A treat from Nice

摘要

Peer past the verbal sludge and fudge, bad blood and bruised egos, and you can now see—thanks to four days of argument among the European Union's 15 leaders—an imposing new shape rising on the global stage. Within a few years, a dozen or more countries from Central and Eastern Europe, most of them victims of decades of communist oppression, will join their western neighbours in a unique enterprise: a union of like-minded states, based upon the world's largest single market, that offers the promise of immense and broadly beneficent political influence. This surely is a cause for celebration. Whatever its imperfections, the Nice summit (see pages 25-28) was a success.