Is the European Union in trouble?

The main topic of a hastily-called emergency summit meeting held recently in Brussels seemed to deal with the very worries it was designed to calm: that the world economic crisis is threatening to split Europe into rival camps.

Skip to next paragraphPresent at the meeting were representatives of Bulgaria, France, Estonia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Malta.

An urgent call from Hungary for a large bailout for newer, Eastern members was bluntly rejected by Europe’s strongest economy, Germany, and received little support from other countries, bringing Hungary's prime minister to respond: "We should not allow that a new Iron Curtain should be set up and divide Europe."

With uncertain leadership and few powerful collective institutions, the European Union is struggling with the strains this crisis has inevitably produced among 27 countries with uneven levels of development, according to informed observers.

The traditional concept of "solidarity" is being undermined by protectionist pressures in some member countries and the rigors of maintaining a common currency, the euro, for a region that has diverse economic needs. Particularly acute economic problems in some newer members that once were part of the Soviet bloc have only made matters worse.

"The European Union will now have to prove whether it is just a fair-weather union or has a real joint political destiny," commented a foreign journalist.  "We always said you can’t really have a currency union without a political union, and we don’t have one."

The problems are basically twofold: within the inner core of nations that use the euro as their common currency, and within the larger European Union.

The 16 nations that use the euro must submit to the monetary leadership of the European Central Bank.

That keeps some members hardest hit by the economic downturn, like Ireland, Spain, Italy and Greece, from unilaterally taking radical steps to stimulate their economies.