Why Brussels Is Not So Scary.(European Union)(Brief Article)

For Americans in the past decade, thinking about Europe has meant thinking about the war in Bosnia or the occupation of Kosovo or NATO's enlargement. These are important issues, to be sure, but they are also familiar ones. Ethnic conflict, war, Russian expansion, deterrence. This is the Europe Americans have dealt with for decades and understand. This is the Europe with which we are comfortable.

But the main event in Europe is much bigger and stranger. It is taking place not on the Continent's peripheries but at its core. It is a process unprecedented in human history. Europe's great powers, with their proud pasts and distinct national identities, are voluntarily ceding authority to a transnational government. And yet Americans have almost nothing to say about the European Union. It's almost as if we pretend it's not happening because we don't quite know what to make of it.

To the extent that Americans--and Britons, who both feed and mirror their attitudes on these issues--have views, they are strong and simple. The European Union is too big and undemocratic and is snuffing out the charming diversity of European life. ("Unelected bureaucrats in Brussels will dictate to English brewers how to make ale!") While there is some substance to these concerns, they are vastly exaggerated.

The Euro-skeptics gained a fresh target when, two weeks ago, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder put forward a blueprint for the European Union, which involved significantly expanding the powers of the Brussels-based European Commission and Parliament, the two Pan-European bodies, and weakening the Council of Ministers, which represents Europe's member states.

But Schroder's ideas are going nowhere. Almost every government in Europe instantly dismissed his proposals. I happened to be in Denmark a few days after Schroder floated his idea. Like Schroder, Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is a social democrat. Like Schroder, he is a committed European. But he was very direct in his opposition.

"Schroder's proposal is not the answer at all," he said. "The European Union is unique precisely because it is not a federal union. It is a voluntary cession of sovereignty to solve common problems."

I asked him where he saw Europe moving. "Toward enlargement, bringing in the Eastern European countries. Then we must put into place measures to make people stop worrying that the Union will rob them of their identity. That requires a charter of fundamental rights, then a simplification of the EU structure and finally a clear demarcation of which powers rest with Brussels and which ones stay with national governments."