Viewpoints: Europe's way forward
The EU has begun debating what to do in response to the rejection of the draft European constitution by French and Dutch voters in referendums last year.


Interview with Mark Leonard

Published on BBC website, 30 January 2006

Confidence - A lot of the sense of crisis is self-generated. As soon as European leaders start dealing with pressing problems in a visible way, like building up the foreign policy machinery, dealing with migration and terrorism and modernising their economies and welfare states, then citizens will be less sceptical. From the citizens' perspective European leaders only seem interested in talking about institutions, rather than resolving problems which need Europe-wide solutions.

Constitution - It's a paradox, but the more European leaders talk about the constitution and about ratifying it, the longer it will be before they can start changing EU structures. The constitution had some useful things in it, but if you want these things you need to admit that the treaty is dead. Presented with an abstract constitution, people will vote No, but they might vote Yes on whether to give (EU foreign affairs chief) Javier Solana the means to do his job properly.

Mark Leonard is director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform.