[This is the first time I've seen a mainstream Europundit say that "many EU leaders" secretly hope the Irish vote against Nice next month. Have many people expressed this belief?]
Financial Times
The real weakness of Europe
By Philip Stephens
The crisis over Iraq bears painful witness to a feeble Europe. An American-led war to oust Saddam Hussein would represent for Europe a serious strategic failure. Except perhaps for Tony Blair, there is not a European leader who thinks it sensible or safe to invade Iraq. Yet if, or when, the US marches on Baghdad, every one of these leaders - even Gerhard Schroeder if he wins Sunday's German election - will step meekly into line.
The glib analysis of the hawks in Washington says that these hopeless Europeans oppose war precisely and solely because they are weak. We must put aside the awkward possibility that raising the Stars and Stripes over the Iraqi capital might actually make the Middle East a more dangerous place. Appeasement of tyrants is the reflex of those who lack the means and resolve to do the right thing. If France had stealth bombers and Germany smart missiles, they too would be eager to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Such is the fog of misunderstanding across the Atlantic. The truth, of course, is that the object of Europe's fear is not Iraq but America. European leaders will bite their lips if George W. Bush sends in the marines because they are afraid to do otherwise. They fear greatly the consequences for Europe's (and America's) security of a war that would leave US troops occupying Iraq. But they are more reluctant still to contemplate the consequences for the transatlantic alliance and the international system of defying the sole superpower.
A strong Europe, sufficiently sure of its political cohesion and military capabilities to dispense with the US security guarantee, would say No - or at the very least set its own rules for any conflict. It would dare Washington to act unilaterally. Even Donald Rumsfeld, a defence secretary seemingly as certain in his misjudgments as was Robert McNamara when the US plunged deep into the mire of Vietnam, might then think twice.
If only. Europe's malaise runs deeper than its failure to recalibrate and re-equip its armed forces after the cold war. Power and prestige on the international stage are a measure of inner strength, of political self- confidence and of economic success. Europe can claim neither. Instead it holds itself hostage to an absence of leadership.
This should, after all, be a moment of high excitement. The European Union is on the brink of an historic transformation. By the end of the year, Europe's political contours will begin again to mirror its geography when the EU admits 10 eastern and southern neighbours.
The strategic benefits of EU enlargement are self-evident. The entrenchment of liberal democracy and economic prosperity in the former communist states. New markets and investment opportunities for existing EU states. New workers to fill the jobs left open by western Europe's ageing populations. The stability in which to confront the criminal networks and racketeers that have flourished since the fall of communism.
You won't hear this from France's Jacques Chirac, Spain's Jose Mara Aznar, or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Nor, with one or two honourable exceptions, from any other EU leader. In place of a celebration of the new Europe there is almost universal foreboding. The promise made when the Berlin Wall came down is now cast as threat.
Next month the Irish Republic votes on whether to ratify the EU's Nice treaty, a vital prerequisite for the smooth entry of the 10 applicant states. That country's voters have already said No once. A second rejection would plunge the enlargement process into chaos. And that, if they were ever compelled to tell the truth, is what many EU leaders want.
Enlargement, they would whisper, is unpopular with domestic electorates. Voters fear a new influx of immigrants - listen to Edmund Stoiber, the centre-right challenger in the German election, garnering votes with anti-Islamic xenophobia. People resent the prospect of their taxes being diverted to Czechs and Slovenes, farmers fear that their hefty subsidies from Brussels will be paid instead to Poles.
In truth, electorates can scarcely be blamed for such fears. Their leaders have never told them otherwise. The politicians have never quarrelled with the characterisation of enlargement as a zero sum game - the absurd notion that any gain for the new entrants must be a loss for existing members. None has been brave enough to say that the continent's demography is such that the western half actually needs those immigrants in order to sustain its prosperity.
Why? Because it has seemed easier to prevaricate than to admit that the long-term prizes will be at the expense of some short-term pain: that enlargement will oblige the EU to confront the absurdities of an agricultural policy that swallows half of its entire budget; or that high unemployment has much more to do with their own policy mistakes than with immigration. No, why get into risky arguments with rightwing populists such as Jean-Marie Le Pen when you can draw the negotiating noose ever tighter around the countries waiting nervously on the doorstep? Barmy as it may seem, some of the newcomers may now start off as net contributors to the EU budget.
Here we touch the failure that lies at the heart of Europe's weakness. To borrow Bill Clinton's famous phrase, it's the economy stupid. When New York's twin towers came down on September 11, everyone knew that an already-shaky US economy would suffer. Europe, by contrast, took refuge in complacency. And now? As the US shows signs of recovery, the European economy splutters and stalls.
There is nothing new in this. It has been the story of most of the past decade. Even if the US productivity miracle now seems to have been something of a mirage, Europe's economic performance has been truly dismal. The reasons are just as familiar - a central bank that has nightmares about inflation even when the world is tipping towards deflation and - much more important this - a generation of political leaders who, with one or two exceptions, have lacked the courage and the conviction to grasp the nettle of economic reform.
For as long as its economy is weak, Europe will be weak. It will remain trapped in the cycle that sees its armed forces starved of the resources to modernise and its voters fretful and suspicious about the huge potential of a continent reunited. And, unsurprisingly, its views will be scorned in Washington.