“La déseurope”

Summary by euractiv.com

In an article entitled “La déseurope” (Le Monde, 4 July 2001), Xavier Delcourt accuses the governments of the 15 Member States of having “killed the European community” at the Nice Conference. The main reason given by the author is the failure of the European Council to take the difficult decisions necessary to prepare the EU for enlargement and the challenges for the future.

Delcourt points out that power and responsibility are being disconnected, causing an important democratic regression. The author calls the debate on the future of the EU a “placebo” or a toy for high officials, as intergovernmental conferences block the horizons. He argues that, since December 1991, the future of Europe has been constructed “backwards”, by mutual paralysis. He predicts a Europe that is powerless and paralysed, a Europe where crime and corruption rule, where solidarity is an empty concept – in short, a “dis-Europe” (déseurope), as Delcourt calls it.

Theacquis communautairecorresponded to a way of inventing, step by step, a transnational general interest. According to the author, this process should have been continued and culminated in a federal Community for the Eurozone, with concentric circles – a sort of United States of Europe, with a truly democratic, responsible government.

Xavier Delcourt is a professor at theCentre universitaire d’enseignement du journalismeof the Robert-Schuman University of Strasbourg, and director of the DESS in European Journalism.

To read the full article, see

“La déseurope”by Xavier Delcourt.