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by Mark Leonard PRESS REVIEWS
By the obsolete definition, the U.S. continues to dominate through guns and glitter: an invincible military machine and a ubiquitous popular culture. Yet that influence, Leonard writes, is "shallow and narrow.'' Europe, meanwhile, dominates by posing as a peaceful, prosperous conglomerate of nations that others either join or emulate. Its reach is "broad and deep: once sucked into its sphere of influence, countries are changed forever.'' Leonard sings the praises of the European Union's bottom-up model. Sheer hope of membership has brought ex-dictatorships in southern, central and Eastern Europe peacefully into the fold by making them shape up for fear of being left out. Turkey is now following in their footsteps. In Leonard's sly formulation, ``Europe doesn't change countries by threatening to invade them: its biggest threat is having nothing to do with them at all.'' Wishful Thinking The author sets out by paying tribute to Jean Monnet, mastermind of European integration, whose "vision of how not to have a vision'' ushered in "a political system that shies away from the grand plans and concrete certainties that define American politics.'' To Leonard, that lack of vision is central to the EU's appeal as a bare-bones political structure where power rests with the component states. So, he argues, is the EU's lack of a unified military arm. The EU, Leonard writes, has learned from its "autism'' over Bosnia, where it watched as massacres were committed on its doorstep. Today, it takes preventive action, such as in Macedonia in 2003, when it saved lives - and money - by breaking up the warring camps before it was too late. Bush Doctrine Germany Thirst for Oil Paper Model Warum Europa das 21. Jahrhundert dominieren wird. Published by Profil: 11 March 2005 In einem langen Interview entwickelte Peter Sloterdijk, der scharfzüngige und populäre deutsche Philosoph, kürzlich einen für seine Begriffe ungewöhnlich robusten europäischen Optimismus. Nach langen Zeiten pathologischen Zweifelns des Kontinents an sich selbst entstehe „jetzt eine neue europäische Affirmation“. Nunmehr gelte es, den europäischen Mythos wieder zu erzählen, damit die Hörer dieser Geschichte begreifen: „Es handelt sich um etwas Großartiges, an dem teilzuhaben uns mit Stolz erfüllt.“ Welchen Mythos meint Sloterdijk? Etwa jenen von Göttervater Zeus, der in Stiergestalt die schöne Europa besteigt? Nein, er will den EU-Bürgern Vergils „Aeneis“ nahe bringen. Aus dem Dunkel des versunkenen Gymnasialwissens taucht die Geschichte auf: von einem Mann, der aus dem zerstörten Troja, der Stadt in Kleinasien, flüchtet, um nach langen und gefährlichen Irrfahrten (bekanntlich bleibt er in Nordafrika eine Zeit lang bei der lasziven Dido hängen) in Europa zu landen, wo er schließlich zum Gründungsvater des Römischen Reiches wird. Wer die Geschichte höre, so Sloterdijk, verstehe sofort, „wo Europa liegt: Europa, das ist ein Ort der Hoffnung, wo besiegte Menschen eine zweite Chance bekommen, wo besiegte Menschen wieder auf die Beine kommen“. Diese Story, bedauert der Philosoph, „haben die Amerikaner uns mit genialer Instinktsicherheit entführt“, nun sei es jedoch Zeit, dass sich die Europäer ihren Mythos zurückholten. Andernfalls würden sie zu muffigen Kollektiv-Nationalisten und könnten das Problem der zahllosen Neu-Bürger nicht lösen, ohne die sie nicht überleben werden. Europa müsse sich mit Freude dazu bekennen, ein offener Ort für Einwanderer zu sein. „Wir brauchen eine neue Formel für europäische Gastfreundschaft und Integration, und Vergil hat sie im Voraus geliefert.“ Natürlich erscheint die Forderung, sich auf den Aeneas-Mythos zu besinnen, zunächst ein wenig weit hergeholt: die verschrobene Idee eines weltfremden, von humanistischem Bildungsgut beseelten Denkers. Sloterdijks Optimismus freilich liegt inzwischen ganz im Trend der Zeit. Zwar wird immer wieder über die europäische Krise und die Allmacht des amerikanischen Imperiums geklagt, allmählich aber werden jene Gegenstimmen immer lauter, die Europa eine große Zukunft voraussagen, wie etwa jene des britischen Essayisten Mark Leonard, dessen neues Buch den schlichten Titel trägt: „Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century“ („Warum Europa das 21. Jahrhundert dominieren wird“, siehe profil 10, Seite 81). Europa, so argumentiert der Autor, sei jetzt schon eine einzige Erfolgsgeschichte. So blicken nicht nur die Millionen und Abermillionen Erniedrigten, Besiegten, Bedrängten im Osten und Süden nach Europa, wo das bessere und freiere Leben winkt. Nicht nur Menschen, sondern ganze Länder drängen nach Europa. Und sie werden erfolgreich integriert. Leonard singt einen Hymnus auf das Genie Europas. Im Unterschied zu den Journalisten, die dauernd von der Krise schrieben, erzählten die Historiker eine ganz andere europäische Geschichte: „Sie erzählen uns, dass Europa jedes Mal stärker aus seinen Krisen hervorgegangen ist: Der Binnenmarkt wurde nach langen Jahren der Eurosklerose etabliert, die gemeinsame Währung nach dem Maastricht-Debakel, die europäische Verteidigung wurde nach den Balkankriegen gestärkt, und eine neue Sicherheitsstrategie der EU zeichnet sich nach den Ereignissen im Irak ab.