Elie Barnavi, a former Israeli ambassador to France and a specialist in European history, is Professor of Modern Western History at the University of Tel Aviv, and a member of Peace Now.

We've lond debated on the fact that a pan-European vote would not be binding in itself in each country, and we'd still need either a post facto unanimous ratification using national procedures, or a first unanimous vote to authorise such a procedure in the future.

Could political leaders all agree to be bound by a pan-European vote (and unanimously implement the national instruments required to make what was voted upon legally binding?) Because that's what's required.

It takes a lot of political courage - but it's not courage that's needed, it's a sense of mission by the currently in power politicians to agree to give up some of their powers.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I think he's possibly got a point that the european project has the air of a stalled purpose around it. without much evidence I get the feeling that most of the national governments had got as far as they were willing to go with it, ie they have integrated a lot of the useful stuff. But to go any further they had to start to subordinate their own power to a larger body and they simply weren't going to do that.

After all, politicians climb the greasy pole mostly to satisfy their own ego and, having got so far as to be a big wheel in their own country, aren't about to reduce their status to that of a village elder.

So, we have fallen back on fabricated nonsense like treaties that are supposed to be meaningful but really are just flaffing around to avoid the obvious point that national governments and, more importantly, individual Treasuries dominate the possible.

I hate to asay it, but a unified military command would probably be the way to create the central european political project and re-engage the EU process. But NATO gets in the way of that and none of our national governments will get in the way of NATO.

keep to the Fen Causeway

"..The collapse of the great ideologies did not help:we tried out magic potions, they turned out to be catastrophic,

So, they were not so great ideologies. Or ideologies at all. Just "magic potions."

"..we won't get caught out again."

To find better ideologies? Or just trying magic potions?

In the US a start-up business is generally required to have an "Elevator Speech" to quickly convey in the time of a elevator ride the essence of what the start-up is All About.

So my question is:

What is the EU elevator speech?

My feeling, speaking as an outsider, is the EU Start-Up, LLC suffers from too many people and entities haring off in too many directions from too many different starting points attempting to achieve too many different, antagonistic, goals to achieve even the faint resemblance of a 'going concern.'

As it is now constituted.

It seems to me, speaking as an outsider, Europeans have rejected two Modern Historical prototypes of Unity:  

1.  "Napoleonic" Unity based on military conquest

2.  "Habsburgian" Unity based on the shared national governmental structure of Constitutional Monarchy.

without, really, deriving a basis of Unity (other than slaughtering each other is kind of a Bad Idea.  ;-)  

No one could have predicted