After the darkest hour

摘要

The euro crisis grinds on. But, because markets no longer fear the single currency's immediate break-up, it has faded from the headlines. So this is a sensible moment to debate the direction of the European Union. And a good place to start is by analysing the political dynamic that shaped today's Eu-something that is very well done in Luuk van Middelaar's book, which deservedly won the European book prize in 2012 and is now published for the first time in English. Mr Van Middelaar is a Dutch political philosopher who works for Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council. His thesis is that the eu is best understood as three concentric spheres. The inner one contains the Brussels institutions; the outer one non-EU Europe. But it is the middle one that is the most interesting and most crucial: member countries and their governments. In his model the eu is not a federal union like America. It is a loose confederation, in which national governments are the main sources of power.