single market and a mere free trade area and progress toward greater integration and collective action on the world stage.

In addition, the lack of a uniform identity is coupled with an imbalance between the E.U.'s soft and hard power which has had important implications for Europe's foreign policy relations with the world's main centers of power. While the European Union successfully asserted itself as a values-based community and a catalyst for peace and prosperity, its attempts to act in unison in its geo-strategic foreign policy were stifled. Thus, just before the E.U.'s 50th birthday, Brussels managed to achieve consensus on a ground-breaking climate change deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, as well as to generate 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources. At the same time, it failed to reach common ground on issues such as Iraq or current U.S. plans to install missile interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic, or a joint approach towards energy rich Russia.

The following is an aggregation of recent key articles and commentary about the 50th anniversary of the European Union. The links are divided into four sections: (1) articles looking at the integration community as a source of soft power, (2) articles on the disconnect between the E.U. ideals and institutions and the mass of European citizens explaining why the EU remains still an elitist project, (3) articles about the constitutional impasse and what is at stake for the E.U. in the future, and (4) public opinion polls.

The integration community as a source of soft power

The Golden Moment
As the EU celebrates its 50th birthday, critics say it has one foot in the grave. But many countries now look there, not to America, as a model.
(Andrew Moravcsik, Newsweek International, March 26, 2007)
Far from being a product of the past, the EU has emerged as Europe's most innovative and significant contribution to modernity. With its multilateral scope, the EU is the source of around 20 percent of all laws passed in Europe. It has extended the reach of democracy and free markets within and beyond its borders -- in a way that American neocons can only dream about -- and is becoming a model to the developing world. Futurologist Jeremy Rifkin advances a compelling case for the ascendancy of European ideals. "While the American Spirit is tiring and languishing in the past," he writes, "a new European Dream is being born" -- one that emphasizes community relationships over individual autonomy, cultural diversity over assimilation, quality of life over the accumulation of wealth, sustainable development over unlimited material growth, deep play over unrelenting toil, and universal human rights." The global financier George Soros is putting money behind a similar idea, seeking to create a new European Council on Foreign Relations premised on the notion that U.S. foreign policy "has left the world leaderless and in disarray." To be sure, the United States remains unrivaled in "hard" military power. Yet one need look no further than the quagmire in Iraq to see its limits. When it comes to the instruments needed to engineer peace, the softer tools of civilian power, Europe far exceeds America. It is the "quiet superpower."

For Europe, A Moment To Ponder
(Roger Cohen, The New York Times,, March 25, 2007)
The European Union, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding treaty this weekend, is more often associated with Brussels bureaucrats setting the maximum curvature of cucumbers than with transformational power. But step by step, stipulation by stipulation, Europe has been remade. What began in limited fashion in 1957 as a drive to remove tariff barriers and promote commercial exchange has ended by banishing war from Europe, enriching it beyond measure, and producing "the first revolution that has been absolutely positive." This achievement will be symbolized as leaders from the 27 member states gather in Berlin -- the city that stood at the crux of violent 20th-century European division. They will sign a "Berlin Declaration" celebrating the peace, freedom, wealth and democracy that the Treaty of Rome has now helped spread among almost half a billion Europeans. "The E.U. slashes political risk," said Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat member of the British Parliament. "It also exercises a soft power on its periphery that has far more transformational impact than the American neocon agenda in the Middle East. Countries in the Balkans wanting to come into the European democratic family have to adapt." That adaptation is economic as well as political.

