Van Rompuy: National parliaments are EU institutions

[James1:12]

http://euobserver.com/18/115395

"In the old days, exaggerating just slightly, the European Community used to exist on one planet, and national politics on six, nine, twelve, fifteen other planets. This is over now. The debt crisis, difficult and painful as it is, brings home the fact that the Union is us," Van Rompuy told a gathering of national and EU deputies discussing economic policy across the bloc.

[El Gallo]

The only thing holding them together was northern lucre fro the southerners. Now that the north is out of money, the south is drifting off, as is the east. Sounds like wishful thinking on his part.

[James1:12]

The north is not out of money by a long shot, political will is the key. As pressure from the financial crisis builds Eu nations will have to do a lot of soul searching as to what they want. If the EU/Eurozone is allowed to fail that raises some pretty scary spectres from the past. Wester leaders have not forgotten the centuries of warfare that dogged the continent before the post war years saw the EU/EEC arrive.

And then there's Germany's history, a nation that united itself and has a long history of gradual unification well before the Wars. The German project continues in the form of the EU and they won't let it go, they have already decided against the national currency. But the EU will always have this falling apart coming together element.