From the CIAO Atlas Map of Europe 

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CIAO DATE: 11/03

The European Finality Debate and Its National Dimensions

Simon Serfaty

The Center for Strategic and International Studies

April 2003

 

About the Book

"CSIS has done a major service by organizing these trenchant analyses of the future of Europe and the Europe-U.S. relationship at one of the most troubling times since the end of World War II. This book challenges both sides of the Atlantic to come to terms with a Europe struggling, with some success, with its post-Cold War identity and its relationship with the American superpower. That struggle will require citizens of Europe and the United States to recognize the continued, irreversible process of European integration and its consequences for developing a common European identity around a unique future-one of independent states, with different histories, languages, and cultures, working in concert toward a common set of goals still only dimly seen." - Stuart E. Eizenstat, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.

"This is an outstanding collection of major essays on the burning issues facing the European community. No one concerned with the European finality debate, whether scholar or policymaker, can afford to miss it." - Amitai Etzioni, University Professor, The George Washington University.

Leading EU and U.S. observers of the continuing debate over Europe's future offer incisive analysis from the perspectives of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, as well as the European Commission, Poland, Russia, and the United States. As the Convention on the Future of the European Union concludes its deliberations on a new constitution for Europe, many of the questions raised in this timely book will continue to bedevil European political leaders and their electorates for years to come. Although both EU and non-EU countries share a certain idea, if not a clear design, of a "finality" for Europe, this volume illustrates that the idea takes on different shapes across as well as within countries. How to define Europe's finality is as much a question of political and institutional transformation as it is a question of ultimate borders. Even then, the finality debate cannot be final without a parallel debate about Europe's relations with the United States in the context of a community of action, defined by Europeans and Americans, for managing the vast range of interests and values they share.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword - Ambassador Guenter Burghardt, Head of Delegation, Delegation of the European Commission to the United States.

Acknowledgments

List of Acronyms

  1. Introduction: American Reflections on Europe's Finality - Simon Serfaty

  2. The Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference - Desmond Dinan

  3. A Perspective from the Commission - Fraser Cameron

  4. Britain and the Future of the EU: Not Quite There Yet - David Allen

  5. The View from France: Steadfast and Changing - Philippe Moreau Defarges

  6. The German Debate: Visions and Missions - Wolfgang Wessels

  7. The Italian Debate: Still the Fear of Exclusion? - Gianni Bonvicin

  8. The Debate in Spain: Explaining Absences, Revealing Presences - Carlos Closa Montero

  9. Poland: The View from a Candidate Country - Jacek Saryusz-Wolski

  10. Russia's Elusive Place in Europe - John Van Oudenaren

  11. A Cross-National Comparison of the Finality Debate: Unity and Diversity - Lily Gardner Feldman