Hot Topic: Europe, Old and New
(The Wall Street Journal, 24 March 2007)
Though it won't be widely noted in Berlin this weekend, the Union would not exist without the U.S., which gave its strong backing from day one. The Marshall Plan assisted the Continent's postwar economic recovery, and an American military umbrella has since kept it safe. Whatever the trade or foreign policy disagreements, Washington hasn't wavered in its support for a stable, rich Europe. This success has sometimes gone to European heads. Some in Brussels truly believe they have created a soft-power utopia that can talk its way out of any trouble, such as a nuclear Iran or Islamic terrorism. To become a more mature player, Europeans will have to pull their weight in the likes of NATO.
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Europe" Turns 50
(Jean-Claude Trichet, The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2007)
On Sunday, Europe's leaders will celebrate the EU's 50th birthday in Berlin. For several decades, Berlin -- more than any other city -- exemplified the artificial division of the European continent. In 50 years, Europe has journeyed from political disarray and economic disorder to a high degree of economic and monetary integration and has become the world's brand-leader in peaceful political cooperation. The people of Europe can be proud of this metamorphosis. Surmounting all difficulties, leaders with vision, setting up solid institutions, have moved Europe ever forward.
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Survey: The ins and outs
(The Economist, March 17, 2007)
It is sometimes said that the European Union is an economic giant but a political pygmy, with no foreign policy to speak of. Certainly foreign and defence policies, above all others, remain largely in the hands of national governments; and foreign-policymaking with 27 countries, every one of them with a veto, is inherently difficult. Last year, for example, Poland alone blocked the start of negotiations on a new partnership agreement with Russia. Yet to conclude that the EU has no foreign policy at all would be wrong. By far the most successful EU foreign policy has been its own expansion. In the 1980s the prospect of joining played a critical part in ensuring a smooth transition from dictatorship to democracy in Greece, Spain and Portugal. More recently it has transformed the east European countries as they moved from communist central planning to liberal democracy. The countries of the western Balkans have been pacified and stabilised after the bloody 1990s thanks mainly to their hopes of EU membership. And Turkey has made wholesale changes in its politics, economics and society largely to boost its chances of joining. Indeed, judged in terms of success in exporting its values to its backyard, the EU has done much better with its neighbours than the United States has with central and south America, largely because of the carrot of enlargement.
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EU Public Diplomacy
(Emma Basker, The 2006 Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy -- The Present and Future of Public Diplomacy: A European Perspective, November 30, 2006)
Given that the EU's power is primarily soft rather than hard, we perhaps have even more at stake in ensuring world public opinion is on our side. But whilst the EU may have a generally positive image in the world, we have to admit that knowledge of our concrete policies and activities is often limited. And we have not yet fully mastered the art of transforming that general level of good-will towards Europe, our 'soft power,' into equivalent political influence on the world stage. The foreign policy provisions of the EU's constitutional treaty would have helped by resolving some of the structural obstacles. It would certainly have made it easier for people around the world to identify Europe as a cohesive force. But the treaty is not a prerequisite for improving our performance. All that's really essential is political will.
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The Future of Public Diplomacy
(Philip Fiske de Gouveia, The 2006 Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy -- The Present and Future of Public Diplomacy: A European Perspective, November 30, 2006)
The European Union has the makings of a co-operative public diplomacy superpower; the combined 'soft power' might of the 25 member states and the Commission is formidable. The EU also has the important advantage of being perceived as a largely benign, if indistinct, force in the world. No degree of public diplomacy skill or effort can compensate for actions which antagonise third-country publics as the US government is learning to its cost. When it comes to the perceptions of people around the world, actions speak louder than words. To date the EU's actions -- the pursuit of multilateralism, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the championing of the rule of law and human rights in its neighbourhood -- have been of great benefit to its reputation globally. At the same time the EU is already, in some cases inadvertently, conducting public diplomacy through initiatives like the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the Intercultural Dialogue programme, and, of course, the work done by the representations and delegations. This kind of 'co-operative public diplomacy' -- co-ordinated and conducted by the likes of the European Union, the African Union, or ASEAN -- will grow because it will work and it will save money.
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The EU remains an elitist project

European Press Review: Skepticism Among the Fireworks
(Deutsche Welle, March 26, 2007)
The European Union celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the document that effectively brought it into being, on Sunday. As part of the celebrations, EU leaders signed off on the so-called "Berlin Declaration" which reiterated the bloc's aims and ideals, acknowledged its achievements and challenges, and looked to the future. It also set a date for 2009 for the ratification of an EU constitution. European papers on Monday took a mostly skeptical view of both the landmark anniversary and the document signed as part of the commemoration.

