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Publishers Abstract:
This year should have been a year of celebration for the European Union -- the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome. The modified rapture with which the anniversary has in fact been greeted must be at least partly due to the unfinished business of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. The failure to complete the ratification of the Treaty is a low-level crisis sapping confidence in the ability of the Union to provide solutions to problems the Member States are certainly incapable of resolving on their own -- the challenge of a globalised economy, the need to cope with climate change, the threat from Islamist terrorism, massive migration flows, to mention only the most intractable. The Governments of the 18 Member States that have ratified the Constitutional Treaty are insisting, perfectly reasonably, that the text eventually agreed must correspond closely to the one that was signed in Rome on Oct 29, 2004 -- reasonably but unrealistically.
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