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Jun 01 2010
Battle for Euro is Battle for EU
By
Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis is a Euro crisis indeed. Greece is noIceland. Not only is it a EU member, but is also a member state of the Euro zone. Although Greece share only a small portion of the economy of the Euro zone, its meltdown if true, will definitely affect those Euro zone countries with fiscal problems, causing chain reaction and exacerbate the ongoing economic chaos within the Euro zone and even lead to the collapse of the Euro and Euro zone, the symbol of European integration. Therefore, the EU developed an unprecedented rescue plan to send out a strong signal: EU’s rescue plan is not only for Greece, but is also for Euro and other Euro zone countries. In other words, this is a battle for Euro that EU cannot afford to lose.
 
Compared to the negative impact on the structural conflicts within the Euro zone and even the world’s economy, the political implication and its impact on European politics deserve more consideration.
 
First of all, the Euro crisis underlines the attribute of EU as a union of sovereignty nations. In the process of European integration, nationalization of EU is as much important as “Europeanization” of member states. Member states are always playing key roles in the EU politics; this is not only represented in EU’s policy-making mechanism, foreign policy, and security area, but is also represented in EU’s economic area. Recently, though European integration deepens, it is also criticized for its protectionism and so-called “economic patriotism.”
 
Secondly, the problem of lacking leadership within the EU became more severe. The reason why European integration deepened after the World War II was because that the leadership strived to push forward and that Germany and France played a role as an “engine.”
 
However, entering the 21st Century, as the expansion of the EU and the intensification of competition under economic globalization, old European leaders who considered European unification as necessary, even as a moral obligation, were replaced by new leaders. Henceforth the European leadership weakened.

Thirdly, EU’s future development becomes more highly unpredictable. Under the impact of global financial crisis and sovereignty-debt crisis, disappointments and mistrust among EU member states, publics, and societies are deteriorating.

Finally, EU’s future international influence is seriously questioned. The ultimate goal of European integration is to promote European political integration and to play a more important role in international political arena. But the global financial crisis and sovereignty-debt crisis have added a big question mark to EU’s ambition.

German Prime Minister Merkel points out that the Euro crisis is the biggest challenge Europe faces since the 1990s, or even since the Rome Treay took effect 53 years ago. Alongside with the European sovereignty-debt crisis, comes the bad-mouthing not only of Euro and Euro zone, but also of EU politics. From this sense, the Euro crisis is not only an economic crisis, but also a political crisis; the EU is facing not only a protection battle for Euro, but also a protection battle for the EU. There is still a long way to go before the EU can realize the goal of playing a global role and influence as planned in the Lisbon Treaty.


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