Europe: Existential dreaming
(The Economist, March 24, 2007)
Pro-Europeans have two broad and incompatible views about the future of the European Union. The first, existential view goes back to the EU's roots. The founders thought European co-operation was good for its own sake, since it would prevent war. The high point of this thinking came in the 1980s and early 1990s when Helmut Kohl, Germany's chancellor, talked in unabashed terms about a United States of Europe, and the ex-communist countries applied to join the EU because it embodied their identity as Europeans. Such talk is heard less often now but its ideals are still in the treaty, which commits its members to the goal of "ever closer union". It is the second, instrumentalist view that has recently been the dominant one. In response to declining public support, the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has started talking of "a Europe of results" -- meaning a series of policies designed to win back popularity on issues people care about: climate change, energy security, cross-border crime, immigration. All these are global in character. Small countries cannot deal with them alone. The EU justifies itself as the organisation that gives Europeans a voice on the world stage. At a time when everybody worries about the EU's lack of popular support, the two groups are looking for legitimacy in different places.

How Paris became estranged from EU's creation
(George Parker, Financial Times, March 23, 2007)
The last surviving signatory of the Treaty of Rome, Maurice Faure, was one of a dozen ministers and officials gathered in Rome's Capitol to sign the EU's founding texts. However, he says the momentous nature of the occasion passed many Europeans by. Crucial to the deal was to get France's farmers -- one-quarter of the workforce -- on board. "The Treaty of Rome was very favourable to farmers," he says. So why did French farmers reject the EU constitution in a referendum in 2005? "Perhaps they don't understand what Europe has done for them," he says. The founding of a new Europe was, he admits, an "elite" project.

Golden Years: Europe’s child may look sickly at 50 but it lives and prospers
(George Parker, Financial Times, March 22 2007)
The gap between the official festivities in the German capital and the lack of popular celebrations elsewhere in Europe is a symptom of the fact that the EU remains at heart an elitist project, just as it was when Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and the other founding fathers conceived it in the 1950s. For many European leaders, that will no longer do: they talk of a crisis of legitimacy. People enjoy the benefits of a whole series of concrete EU "results" -- whether peace, cash, national self-esteem, border-free travel or cheap air fares -- but seem resolutely unwilling to give the credit to the project that made these possible. The EU remains a remote and vast bureaucratic blank screen on to which people and their political leaders can project everything they hate most about the modern world. The task of Europe's leaders gathered in Berlin on Sunday is to remind their citizens what has been achieved in the past 50 years and why the European project is as relevant today as it was in Rome on March 25 1957. With new "citizen-friendly" policy challenges in areas such as the environment, immigration, terrorism, organised crime, development aid and international peacekeeping, there is plenty for them to be getting on with.

L'Europe tragique et magnifique - at 50
A weird hybrid of an organisation but a great success
(Financial Times, March 19, 2007)
The EU has proved a formidable soft power machine for inducing (generally) positive reform. No comparable organisation has been such a success -- there is still a big queue of countries rattling the gates to get in -- but it is also hard to think of any particular reason why Europeans should be suffused with joy as they contemplate another half century of union. The EU is a maddeningly difficult thing to admire and sell. As the FT-Harris poll published in today's Financial Times indicates, the attitudes of its citizens (and outsiders such as the Americans) are often ambivalent. They clearly do not love the EU -- as Jacques Delors, the visionary architect of the last great wave of European integration, laments in L'Europe tragique et magnifique, his recent cri de coeur. But with the exception of the semi-detached British, they feel things would be a lot worse without it. Paradoxically, moreover, amid the backlash against excessive regulation and the competition brought by globalisation, lots of Europeans want the Union to do more. They are crying out for leadership in areas such as foreign policy and fighting crime, the environment and energy, and, of course, in raising economic performance as well as security of livelihood. If Europe had more convincing leaders to champion the Union, these issues would look a lot clearer. It needs to find such leaders soon: to withstand the populist nationalism that globalisation is bringing in its train.