“ Nun gebe sich die Union eine Verfassung. Europa habe die USA wirtschaftlich eingeholt. Vor allem aber sei es gelungen, in sukzessiven Wellen Länder aus der Diktatur herauszuholen und ihnen die Demokratie zu bringen. Und das alles, ohne einen einzigen Soldaten zu schicken, ohne Regimewechsel gewaltsam zu erzwingen – einfach mit der bloßen Kraft der Verführung zum „European Way of Life“. Die Europäer hätten im Unterschied zu den Amerikanern erkannt, dass politisches und ökonomisches Engagement ein viel effektiveres Mittel als militärische Intervention darstelle, um nachhaltigen Wandel zu erreichen. Die USA haben in den vergangenen 50 Jahren 15-mal Truppen in andere Länder geschickt. Aber was haben sie erreicht?, fragt Leonard. In Afghanistan ist Washington ein Regimewechsel gelungen. Die EU dagegen hat die gesamte polnische Gesellschaft von Grund auf umgewälzt. Und das allein dadurch, dass man den Polen gesagt hat, sie müssten die 80.000 Seiten der europäischen Gesetze, den so genannten „acqis communautaire“, akzeptieren und umsetzen, wenn sie Mitglied im Club werden wollen. Mit dieser Methode, so Leonard, habe sich die europäische Friedenszone wie ein Ölfleck ausgebreitet – von der Westküste Irlands zum Osten des Mittelmeers, von den arktischen Regionen bis zur Meerenge von Gibraltar: „Die Geheimwaffe der Europäischen Union ist das Gesetz.“ Und dieses basiert bekanntlich auf dem römischen Recht der Antike. So gesehen, wirken Sloterdijks Aeneis-Reminiszenzen, die Europa beflügeln sollen, gar nicht mehr so weltfremd. Eine neue Renaissance täte Europa tatsächlich gut. Wenn nun der Streit um einen EU-Beitritt der Türkei tobt, dann möge
man sich doch erinnern, dass Vergils Held Aeneas von der kleinasiatischen Küste
der heutigen Türkei aufgebrochen ist, um schließlich der mythische
Gründer des Römischen Reichs, der Urfassung Europas, zu werden. A
song for Europe Why Europe will Run the 21st Century 'American hegemony contains the seeds of its own destruction,' Leonard says. His thesis, a well-worn one on the pro-Europe left, is that US foreign policy is too sporadic, costly and destructive to work. He contrasts this with a more pacifist 'European' approach, based on long-term engagement and extending membership of the Euroclub to nations which embrace democracy and the rule of law. And why will Europe will 'run' the 21st century? Because other regions have already begun to emulate Europe, deciding that this sort of rule-based club is the best way to lock their neighbours into peaceful and profitable coexistence. Leonard is right to highlight the rise of regionalism as the most credible challenge to the US. But it's a Panglossian leap to suggest that the EU is always a progressive force, nurturing such groups into life, or that when faced by an Asian grouping, including the economic might of China, for example, Europe could be said to be 'running' the century. Review of Why Europe Will Run the 21st-Century Published by Obs: 3 March 2005 «Pourquoi l'Europe régnera sur le XXIe siècle» («Why Europe will run the XXIst century», Harper Collins). Voilà qui réveillera, on l'espère, tous ceux qui ne peuvent réprimer un bâillement dès que l'on prononce le mot Europe. Mark Leonard, l'essayiste en question, résume sa thèse dans
un numéro spécial de «Time Magazine» dont la couverture
représente une Joconde voilée et dont le titre est «La crise
de l'identité européenne» (crise due à l'afflux
des immigrés musulmans). Il écrit que, pour la première
fois depuis cinquante ans, ce sont les Etats-Unis qui ont besoin de l'Europe
et non l'inverse. Selon lui, les Américains réalisent que
sans la diplomatie, sans l'argent et sans le soft power européens
la marche du monde vers la liberté ne cesserait de se ralentir. Mark Leonard conclut que «le XXIe siècle aura vocation à
être considéré comme "le nouveau siècle européen"
non parce que l'Union européenne régnera sur le monde mais
parce que le savoir-faire des Européens sera adopté par le monde». Why Europe will Run the 21st Century Mark Leonard is the young man who brought us "cool Britannia". It was his phrase, and in those naive and bombastic first years of Blairism in action, his views were sought by a Labour government desperate for "modern" ideas as it approached the millennium. How quaint it all seems now. Leonard has recently quit as head of the ultramodern Foreign Policy Centre to join the more august Centre for European Reform. He remains a voice to be reckoned with. Whatever he turns his mind to Leonard cannot help but exude enthusiasm. He regards as benign what he calls the "invisible Europeanisation of power" taking place across British politics. He draws some of his thinking from Emmanuel Todd, whose After the Empire: the breakdown of the American order, published just over a year ago, suggested that US military dominance was masking an inexorable imperial decline. It has now become fashionable to see China and India as future rivals to a declining United States. Leonard argues that the European Union, the most successful voluntary association of states in