Mircea Vasilescu sees EU beset by crisis of confidence

The EU is currently undergoing a deep crisis of confidence, Mircea Vasilescu writes in the left-liberal weekly Dilema Veche: "You can't lead a mega-state with a half a billion inhabitants with the same indecision or the same mentality as in the 19th century, when nation states were all the vogue. Nor can you beat your drum and say you want a 'Europe of the citizens' without convincing them that Europe is actually worth it. The enormous sums put into communication programmes by the European Commission have had precious little result: in bad times people retreat into their national communities and say European integration hasn't got them anywhere. Because the fact is they feel better protected by their own nations, where they have points of reference that are more help to them than the abstract words of Brussels bureaucrats. And the lack of true European leaders also raises doubts about the viability of the EU project. The entire world is currently looking at Sarkozy and Merkel, not at Barroso or Van Rompuy."

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