The European Union's 50th anniversary
(The Economist, March 17, 2007)
Anybody reaching 50 naturally likes to reflect a bit on their achievements and failures. So it is with the European Union, which later this month marks the 50th anniversary of the signing in Rome of its founding treaty in 1957. Europe's leaders plan a jamboree in Berlin that will issue a portentous declaration. Their voters may not be impressed. Does this sombre mood mean that the European project has failed? Not at all. As our special report this week notes, its early decades were spectacularly successful. The 50 years before the Treaty of Rome included two world wars and a great depression. The 50 years since have brought peace and prosperity on a scale unimaginable in Europe's history. But peace is now largely taken for granted. There is little enthusiasm for more enlargement, even though this has proved a brilliant way of entrenching liberal democracy in Europe's neighbourhood (more so than anything America has managed in its backyard). And, as for prosperity, young Europeans find it far less assured than it was for their parents. The two big tasks for Europe's political leaders in Berlin ought thus to be clear. The first is to reinvigorate their economies. The second job for the politicians is to make a lot more effort to persuade their voters that they have benefited from the enlargement of the club.
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Survey: Four Ds for Europe
(The Economist, March 17, 2007)
The biggest failing of the EU has long been the yawning gulf between the union, as both a project of integration and a set of institutions, and the mass of its citizens. Nobody could pretend that, when French and Dutch voters voted against the constitution in 2005, they were objecting merely to specific provisions in the text; nor that they were just using the opportunity to give their governments a good kicking. It seems much more likely that they were expressing a general feeling of resentment towards the European project and its remoteness. That feeling is more emphatic in some countries than in others, but it seems to be strong everywhere. The traditional response by governments has been to ignore such resentment. Europe was always an elite project, went the argument, and so it should remain. As long as political leaders understood and pursued the case for European integration, that should be enough.
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Beckham leads EU team against United
(David Charter, The Times, February 12, 2007)
Question: How do you excite the British public about the 50th anniversary of the founding of the European Union? Answer: Grab their attention through something far more popular than Brussels -- a football match. In one of its most populist gestures since the Common Market was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the EU will commemorate its birthday in Britain by fielding a Europe XI against Manchester United. EU officials confirmed to The Times that while other EU countries will hold youth summits, music concerts and art exhibitions, football was deemed the best way to reach a Euro-sceptic British public, especially as European stars in the Premiership are so popular.

The constitutional impasse and the future of the Union

The 50th Anniversary of the EU: Re-launch Immediately To Counter the Risk of Disaggregation
(Charles A. Kupchan, Corriere della Sera, March 26, 2007)
The European project may be on the cusp of faltering. A re–nationalization of political life is taking place across the EU. The failure of the constitution was as much a symptom as a cause of this dramatic swing in attitudes. It is been accompanied by a host of other worrying developments: mounting economic protectionism, growing discomfort with Muslim immigration, rising anxiety over the threats posed to the comforts of the welfare state by global competition and aging populations, and diminishing enthusiasm for enlargement. This historical digression is not meant to suggest that the EU is headed for dissolution and war. It is certainly a safe bet that geopolitical rivalry among EU member states is gone for good. Nonetheless, satisfaction about Europe's last fifty years does not justify complacency about it next fifty. The EU has indeed accomplished a great deal in five decades, but its integrity and durability cannot be taken for granted, especially in light of the challenges that lie ahead. At some point soon, European integration may become irreversible. But after only 50 years, the EU is not there yet.

Waiting for Freedom, Messing It Up
(Adam Michnik, The New York Times, March 25, 2007)
For those of us who, during our years of democratic opposition to Communist rule, passed through the trial of underground activity and prisons, this joyous day arrived four years ago, when, in a national referendum, Poles decided by a decisive majority to join the European Union. A dream kept alive for years became a reality. What was the content of this dream? Democracy instead of dictatorship, pluralism instead of monopoly, law instead of lawlessness, freedom of the press instead of censorship, diversity instead of conformity, open borders instead of barbed wire, tolerance instead of a reigning ideology, creativity instead of blind obedience, the possibility of welfare and development instead of poverty and backwardness. Finally and most important, we dreamed of a human right to dignity, an end to the subjection of every person as property of the state. During the Polish accession referendum of four years ago, this dream turned out to be most convincing to Poles. But now that the dream is within grasp, Poland and other Eastern European countries have begun to turn their backs on it.