history, will play an increasingly important role as a pivot between these competing forces. Leonard challenges head-on the conventional wisdom in the UK that Europe's more managed markets are economically damaging and socially debilitating. He responds with a succession of alternative statistics to the Blairites and Brownites who extol the virtues of the leaner and meaner US model. Taking into account Americans' longer working week, living standards in Europe are superior, he writes. If you add what he calls the "sunk costs" of a more unpredictable climate, inferior public services and greater inequality, west European earnings are greater. European capital investment in other parts of the world is at least as high, while many third countries are turning to the euro rather than the dollar for their currency reserves. The underlying message, more in keeping with France's intellectual tradition, is of a certain cultural superiority inherent in Old Europe. While America bombs its way around the world, Europe is engaged in what Leonard endearingly calls "the revolutionary power of passive aggression", using its clout more subtly, such as persuading Russia to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The new multipolar world that Leonard is eager to embrace will, he says, revolve around regions. Europe, through its geography as much as anything else, will be well placed. He lists 109 countries of the Eurosphere, comprising the whole of Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and the former Soviet states. In a disdainful aside to the neoconservatives and their Project for the New American Century, Leonard concludes that this process will lead to the emergence of a New European Century, "not because Europe will run the world as an empire, but because the European way of doing things will have become the world's". Thomas Kremer is not young. He does not do hip. Born and raised in Transylvania, he was deported to Bergen Belsen, escaped to Switzerland and in 1945 emigrated to the land that emerged as Israel. A philosophy graduate of Edinburgh and the Sorbonne, he became involved in child psychology and then turned his talents to inventing games, including the Rubik's Cube. He has lived for decades in Devon. His background matters. Kremer is an avowed Anglophile. He admires what he calls "eccentric" countries such as the UK and others on the periphery of Europe that, in his eyes, promote individuality, and he abhors what he calls the collectivist approach of the Franco-German axis. He regards EU institutions as "undisciplined, corrupt, interfering, ineffective and power-hungry". He notes: "What holds the axis together is the desperation of the political establishment of both countries to hang on jointly to the levers of EU power." There is more to Kremer than your average tweed-jacketed, Little Englander Eurosceptic. His background testifies to that. He is right to say that the magnificent achievements of European culture in the fields of philosophy, music, the law, language, literature, art and architecture "have their roots in individual societies with a sense of self-identity. To preserve the creative sources and cross-fertilisation of cultures it is vital not to merge the European nations into a standardised, politically homogenised state." But where is the evidence that Euro-creativity has been stifled by Euro-conformity? I don't see it anywhere, not in the UK, not in supposedly heinous France or Germany. Perhaps what the debate really masks is a cultural battle between the metropolitan-cosmopolitan world of Europe's big cities that Leonard represents and the more sedate world that Kremer would like to inhabit. The reality, at the risk of sounding like a Blairite triangulator, is more prosaic than portrayed by either author. The EU is not the paradise described by the exuberant Leonard. Nor is it the purveyor of misery, as the ever-fearful Kremer suggests. There is much that is wrong with it, but it has brought a half-century of prosperity and peace. If it were not so popular and successful, would there be so many countries queuing up to join it? Book Review WHY EUROPE WILL RUN THE 21ST CENTURY by Robert Cooper The Sunday Times 27 February 2005 Not many books about the European Union are fun to read. This one is; and, more than that, it tells the political story of the EU better than any other I know. This is not a surprise from Mark Leonard, who is something between an infant prodigy and an enfant terrible in the world of foreign affairs. When he was running the Foreign Policy Centre their parties were the only ones worth going to. The EU is so difficult to understand because it does not fit into our established categories. It is not a state; it is neither a federation nor a confederation. Leonard makes the striking comparison with the Visa Company, whose logo appears on half a billion credit cards though it has only 3,000 employees. Authority, initiative, decision-making and profits belong to the 21,000 financial institutions that own Visa. It is an enabling organisation rather than an old-style corporation. This is not a bad way to imagine the EU: a collective owned by