EU 2010: A programme for reform

The European Union is suffering from a profound malaise. There have been difficult times in the past – such as the 'empty chair' left by General de Gaulle in the mid-1960s, the rows over the British budget contribution in the early 1980s, and the struggles to ratify the Maastricht treaty and preserve the Exchange Rate Mechanism in the early 1990s. The EU’s current predicament, however, is particularly serious, because several harmful ingredients have come together in a toxic brew.