A YEAR ago Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, surveyed his dominions and found them wanting. “Never before”, he told the European Parliament in his annual state-of-the-union address, “have I seen such little common ground between our member states.” Battered by economic and political crises, the European Union was staring into the abyss. Britain had just become the first country to vote to leave the club, and populists were on manoeuvres across the continent. Difficult elections loomed. “Our European Union is, at least in part, in an existential crisis,” Mr Juncker said.
Twelve months on, the mood has lifted so dramatically that last year’s fears have come to seem almost quaint. There is a whiff of change in the air, explained by two things. The first is a sense of optimism. It is fostered by defeats for anti-European parties in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere; and by a cyclical economic upturn that has seen the EU outpace America’s GDP growth...Continue reading
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