the members, enhancing their powers rather than appropriating them. Something of the same idea is present in the chapter entitled The European Rescue of National Democracy, borrowing from Alan Milward's book, The European Rescue of the Nation State. This argued that the EU enabled governments to rationalise industrial and agricultural policies. Leonard makes the bolder claim that the EU has saved democracy, by enabling European countries to operate effectively in a globalised world. Today it is simply no good pretending that a small or medium-sized country can run a meaningful external policy: when it comes to international negotiations or setting European rules, Ireland has a voice; Norway in practice has none. Membership of the EU means not a handing over of power to Brussels but a net increase in effective power. This is the opposite of the usual moan about the democratic deficit. This concept represents a curious alliance between members of the European parliament, who would like more power, and those who attack the EU as a faceless bureaucracy. The trouble is that if you introduced democracy along nation-state lines you would make the EU into some kind of superstate, which is exactly what the eurosceptics (rightly) abhor. Actually, if voter turnout is anything to go by, the EU seems to suffer from a democratic surplus as far the average citizen is concerned. Sometimes the energy of this book leads the author towards exaggeration. The title, for example. Europe is not going to run the 21st century. Nor will anyone else, not even America -which Leonard writes off a little too easily. It is true that being the greatest military power in history is not the same as having political control or even influence in critical areas. That is because we live in a democratic era. With luck the 21st century will be run by the people of the many different countries; that is what democracy is about. Where Leonard is right is that, if we are even luckier, those countries will find ways of working together that preserve autonomy but enable cooperation, as the EU does, through the spread of a legal framework in some areas and of a political framework in others. It is law that enables competition and politics that enables cooperation. Leonard may be too optimistic about "Europe at 50", an EU with double its present membership. It is true that Europe grew from six to 15 and became more effective in the process. But each enlargement is a leap in the dark: you cannot function at 25 as you did at 15, nor at 50 as you did at 25. And the fact that you made the adjustment successfully last time does not prove you will do so again. The EU has a strong record of (eventually) learning from failure: the big question for the future is how well it copes with success. This book says rather little about the failures and difficulties. It doesn't explain the flaws of a system where nobody seems to be in charge, nor the quarrelling between institutions that results from this (admittedly less dangerous than quarrelling between states), nor the difficulties of working without a single administrative culture. Nor does Leonard discuss the time taken to reach compromises or the ambiguity and omissions of the results, or the near impossibility of keeping anything secret. But speed, secrecy and decisiveness are the virtues of military organisations; and the world that he envisages is no longer dominated by the military. If he is right -and we must all hope he is - then the civil virtues of law and compromise (the EU's strengths) may mean that Europe will indeed be equipped to run not the whole century but at least the European part of it. Robert Cooper is a British diplomat working for Javier Solana, the secretary-
general of the Council of the EU. The views expressed here are personal. ABSORBING ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN ASCENDANCY 27 February 2005 Sunday Business Post
Europe, with its slight pacifistic streak and obsession with rules, inspections and international law? Or America, with its shoot-first, deal-with-major-insurgency-later tactics? According to mainstream US political thought, Europe is weak, divided, and prone to dithering and appeasement. It is shackled by a sluggish economy, high taxes, high unemployment and an aging population. It doesn't believe in "freedom''. Consequently, it is dying a slow death and America is leading the world, influencing and shaping newly free nations, such as those in eastern Europe. In his new book, Mark Leonard convincingly debunks this theory. The EU influences far more people in a considerably stronger manner than any other power on earth. Look at Turkey, he points out. Last year, it jettisoned a constitutional law on adultery - supported by a majority of the population - because some EU members said they didn't fancy it much and, by the way, Turkey's EU entry negotiation talks would be coming up soon. Would Turkey really have done the same if America had said something? Then there's Poland, supposedly a key member of "new Europe'', more in the American mould than a Brussels-inspired EU one. Rubbish, says Leonard. Poland may have been the only big country