Volume 46, Number 7 · April 22, 1999
It Still Flies
By Robert Cottrell
In these pages two weeks ago I concluded an article on the European Union with the observation that 'so far it flies,' quoting from one of the books under review, Redrawing the Map of Europe by Michael Emerson. Barely had those words been printed than the Union—or a main part of it at any rate, the European Commission—hit an air pocket. In the early hours of March 16 all twenty commissioners, who together make up the Union's permanent policymaking body, and who head its civil service, resigned en masse. Where the center of Europe ought to have been, there was suddenly a great big hole. It was plugged temporarily by the commissioners' continuing to serve as 'caretakers' until national governments, who appoint them, could choose a fresh set. At a summit meeting in Berlin on March 24, leaders of the Union's fifteen governments agreed to invite Romano Prodi, a former prime minister of Italy, to take over as the next Commission president and to form a new Commission as soon as possible.
Feature, 2037 words
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