Unit III. EU at the Crossroads
We are in a transformative moment, poised between integration and disintegration. Popular acquiescence to a forced march towards fiscal union is by no means consolidated, nor is the political route clearly marked. However, it would not be foolish optimism to see a common identity emerging from eventual acceptance of stronger, shared obligations to sustain the common welfare. But first, the EU needs to deliver.
Notes:
1. George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born 23 May 1971) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury since 2010 and the Member of Parliament for Tatton since 2001. A pragmatic Eurosceptic.
2. Mario Monti (born 19 March 1943) is an Italian economist who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a government of technocrats in the wake of the Italian debt crisis.
Monti served as a European Commissioner from 1995 to 2004, with responsibility for the Internal Market, Services, Customs and Taxation from 1995 to 1999 and for Competition from 1999 to 2004. Monti has also been Rector and President of Bocconi University in Milan for many years. On 12 November 2011, in the midst of the European sovereign debt crisis, Monti was invited by President Giorgio Napolitano to form a new technocratic government following the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi. Monti was sworn in as Prime Minister on 16 November 2011, just a week after having been appointed a Senator for Life by President Napolitano, and initially became Minister of Economy and Finances as well, giving that portfolio up the following July. From 16 May 2013 to 17 October 2013 Monti was the President of Civic Choice, a centrist political party.
COMPREHENSION ASSIGNMENTS
A. Explain and/or comment on the following clauses/sentences.
1. It (the new species of animal) would be recognisable by eyes that are focused on matters higher than the parochial interests of the nation state.
2. Closely related species tend to choose the entrance symbolised by their native territory ...
3. This animal had no clear profile and its DNA had scarcely formed during the early post-war years .
4. Could it be that Harding and many others are looking for a political mirage and, therefore, highlighting misleading evidence?
5. . the infliction of fiscal austerity across many of the 27 may be creating a pan-European identity out of shared negative experience.