in Europe, other than Britain and Spain, to support the US's Iraq invasion. But when it comes to the model on which it is restructuring its entire society, from what appears on the dinner table to environmental legislation, it bows completely to the EU and what it dictates. The question "Who has more influence in Poland, America or the EU?" is, therefore, a rhetorical one. It's the same for all of so-called "new Europe''. Leonard also analyses two economic issues that Americans identify European weakness with: GDP growth and unemployment. The conventional wisdom is that the US has high productivity and Europe doesn't. This is simply wrong, says Leonard. He points out that GDP per person is almost identical in the US and the EU, and is exactly the same if you take Germany - which has been under the extraordinary pressure of absorbing another major country into it - out of the reckoning. Even to get to this level of parity with Europeans, Americans have to work far longer hours (866 hours per capita in the US compared to 691 in Europe), and take far fewer holidays. Then there's joblessness. Overall, EU unemployment is higher than American unemployment (though not if you live in Ireland, which has much lower unemployment than the US).But the EU has created more jobs since 1997 than America has. And it's not comparing like with like, as 1 per cent of the US population is actually in prison. But for Europe to "run the 21st century'', it must have a military option. This is a genuine weakness, concedes Leonard, but not as important as some think. American foreign policy is rooted in military superiority. It spends as much on its military budget as the rest of the world combined. But all that means is that it can win individual wars. Has Iraq really been a foreign policy success? Compare this, says Leonard, to the way European facilitators are negotiating with Iran. Not only does it shed less blood, it costs a lot less too. His thesis is that diplomacy - a European invention - will rule over the course of the next 100 years. This book is an excellent, lucid read for anyone interested in
the facts about Europe's true place in the world. Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century by Mark
Leonard Yet Mark Leonard argues the reverse, and deserves to be listened to. He was the founder of the influential think-tank, The Foreign Policy Centre, and has now joined the Centre for European Reform. More controversially, aged 23, he wrote the report that launched the phrase "Cool Britannia". His thesis is that Europe will run the world this century because the European ideal of a peaceful group of nations, linked by a union, is a more attractive model than the American model of lonely power. He starts by arguing that EU is a successful political model because it embraces rather than destroys national identities. European countries retain the trappings of power - their parliaments - but in practice the important decisions have been taken in Brussels, where two-thirds of British economic and social legislation are made. But British people think power is still in Westminster. He also argues that the European economies are more successful that they at first sight appear. Europe has, for example, comparable productivity to the US, but Europeans take their reward in greater leisure. Further, the higher growth of the US is largely a result of faster population growth. Perhaps most persuasively, he points out that the European club is one that other countries very much want to join. But real power? There will inevitably be a rebalancing of economic power away from both the US and Europe, with China and India in particular becoming more important. There will also be a further rise in regional groupings, such as the African Union. Europe's aim should be to create a "Union of Unions", a process into which the US would inevitably find itself sucked. "We will see the emergence of a 'New European Century'," he writes, "Not because Europe will run the world as an empire, but because the European way of doing things will have become the world's." It is a seductive thesis, but is it realistic? There seem to me three main weaknesses. One is demography. Europe, with Japan, is the "oldest" part of the world. In Germany, Italy and Spain there are only 1.3 babies born to each mother, while France and the UK are below replacement rate. By contrast, the US population is expanding fast, giving the economy a vibrancy Europe lacks. The US is ageing too, but not as fast as the EU. Second, the EU compares reasonably with the US on a number of counts only because of the performance of its most Eurosceptic member, the UK. Were it not for the UK, the recent growth gap between the EU and US would be much greater. In military terms, were it not for the UK, the EU military capacity is minimal. Third, Leonard ignores the dynamics of human capital and in particular the migration of many young continental professionals to the UK and US. If the most energetic young continentals want to make their careers elsewhere, this bodes ill for European influence in the future. But Europe should not be written off, as so many Americans do.
