Thursday, October 11, 2007

Listen to Us

Timothy Garton Ash discusses why the EU isn’t important and he feels it is because they don’t have any one with a strong, clear message to speak for the EU.

So it's more image-lack than image-loss: it's more that people in the rest of the world have a weak image of what Europe is, rather than having a negative image of it. We've just had the largest enlargement in the history of the European Union, in 2004, and that's a huge achievement -- it's not surprising if that was followed by a few hiccups. I wouldn't overstate the degree or prevalence of gloom. What is missing is a clear European voice in the wider world.
Of course it helps to have a strong, clear message in the first place. This is not a hiccup as TGA describes it but a failure of the basic building blocks.
The European constitution was knocked off course when France and the Netherlands rejected it in referendums in May and June 2005, but European leaders are now discussing ways of reviving it in full or in part.
When the EU can put together a clear message, then a voice will come to light. There is no mechanism for one person to become the voice of the EU currently. Things need to change in order for that to happen. It kind a like a blogger who thinks they are important just because they exist. The Eu needs to be capable of actually accomplishing something before they can be important.