But many of the key questions asked by this blog in 2007 still remain unanswered at the start of 2008.
Will the Treaty of Lisbon help to create energy security for the EU?
Will it help create a credible defensive force for the EU and a sustainable Common Foreign and Security policy?
How will the EU enforce border controls effectively?
How will the EU provide security for its citizens against imported and home grown terrorism?
In the light of these pressing issues, why did the EU devote energy in December 2007 to the low priority EU-Africa summit?
This blog wants to see an EU that will work, but does not believe that it can be said to do so until such key questions have a credible and sustainable answer.
These questions actually follow from a series of deeper questions which also remain unanswered.
Why is EU obsessed with institutions and the current so called Community method and thus avoids creating new means of effective governance? Form should follow function. At its most basic is defence and security. In this field Europe will not have a credible policy until it can act without the support of the United States. We still rely on NATO for our defence. So we cannot as Europeans look in the mirror and fully maintain our self-respect
Why does the EU budget not reflect the new priorities of citizens for a new century ie external security, internal security, energy security and the freedoms of the internal market? It is easier to make declarations and/or try to increase the budget rather than shift priorities
Why cannot the EU decide who its strategic partners in the world, in addition to the US? It is easier to pretend that everyone is, rather than to focus on a country such as India, which is closest to sharing our political and cultural values and is liberalising its economy
Why can the EU not definitively decide which countries are eligible for entry and work out a credible policy for those neighbours who are not? It is easier to pretend that the door will never close
In short, there is a lack of will to face hard choices – will 2008 be the year the EU grows up and faces them?
