Europe's future

2005 has proved a bad year for supporters of the integration and expansion of the European Union. The majority of voters in the referenda in France (29 May) and in the Netherlands (1 June) rejected the EU’s constitutional treaty; the subsequent summit in Brussels (16-17 June) failed to agree the union’s budget for 2007-2013.

The prevailing opinion in European and world media is that these events have inflicted a severe blow on EU institutions, as well as revealing sharp, troubling divisions over the union’s very identity and direction. Some commentators (like Gwyn Prins in openDemocracy) suggest that monetary union and the euro are doomed; others declare that enlargement is at an end. Few note that the Europessimists’ referendum victories were no landslides, or that the EU’s budget debates have always been fractious.