Euro Disarray Gives More Power to Dollar
The Sunday Times ^ | June 12, 2005 | Irwin Stelzer
Well, we have now heard from all the players in the euro drama. The French are angry with the Brits for cancelling — oops — postponing their referendum on the constitution. It seems that it is not the French non but the British postponement that has put paid to this adventure in superstatism.
The British are divided: some popped the champagne corks and danced on the constitution’s grave, others felt cheated out of their chance to play the role of assassin, still others mourned the death of this latest effort to push the “European project” forward. The Germans refused to hold a referendum but want the Poles to go ahead with one, but the Poles are not certain that is a good idea.
Only America has not been heard from. Washington’s official position is that it is for the Europeans to decide about the structure of Europe. The administration would say that, wouldn’t it? After all, it would be unseemly to express official joy at the discomfort of Jacques Chirac, who has tried to convert the EU into an anti-American power bloc, and Gerhard Schröder, who won an election by heaping scorn on George W Bush.
Unofficially, many in the administration are delighted. Thoughtful officials in the Pentagon have always worried that the European army that Chirac gulled Tony Blair into supporting when the Nice Treaty was signed would rival Nato for resources. More important, the State Department — which Condoleezza Rice is converting from a centre for undermining Bush’s foreign policy into a loyal implementer of that policy — sees this as possibly a historic moment in European history, and an opportunity for American diplomacy.
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