The successful distribution of euro notes and coins this week underlines the need for completing an even larger project - full EU political union, suggests John Palmer
The smooth launch of euro notes and coins this week has been widely hailed - by euro-sceptics and pro-Europeans alike - as something of a political triumph for the wider European integration project. In and of itself, the arrival of the single European currency in the hands of the public in the 12 participating EU countries is a hugely important development. But its true significance for the future of Europe is best judged in the context of other equally significant developments in the past few months which have received much less public attention.
The first is the successful holding of democratic elections in Kosovo - with a far higher turnout among minority Serb voters than any one had dared to hope for. The second is the striking political success of the international diplomatic efforts to avoid civil war in Macedonia and steer that badly fractured state towards constitutional reform.
In both cases the European Union played a crucial role in terms of economic aid, political leadership and - through its member-states - the provision of military security.
In the Balkans no news really is good news. But the good news demonstrates that the EU is not merely now a very important economic community, but that it is beginning to show political maturity and a capacity to operate a common foreign and security policy.
As the final preparations were laid in the past three months for the launch of euro notes and coins, equally dramatic steps have been taken to realise the goal - laid down at the Tampere EU summit three years ago - of a common "European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice".
In part because of the shock effect of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the EU has adopted a common arrest warrant and has implemented other farreaching common policies aimed at the fight against cross-border crime. This year equally significant decisions are due in the field of immigration, asylum, and access to justice across the EU.
What all of this underlines is that European integration is about a great deal more than a single currency - critically important though that is. Of course from the very birth of the European Community in the mid 1950s the goal was not just economic but also political union.
What has happened in the past half century has not been inspired by any pre-existing blueprint - whatever suspicious europhobes might claim. In reality the evolution of the EU has been driven by the way the political leadership of the European Union member-states have had to respond to practical problems which have required the sharing of sovereignty at a European level for their solution. This pragmatic and frequently visionless strategy has it merits. Certainly EU leaders over the years can hardly be accused of leaping in the dark or following a blindly ideological commitment to closer integration for its own sake.
But the lack of a coherent strategic vision for the European project, the failure to articulate a clear mission statement for the EU in the modern world and the inability to express the core values to which the Union is committed have been an indictment of weak political leadership. This has communicated a frequently negative political message to public opinion - nowhere more dramatically manifest than in the Irish No to the Nice Treaty. Equally serious has been the failure to root the EU political process more convincingly in democratic civil society. The speed with which the European Union has developed a decision-making capacity across a range of crucially important internal and external policy areas contrasts with the sluggish development of a constitution which embodies the rights and aspirations of the peoples of Europe. This dichotomy has now become intolerable both because of the advances of the Union - as manifest by the launch of euro notes and coins - but also because of the imminent unification of Europe as a whole.
By the end of this year agreements will almost certainly be concluded to admit another 10 countries from central and eastern Europe (and the Mediterranean) into EU membership. Meanwhile, the queue of would-be members is likely to grow even longer. 2002 may see Croatia join Bulgaria and Romania as candidate members and they may well be joined by the other Balkan states as they recover from the trauma of war.
The progressive unification of Europe during the next decade or so means that the process of political union in the EU cannot be halted - without a serious risk of decision-making paralysis or (under extreme circumstances) of disintegration. But from here on political union will have to be much more a bottom-up, democratic and constitutional process. That is why the Convention set up by the Laeken EU summit last month is so significant.
The arrival of euro notes and coins will also lead to new and more ambitious targets for economic integration in the euroland countries. It will not be possible to use the euro to full effect as an instrument for economic growth, prosperity and employment unless monetary integration is matched by far closer economic co-ordination, including common policies for aspects of taxation, economic reform and the strengthening and modernisation of the European social model.
The advent of "real" euro money, the emergence of common EU policies in foreign affairs, internal security and the prospective unification of Europe are all setting the stage for something notably lacking at present - a genuinely trans-frontier European democratic politics. We need democratic European parties to contest the different European futures which these developments now make possible to build.
John Palmer is director of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based EU think-tank