The Lisbon treaty was 'sold' to EU citizens – mostly by appeals to public opinion rather than as a voting proposition – as the streamlining that would end all the heartsearching on the shape and structure of the European Union.
As most analysts knew, it was to mark a new beginning rather than the end of the debate. The deliberate opacity of the treaty ensured that all EU governments and institutions could sign up to it and end eight years of European navelgazing, but it also meant that the negotiating process was far from over.
We are now seeing the results not only of the Lisbon treaty's lack of clarity but also of the failure of the Maastricht treaty almost 20 years ago to set out clear rules and political responsibilities. The fudging of the Lisbon treaty is now giving rise to ill-tempered bargaining over the shape and scope of the EU's new diplomatic service, while Maastricht’s deal on monetary but not political union is at the root of the eurozone crisis. In both cases the message to Europe's national leaders is clear: Duck a problem now and it will return to haunt, and possibly destroy, your successors.
This issue of Europe's World looks at a number of policy areas where that lesson must be borne firmly in mind by today's decisionmakers. The global economic recession has laid bare a range of issues that need to be addressed very promptly before they develop further and become difficulties of a very different magnitude. It has also accentuated long-term trends to which Europe has so far failed to respond.
Pedro Solbes, the former EU economic affairs commissioner and Spanish finance minister, warns that despite all the promises made after several G20 summits, Europe is failing to shape the debate on new global governance rules that are needed to make the world economy a safer place. Writing with his Madrid-based FRIDE think tank colleague Richard Youngs, Solbes points to the EU's inability and unwillingness to fashion common positions on key aspects of the future global rulebook. The risk Europe increasingly runs, therefore, is that Asia's rise coupled with America's greater resilience will eventually result in international practices and regulations that offer uncompetitive EU countries little or no protection. So much for Europe's vaunted soft power.
Other strands of the same debate are taken up by a number of influential voices:
Jean- Paul Fitoussi who heads the economic research centre at Sciences-Po in Paris draws some of the hard lessons of the global financial crisis, and UK-based financial expert
Avinash Persaud warns that Europe and America are on diverging paths in the search for global regulation.
Long-term problems explored elsewhere include the “
Developing World” section’s debate on the implications of population explosion by 2050 and the consequences of not meeting the UN’s Milllennium Development Goals in 2015. And in our “
Arab World” section much of the focus is on Europe’s efforts to bring a new dynamic to economic and political co-operation in the Mediterranean region.