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06/18/2005:

"Caustic Turn Jolts Europe"

BRUSSELS, June 18 - Something shattered in Europe on Friday night.

The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all.

The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders in the face of rising popular opposition to the project called Europe.

Their attacks on one another after they failed to agree on a future budget - for 2007 through 2013 - seemed destructive and unnecessary, and it is not at all clear that they will be able to repair their relationships. Even if they do, the damage to the organization is done.

Most embarrassing for the European Union was a last-minute attempt by its 10 newest members to salvage the budget agreement late on Friday night. They offered to give up some of their own aid from the union so that the older and richer members could keep theirs.

For the new members, that offer was an opportunity to prove their worth. Criticizing the "egoism" of countries driven by national interests, Prime Minister Marek Belka of Poland said, "Nobody will be able to say that for Poland, the European Union is just a pile of money."

But for the older members, it was a humiliation. "When I heard one after the other, all the new member states - each poorer than the other - say that in the interest of an agreement they would be ready to renounce part of the money they are due, I was ashamed," Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and the departing European Union president, told journalists after talks collapsed.
Full: nytimes.com