EU commissioner for enlargement plus PMs Orban and Dzurinda open bridge across Danube in 2001.Wikicommons.Some rights reserved.As a fractious EU finishes yet one more emergency summit, the question of whether Europe can cope with the big challenges it faces will not go away. From the refugee flows that show no sign of lessening to conflict in Ukraine to youth unemployment still around 50% across southern Europe to the debt-overloaded, struggling Greek economy, the EU's leaders lack a convincing strategy or effective policies.
The EU is in a crisis both of inadequate political leadership and of inappropriate EU structures and policy-making in the face of these urgent, deep and often rapidly-changing challenges. Yet it is precisely at dealing with a world like today's, one of instability and fast-moving events – not often open to easy or direct control – that the EU is, and always has been, very bad.
This week's EU emergency summit on refugees focused on strengthening the EU's porous borders, and belatedly giving more funds to the UN and other bodies and countries to reduce the numbers of refugees heading for the EU. It is a 'fortress Europe' approach that is unlikely to work and it underlines the fact that the EU is at it happiest when it is focused on its own internal policies and development.