Part of the impetus for this book came from discussions a British Council conference
in Prague, organised by the author. The most recent in this series of conferences
had as its theme "Can Europe sharpen its blunt competitive edge?"
If it can, then some elements of his dream could indeed come true. An optimist's view Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century CONVENTIONAL wisdom has it that Europe is a washed-up, ageing, economically stagnant continent, destined inexorably to lose ground not only to a dynamic United States but also to China and even India. Subscribers to this thinking tend also to disparage the European Union as a main source of the problem: too much red tape, inept economic management, excessive taxes, lowest-common-denominator foreign-policy making. Yet there is another view, epitomised not only in this book by a British Europhile, Mark Leonard, but in other recent books by two American commentators, “The United States of Europe” by T.R. Reid and “The European Dream” by Jeremy Rifkin. Mr Leonard argues that an ever-expanding EU has a rosy future, and that its model of a “network” that is more than a gaggle of nation-states but less than a federal superstate is in many ways more alluring than America's. As so often, the truth lies somewhere between these pessimistic and optimistic views. Mr Leonard is right, for example, to point to the stunning success of the EU in democratising and liberalising its near neighbours, by the simple expedient of holding out the carrot of membership. Contrast the progress made over the past three decades by southern and central Europe, and now by much of eastern Europe and Turkey, with the continuing troubles of most of America's neighbours in Latin America and the Caribbean. Even the Balkans, where Europe (and America) stumbled badly in the 1990s, is looking more hopeful as countries there prepare for further EU expansion. Mark Leonard's book on the EU is published by Fourth Estate. Over the past decade, indeed, the increase in output per hour worked has been larger in the EU than in the United States. The gap in overall economic growth reflects America's faster population growth and longer working hours, not a more productive workforce. If Europeans are choosing more leisure time, more public spending and smaller families than Americans, what is wrong with that? Moreover, the American economy could be heading for trouble because of its low saving and its unsustainable budget and trade deficits. Mr Leonard has some good points on his side. Yet overall his arguments are too optimistic. The EU's foreign-policy clout is weakened because its big member states still tend to go their own way, most spectacularly over Iraq. Its military muscle remains feeble. The core countries of France, Germany and Italy all suffer from high unemployment and slow growth, caused in large part by overly regulated labour markets and high taxes. The demographic outlook for all of Europe remains grim. America's economic problems seem small in comparison; like all things unsustainable, its deficits will be corrected in time (a misprint attributes this point to an economist named Herastein, presumably intended to be Herb Stein). Perhaps the biggest problem for the EU is that the European project, now approaching its 50th anniversary, still suffers from such a marked lack of enthusiasm among ordinary people. To most voters, Brussels, with its preposterous farm subsidies, overpaid bureaucrats and incomprehensible institutions, remains remote and apparently unaccountable. Britain is by no means the only haven of Eurosceptics: many are to be found in France, in Scandinavia and even in the new member countries from central Europe. A big test will be the EU's new constitutional treaty, the ratification of which Mr Leonard takes largely for granted. This is too complacent. Although the Spaniards have just voted yes, the turnout was low; all the signs are that one of the nine countries still due to hold referendums on the constitution will reject it—with the most likely naysayer being Britain. Should that happen, the EU will lapse into one of its periodic crises, when it can spend years preoccupied with internal squabbles. The rosy scenario painted by Mr Leonard could yet materialise; but it will take far more strenuous efforts by European leaders than they have made thus far to persuade their voters of the EU's benefits.
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