On a recent evening in Brussels, a senior diplomat confided over a very fine bottle of champagne a suspicion that few European officials dare voice in public: that Greece will eventually be forced out of the eurozone.Polycore zentai are manufactured as a single sheet,
That moment captured something of the duality of life in the European Union capital these days amid a debt crisis that has confounded the bloc's best and brightest for more than a year.
For a certain class of Europeans, a cushy, if not quite extravagant, life goes on as usual, insulated by pay and benefits packages that are the envy of the world's civil servants. But even if austerity remains a cocktail party abstraction in Brussels, the crisis has added a thick layer of existential gloom to a city renowned for its grey skies.
"You can feel something going away that has been rather important," is how Gisela Robinson,The same Air purifier, cover removed. who last year retired from her job at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, described it.
Ms Robinson, a German, came to Brussels three decades ago, part of a generation that was excited to work on a project that seemed an antidote to the war their parents had experienced. Back then, the single currency, eastern expansion and other beacons of European integration were still on the horizon. Now, she said, it felt as though the EU was "disintegrating".
Even before the crisis, it was considered polite conversation in Brussels to bemoan the sorry fate of Europe ¨C preferably over a three-course lunch. The bloc has run out of big,Customized imprinted and promotional usb flash drives. galvanising projects, such as the single currency,This is interesting cube puzzle and logical game. while China and other emerging powers are rushing the world stage,Free DIY Wholesale pet supplies Resource! the complaint goes.
But the travails of Greece, and Ireland and Portugal, have added a dose of urgency to such despair. Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, which will next week take up the EU's rotating presidency for the first time, warned last week that the continent had slipped into "a crisis of trust" as member states turned their backs on one another to defend their own narrow interests.
In the Berlaymont, the Commission headquarters, Eurocrats still go about their business drawing up regulations to improve energy efficiency, devising labels for organic foods and the like. Yet there appears to be little oxygen for policymaking beyond the crisis.
"We can huff and puff and those of us who are committed to deeper European integration may be depressed," one Commission official said. "But we are rather cushioned from reality here in the European institutions."
That cushion may soon become a bit less comfortable. Jos¨¦ Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, will this week unveil his proposal for the EU's next seven-year budget. Mindful of the austerity sweeping the continent, Mr Barroso is expected to call for a 5 per cent reduction in EU staff and a pruning of the perks that have made the Brussels bubble such a comfortable place.
For some EU officials, the crisis has already tilted their work-life balance. The staff for Olli Rehn, the economics commissioner, have become accustomed to spending Sundays with pizza and teleconferences.
Mr Rehn, a former professional footballer, looked unusually drawn last week after a meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg that started on Sunday evening and dragged into the early hours of Monday. Mr Rehn confessed that fatigue had set in for both the European countries underwriting multibillion-euro bail-outs and those receiving them.
If there is one glimmer of optimism in the Brussels gloom, it may be coming from the glass palace on Rue Wirtz: the European parliament. The crisis has been the ideal stage for the one time weakling of the European institutions to demonstrate the powers it gained under the 2009 Lisbon treaty.
MEPs are still giddy from their success last week at thwarting member states' effort to muscle through a sprawling piece of fiscal legislation not to their liking. Unbowed by the crisis, they are now demanding a 5 per cent increase in the EU budget.
Why are MEPs so punchy when the European dream seems to be collapsing around them?
"There are two schools of thought," a Commission official explained. "If you ask the Eurosceptics, they say: ¡®Hee-hee!' If you ask the ayatollahs [in parliament], they think the crisis is an opportunity for even greater European integration."
One of those two has lost touch with reality.
That moment captured something of the duality of life in the European Union capital these days amid a debt crisis that has confounded the bloc's best and brightest for more than a year.
For a certain class of Europeans, a cushy, if not quite extravagant, life goes on as usual, insulated by pay and benefits packages that are the envy of the world's civil servants. But even if austerity remains a cocktail party abstraction in Brussels, the crisis has added a thick layer of existential gloom to a city renowned for its grey skies.
"You can feel something going away that has been rather important," is how Gisela Robinson,The same Air purifier, cover removed. who last year retired from her job at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, described it.
Ms Robinson, a German, came to Brussels three decades ago, part of a generation that was excited to work on a project that seemed an antidote to the war their parents had experienced. Back then, the single currency, eastern expansion and other beacons of European integration were still on the horizon. Now, she said, it felt as though the EU was "disintegrating".
Even before the crisis, it was considered polite conversation in Brussels to bemoan the sorry fate of Europe ¨C preferably over a three-course lunch. The bloc has run out of big,Customized imprinted and promotional usb flash drives. galvanising projects, such as the single currency,This is interesting cube puzzle and logical game. while China and other emerging powers are rushing the world stage,Free DIY Wholesale pet supplies Resource! the complaint goes.
But the travails of Greece, and Ireland and Portugal, have added a dose of urgency to such despair. Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, which will next week take up the EU's rotating presidency for the first time, warned last week that the continent had slipped into "a crisis of trust" as member states turned their backs on one another to defend their own narrow interests.
In the Berlaymont, the Commission headquarters, Eurocrats still go about their business drawing up regulations to improve energy efficiency, devising labels for organic foods and the like. Yet there appears to be little oxygen for policymaking beyond the crisis.
"We can huff and puff and those of us who are committed to deeper European integration may be depressed," one Commission official said. "But we are rather cushioned from reality here in the European institutions."
That cushion may soon become a bit less comfortable. Jos¨¦ Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, will this week unveil his proposal for the EU's next seven-year budget. Mindful of the austerity sweeping the continent, Mr Barroso is expected to call for a 5 per cent reduction in EU staff and a pruning of the perks that have made the Brussels bubble such a comfortable place.
For some EU officials, the crisis has already tilted their work-life balance. The staff for Olli Rehn, the economics commissioner, have become accustomed to spending Sundays with pizza and teleconferences.
Mr Rehn, a former professional footballer, looked unusually drawn last week after a meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg that started on Sunday evening and dragged into the early hours of Monday. Mr Rehn confessed that fatigue had set in for both the European countries underwriting multibillion-euro bail-outs and those receiving them.
If there is one glimmer of optimism in the Brussels gloom, it may be coming from the glass palace on Rue Wirtz: the European parliament. The crisis has been the ideal stage for the one time weakling of the European institutions to demonstrate the powers it gained under the 2009 Lisbon treaty.
MEPs are still giddy from their success last week at thwarting member states' effort to muscle through a sprawling piece of fiscal legislation not to their liking. Unbowed by the crisis, they are now demanding a 5 per cent increase in the EU budget.
Why are MEPs so punchy when the European dream seems to be collapsing around them?
"There are two schools of thought," a Commission official explained. "If you ask the Eurosceptics, they say: ¡®Hee-hee!' If you ask the ayatollahs [in parliament], they think the crisis is an opportunity for even greater European integration."
One of those two has lost touch with reality.
Lets put together the "UNE" United Nations of Europe fast....because otherwise the incomplete alliance will fall appart.
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