Almotamar.net Chicago Sun-Times - As leaders of the 27 European Union members gather in Berlin today for the 50th anniversary of the EU, much of the effort behind a highly anticipated ''Berlin Declaration'' is to make the postwar organization pertinent to ordinary Europeans -- a record number of whom are skeptical of the EU, even while enjoying its benefits.
Five decades ago today, a new Europe formally emerged with the signing of the Treaties of Rome. It was a brave and visionary effort to transcend national boundaries and illiberal ideologies. With American help, Europe shaped a common market and sphere of values against the backdrop of Soviet communism, two cataclysmic wars and Auschwitz.
Now, as the EU pauses to consider its foundational ideals, it's striving to make them relevant.
Climate change has emerged as a rallying point. In addition, the United States seems to be placing renewed emphasis on the trans-Atlantic relationship. In Washington, top U.S. diplomats said a stronger working relationship with Europe is needed in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Kosovo, among others, and admitted that Europe had been wrongly ignored in the ''strategic complications'' after 9/11.
The EU's success in shaping peace, prosperity and notions of international justice and human rights are today so taken for granted that it practically requires a half-century anniversary to mention it, experts say. After the Cold War, most states wanted to join what is seen as a haven of wealth and security.
'Public opinion is skeptical'
Yet the EU has struggled, often vainly, to capture the popular imagination of ordinary Europeans, who often think of Brussels as a massive bureaucracy run by distant elites interested only in measuring bananas and regulating figs. The need to make the EU seem ''relevant'' on the street is seen as crucial to its future success and development, argued World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy in the Financial Times. ''Europe today lacks the necessary political energy,'' he wrote. ''Public opinion is skeptical, political elites are fatigued.''
The Berlin Declaration, hashed out for months, will build on the EU's decision this spring to take the global lead in battling climate change, and it will provide a ''road map,'' as a Foreign Ministry source in Berlin put it, for reinvigorating the idea of Europe. The issue is a sensitive one. In a 2005 referendum, French and Dutch voters said ''No'' to the idea of a common European constitution.
Though the Berlin Declaration will not mention the concept of a constitution, the idea of a road map is clearly seen as a way to move toward the kinds of common security and foreign policies, more equitable and clear decision making in a group now bursting with 27 members, and other elements found in constitutions.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged her fellow European leaders to back a fundamental renewal of the EU seeking a way out of deadlock over the stalled constitution.
Speaking in Berlin before the anniversary summit, Merkel said leaders had to send a clear message to the EU's 490 million citizens on where the union was headed.
''The people have the right to know how we imagine a renewed European Union, one that is capable of action,'' Merkel said.
Merkel told reporters she was confident the EU member governments could overcome their deep differences over the EU's future by 2009, when a revised EU treaty would be ratified by all member nations.
However, many see the schedule as overambitious given the level of division over the deadlocked constitutional treaty.
Substantive talks are unlikely to get under way until after the French presidential election in April.
Christian Science Monitor, with AP contributing