.bmp)
.bmp)
The leaders of the European Union gathered Sunday in Brussels for an emergency summit meeting designed to tamp down the centrifugal forces unleashed by the global economic crisis that threaten to spin the bloc - and its single currency - apart.In a statement afterward, the leaders tried to reassure their publics, promising to hold to the single market, promote growth and reject protectionism.A call from Hungary for a large bailout for newer, eastern members of the union was rejected by Germany, the richest EU nation, and received little support from other countries.Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of Hungary warned of "a new Iron Curtain" dividing Europe, even if the metal today was gold. He called for a special EU fund of up to €190 billion, or $241 billion, to protect the bloc's weakest members.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, however, facing European elections this summer and national elections in September, said that countries must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but without explaining how.The Czech prime minister,Mirek Topolanek, meanwhile, insisted that no member would be left "in the lurch."Europe may now be "whole and free" after the collapse of communism. But the European Union is not a country, and the deep global contraction is stimulating nationalism, not consensus.With uncertain leadership and few powerful collective institutions, the union is struggling with the strains this economic crisis has inevitably produced among 27 different countries with different economic histories. The traditional concept of "solidarity," of one for all, is being undermined by protectionist pressures from political leaders with national constituencies and agendas.It is a sharp contrast with the meltdown's effects on the U.S. government. President Barack Obama has just announced a radical budget that will send the United States more deeply into debt, but that also makes an effort to redistribute income and lay the foundations for significant changes in health care, education and the environment.Whether Europe can reach across constituencies to create consensus has been an open, and suddenly urgent, question."The European Union will now have to prove whether it is just a fair-weather union or has a real joint political destiny," said Stefan Kornelius, the foreign news editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany. "The whole project of a joint currency is being tested for the first time. We always said you can't really have a currency union without a political union, and we don't have one. There is no joint fiscal policy, no joint tax policy, no joint policy on which industries to subsidize or not. And none of the leaders is strong enough to pull the others out of the mud."Karel Lanoo, chief executive of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said that "the lack of leadership in Europe is becoming dramatic," while Thomas Klau, Paris director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said:"This crisis affects the political union that backs the euro and of course the EU as a whole, and solidarity is at the heart of the debate."By STEVEN ERLANGER and STEPHEN CASTLE
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
