Issue 12 - 2000
Europe's military ambitions
01 June 2000
The European Union's 'Headline Goal', agreed at the Helsinki Summit in December 1999, calls for the creation of a 60,000-strong rapid-reaction force by 2003. Turning that goal into reality is extremely difficult. To deploy and sustain such a force in a combat zone for a year would require - given...
Mr Prodi's second chance
01 June 2000
The Commission is no longer the driving force behind European integration. In most of the European Union's growth areas, such as foreign and defence policy, or justice and home affairs, the member-states are in charge. Even in the fashionable area of economic reform, the Commission has been partially sidelined: the...
Federalism's last gasp
01 June 2000
The prospect of a two-tier Europe, with Britain outside the core, causes alarm in Downing Street. Joschka Fischer's vision of a European federation - with a group of more ambitious states forming its vanguard - is the latest such proposition, albeit one for the long-term. But does Tony Blair have much to fear?
Beware the strong euro
01 June 2000
The claim may seem perverse, when the euro has barely crawled off its record lows, but there is a good case for saying that America rather than Euroland faces a looming currency crisis.