The European Union is embroiled in one of its worst crises in many years, writes Gamal Nkrumah Being European is not always beer and skittles. Indeed, Europe today faces serious headwinds to its thrust towards unification. Last week's acrimonious two-day European Union summit collapsed after the inability of Europe's leaders to agree on the 2007-2013 budget. The penny- pinching free-marketeers held sway over the idealistic dreamers yearning for closer continental unification, regardless of the cost. The failure of last week's EU summit follows the French and Dutch rejection of the European constitution. The Brussels debacle was a showpiece of European confusion and disunity. Indeed, the rancorous bickering over money and subsidies Europe has been by far the most successful of continental integration experiments. Attempts at economic and political unification in Africa, Asia and the Americas have not been particularly auspicious. The European example was widely seen as a model to be copied by other continents aspiring for closer regional integration. The single European currency, the euro, was the envy of the nations of Africa, Asia and the Americas. It also raised hopes that another international currency would rival the almighty United States dollar. Alas, European monetary union has not led to structural reforms in the eurozone economies. At the heart of the squabble is the British reluctance to accept the Franco-German social model of a Europe more closely integrated economically and politically. The British are disdainfully sceptical of Franco-German idealism, and are more keen on establishing a looser economic grouping. Britain's EU presidency, scheduled to commence on 1 July, would be a test case. Worse, the relatively poor and high- unemployment newly-admitted EU member states are left aghast at western Europe's narrowly defined self-interest. As matters stand, the prospects for the former communist eastern European nations look grim, and their chances of catching up with western Europe slim. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain benefited tremendously from the generosity of western European nations in the 1980s and early 1990s. The current lack of western European financial generosity is alarming the eastern European newcomers. They fear they may now get neither financial assistance nor open markets from EU membership. The gruelling Brussels summit opened up a can of worms. Tensions that were muffled were now let out in the open. The crux of the matter is the debate over instituting a free-market, free-trade and deregulated European economy. At any rate, the Brussels summit has shone a spotlight on shortcomings common among regional economic groupings. It was all too obvious at the Brussels summit that narrowly-defined national interests now took precedence over continental solidarity. Moreover, there was an overwhelming sense of dejection and unfairness by the 10 new accession states. These countries originally had high hopes: they had pinned their hopes for a prosperous economic future on accession to the EU. These hopes now seem to have been dashed. Problems persist. And, these problems are going to be around for some time to come. The eastern Europeans need to get used to the fact. But, eastern Europe is not out of the woods yet. First, the good news: Europe is a long-term project. It is only natural for any continental unification project on that scale to face teething problems. There are today 25 EU member states, with mismatched levels of economic development and competing interests. Even the most perfunctory glance at history shows that the Europeans have never found unification to be an easy exercise. Charlemagne, Napoleon, and even Hitlaer tried to force European unity by coercive means. Today, it is the big business interests that are leading the struggle to unify Europe. But, Europe's business community has a vested interest in the European project and it will keep it afloat. The challenge for richer and older members of the EU is to convince the poorer, younger members of the continental economic grouping that there is no need to despair. Europe still leads the way in terms of experimenting with continental unification. The world watches as Europe's enthusiasm for grand unification schemes wanes. But the bottom line is that European nations realise that it would not be sensible for any particular European nation to act unilaterally in the international arena. A united Europe has its merits. And, European nations appreciate the value of multilateral diplomacy. Be that as it may, it is economics that ultimately counts. As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw so facetiously put it to the BBC: "It is essentially a division between whether you want a European Union that is able to cope with the future, or whether you want a European Union that is trapped in the past."