The case for an adult, outward-looking EU
(Financial Times, March 23 2007)
Over the past 50 years the European Union's focus has been mostly inwards. Its leaders have expended their time and energy creating independent institutions, a single market and a common currency. But if the EU is to remain relevant over the next 50 years its imperative must be to start shifting its collective focus outwards. The biggest long-term challenges of our age -- globalisation, climate change, energy dependence, immigration, terrorism, stability in the Middle East and development in Africa -- cannot be solved within the EU's borders, still less within individual nation states. The EU has been in the standards-setting and values-exporting business for 50 years. Such "soft power" is enormously important. But to be fully effective the EU must complement its soft power by developing more "hard power" to help deal with common security threats and humanitarian crises be they in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Middle East or Darfur.

Looking Back, Looking Forward
(Jeffrey Iverson, Time, March 22, 2007)
Jacques Delors was President of the European Commission from 1985-95, helping to make this a period of extraordinary transformation in Europe. During his tenure the European Community became the European Union: a single market on its way to a common currency. More recently, the pace of change has slowed, even stalled. Delors, 81, hopes the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome will give member states new impetus in building the E.U. He spoke with Time about Europe's future, its tumultuous past and why it's still "the Continent of doubt."

The time has come for Britain to join the European Union
(Philip Stephens, Financial Times, March 22 2007)
True, not long after the treaty's signature, the chill winds of change were felt in Whitehall. Harold Macmillan's government relearned the familiar lesson of history that Britain cannot escape the consequences of decisions made by Europe's other big powers. Within five years, Macmillan felt obliged to apply for membership; within 15, Britain had overcome a French veto to win admission to the club. But, as the Conservative politician, Chris Patten, has put it, for all that it has long held a membership card, Britain has never really joined the European Union. One of the lessons of recent years is that Britain needs Europe in order to have a close but balanced relationship with Washington. But pro-Europeans in Britain have never properly made the case that sovereignty must be shared in order to advance Britain's strategic interests. They have tacitly conceded the eurosceptic canard that the EU is a zero-sum game. Yet to imagine "independent" national approaches to, say, trade and capital flows, security and terrorism, immigration and cross-border crime, climate change and development, is to appreciate the emptiness of the classical conception of sovereignty.

Europe diary: Big birthday
(Mark Mardell, BBC, March 22, 2007)
BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell on the contents of the Berlin Declaration to be signed at a summit this weekend, comparisons between the EU and the Roman empire, and two very different visions of the EU's future.

Constitutional conundrum
(The Economist, March 17, 2007)
It is clear that economic reform ought to be at the top of the EU's agenda, especially for euro members. Yet Germany, currently in the EU president's chair, is mostly ignoring it. Angela Merkel has lit on another priority altogether: to revive the EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters. Merkel plans to present the June EU summit with a "road map" for taking the constitution forward. Each country has nominated two officials to meet in secret to prepare this -- a bizarre decision, since one purpose of the constitution was to increase transparency. Whatever the political permutations in different countries, it is clear that there are only four broad options: 1. treaty plus, 2. treaty minus, with a promise of more to come, 3. treaty minus, with a promise of no more to come, and 4. nothing at all. Into this combustible mix is about to drop another issue that has been largely neglected recently: the EU budget.
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State of the European Union 2007
(EurActive, February 21, 2007)
2007 will be a year of radical reform for the European Union. The context seems favourable, considering the German EU presidency, the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and the upcoming French presidential elections, which are likely to reshape France's stance towards Europe. The Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques examines the concept of "public property" within the EU or "biens publics européens" such as employment, education, environmental protection and others which are considered as more significant for the well-being of European citizens than monetary stability or strict compliance with budgetary rules.

Europe ripe for a 'small revolution'
(John Thornhill, Martin Arnold and Peggy Hollinger, Financial Times, February 6, 2007)
Europe, says Dominique de Villepin, is a continent founded on doubts and ideals. Yet in spite of having only three months left in office, the exuberant French prime minister displays little of the former and a lot of the latter when it comes to discussing Europe's future. In Mr de Villepin's view, Europe's problems stem from its successes. He acknowledges there is a triple "crisis of growth." First, there is an institutional crisis that follows French and Dutch voters' rejection of Europe's constitutional treaty, which aimed to establish new rules for the expanded 27-member organisation. Second, there is a crisis of results as citizens question what the EU has recently done for them. Third, there is a crisis about the meaning of Europe. "Is the European project just about the opening up of a big single market, or does Europe still have a real political vocation and ambition?"

