Birth of a United States of Europe

The EU had the choice between "the jump-start or chaos," at the Brussels eurozone summit, reckons French daily Libération. "What national political will rejected fiercely until recently, speculative folly imposes. In effect, the Union is now a federal one. And it will be called upon to become even more so," the centre-left daily says in a leader article. "Of course, the United States of Europe is currently taking the form of a monetary and financial white elephant [and] of patches invented in an emergency to fill the gaps in the eurozone. But the essentials are there: European leaders, [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel and [French President] Nicholas Sarkozy in the lead, have understood that it is better to remain in the history books as responsible for re-founding Europe rather than for digging its grave. Now the political continent must be cleared. The member states must get beyond the all-so-reassuring intergovernmental stage, and finally yield power to the European Parliament," the paper concludes.