Most people do not feel the European Union represents ordinary people in their member states, according to a poll to mark the bloc's 50th anniversary celebrations this weekend. The survey - the first to canvass opinion across all 27 EU states - was commissioned by the Open Europe think-tank and spoke to 17,443 people. It found 56 per cent agreed that "the European Union does not represent ordinary people in our country" - a figure that rose to 68 per cent in the UK. Forty-one per cent thought it should be stripped of powers (58 per cent in the UK) while 23 per cent (27 per cent in Britain) felt it should keep those it already had. Some 83 per cent of Britons said any move to increase those powers should be the subject of a referendum.
The survey came as the EU prepared to mark its birthday in Berlin with fireworks and the uplifting strains of Beethoven. But the celebrations cannot conceal uncertainty on whether to have a common constitution, doubts about admitting new countries, such as mostly Muslim Turkey, and concerns over Europe's ability to compete in the future with the United States and emerging Asia.
Europe has gone through a momentous transformation in the half-century since the leaders of six core countries gathered in Rome to announce a common market among nations that a few years before had been tearing each other apart in war. It is now possible to travel freely from Portugal to Estonia, in many cases without showing a passport. Not only former communist lands but western nations such as Spain and Ireland, which were relatively poor not long ago, have been remade.
The place for the main party could not be more evocative of how far Europeans have come together: the columned Brandenburg Gate, where the Berlin Wall once stood, a visible reminder of the end of the continent's Cold War divisions into East and West. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony will ring out at the gate, along with poetry and the sound of the veteran British singer Joe Cocker. Today, 27 presidents and prime ministers will gather for a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic with yet more Beethoven - the Fifth Symphony this time - and a banquet. A summit will follow tomorrow under Germany's six-month leadership of the EU.
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, on 25 March, 1957, to create what was then the European Economic Community. It laid the basic foundations, and these were expanded by later treaties, including the Maastricht agreement of 1992, which paved the way for the common currency and central bank. Among those at the ceremony will be Maurice Fauré, a former French diplomat who, at the age of 85, is the sole surviving signatory of the Treaty of Rome. The leaders will also say goodbye to Jacques Chirac, the French president, who is attending his last summit before leaving office in May after 12 years.
| "Au revoir, Jacques! Write when you make bail!" |