Europe's next move
(Bronislaw Geremek, The Guardian, February 2, 2007)
The rejection of the EU constitution must not stop efforts to forge a new political framework. The alternative is paralysis. To be sure, French and Dutch citizens did not respond to the question that they were supposed to answer. Their vote was a protest against globalisation, a rejection of the contemporary world, with its distant and incomprehensible governing mechanisms. Like the anti-globalisation movement, the new anti-Europeanism can be regarded as a demand for a "different world" -- in this case, an "alter-Europeanism." In the past, when politicians debated the EU's future, they spoke of a definitive formula for European integration, as defined in a famous lecture in 2000 by Germany's then foreign minister Joschka Fischer. The accompanying intellectual debate, inaugurated by the philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, defined the nature of European identity, above all against the foil of the United States, but also in terms of the challenges posed by globalisation. A similar debate addressing key questions concerning the EU's future should be launched now.

Public Opinion Polls

Poll paints picture of future EU. Larger image envisioned as it turns 50
(Meg Bortin, International Herald Tribune, March 23, 2007)
This vision of Europe's future emerges from a new trans-Atlantic poll timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the European Union. The results are not uniform across the six countries polled -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States -- but, as through a hazy crystal ball, images of the world to come take shape. These images contain good news for supporters of Europe's historic endeavor begun on March 25, 1957, with the signing of the Treaty of Rome: Fifty years from now, more than 5,300 European respondents strongly agreed, the European Union will still exist. In overwhelming numbers, European respondents also believe that the euro is here to stay and will be the standard currency for Europe in 2057.

Poll finds 44% think life worse in EU
(George Parker, FT/Harris Poll, March 18 2007)
The poll illustrates a pervasive pessimism in Europe, but it also highlights the ambivalence of citizens towards the EU, 50 years after the bloc's founding Treaty of Rome. In spite of many complaints about the EU, including a widespread view that it is too bureaucratic, only a minority think their country would be better off if it seceded from the union. Only 22 per cent of respondents in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain thought their country would be better off if it left the EU, against 40 per cent who believed it would be worse off. The FT/Harris poll, conducted between February 28 and March 12, found that 35 per cent of respondents thought the constitution would have a positive impact on their country, compared with 27 per cent who thought the opposite. By far the most negative response (48 per cent) came from Britain.

European Social Reality
(Eurobarometer, February 2007)
Overall, European Union citizens are happy with their personal life and relatively satisfied with their everyday life environment, notably with regards to the quality of life in the area where they live (86%), their standard of living (83%), travel facilities (78%), medical services (77%) and schools in their local area (71%). Тhe majority of people in work is confident that they are able to keep their job (85%) and a third considers it highly likely that they would find a similar job within six months if laidoff (33%). Overall, European Union citizens appear fairly critical about collective life. The tendency of EU citizens to distrust public institutions may help explain why around a third of EU citizens expect the next twelve months to be worse when it comes to the economic situation and the employment situation in their country (34% and 33%, respectively). The same critical stance towards collective life is apparent from the contradiction that while people in work are confident that they will keep their job, EU citizens are most concerned about unemployment (36%).

The European Citizens and the Future of Europe
(Eurobarometer, May 2006)
There are quite widespread expectations and hopes that Europe will not reduce itself to being a single market and a mere free trade area. On the contrary, the citizens expect progress in European integration in many fields and wish to see Europe assert itself collectively on the world stage. One may think that the reluctances, the criticisms and the disillusionments that can be observed currently vis-à-vis the European Union stem less from a weakness of "demand" of Europe than from a perceived lack of visible political "offer," involving an overall goal and a comprehensive political project that citizens would find attractive and stimulating.

See also 50 Years of Dialogue and Cooperation: Lessons and Future Challenges for E.U. Public Diplomacy, an event of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars with representatives of the European Union Consulate Corps in Los Angeles.