The European Community: What Kind of Future?

Extract

THAT THERE IS ROOM FOR DOUBT TODAY ABOUT WHAT LIES ahead for the Communities nobody will deny. The Community has been in trouble for at least five years, and despite the succession of summits the trouble has not been fully disposed of. The enlargement negotiations are the demonstration - or one more demonstration - of the difficulty the Community is having in coming to terms with itself. And, worse, a further process of what I might call ‘institutional drift’ is making its operation yet more intergovernmental.

I should like first to review the position as it now stands and how it is likely to develop in the short term. I will then go on to try to establish what can be done to rectify, or even reverse, the present trends. For unless they do change in the months ahead the prospects for progress in the longer term will be in jeopardy.