Born multi speed Europe

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is in charge of the Union above all other community leaders

All major speeches Christmas European leaders referred to 2012 as a period in which the major community project, the single currency, will remain at risk unless governments are able to take aggressive steps in the right direction.

For the first time since the inception of the euro, the EU is experiencing a crisis in its foundations . The permanent chair was made ​​in the Lisbon Treaty and exercises Herman Van Rompuy, yet has failed to impose itself as the essential arbiter of European politics, neither the rotating presidency from day 1 that holds the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning -Schmidt.

The real helm of the EU will begin this year Chancellor Angela Merkel , who already had to take over the leadership at the beginning of the crisis until now accompanied by a Nicolas Sarkozy should be more concerned to maintain the rating of "AAA 'for France and his own survival in the March presidential election. For Merkel everything will be easy on the domestic front, especially because decide within the next few days if you can keep holding or not the President , his colleague Christian Wulff , whom the powerful newspaper "Bild" has declared war for influence peddling scandal .

The wording of the new fiscal unification treaty that prohibits the excessive deficit in Germany has put all its energy, is presented as the only formula that can calm the debt markets and that will convince operators that the future role of the European Central Bank will be more similar to a CA. But the treaty must be ratified by member countries, following a process that can re-test the structural soundness of the Community policies , as happened with the Constitutional Treaty.

The draft elaborated by the Council's legal services and finance ministries of countries in the euro-and foreign not-is proposed to enter into force when at least nine countries have completed ratification, on the one hand not prevent the start up and the other will be a pressure for the laggards.

However, 2012 will be the beginning of a variable-speed Europe, which is very likely to spread the practice of an asymmetric adjustment of all the mechanisms of cooperation. The British have been the first to stay out of the treaty of budgetary consolidation , and other countries will surely follow his example in other fields. The EU survive the crisis will be different anyway. The Schengen Agreement and the conditions of free movement and closure of internal borders will also be put back to the scrutiny of the national negotiators.

And yet, the EU continues to be a place of privilege in the world: Croatia will spend his last year outside the EU, which will enter in end 2012, Iceland remains a candidate outdone , although Turkey may launch this year, the sign that has grown tired of waiting, when it comes Cypriot president and diplomatic consequences for Ankara in the second half of the year.