Rebirth of Europe

This text brings together the three dynamics of the remarkable European development: the European Monetary Union, the deepening of intra-EU co-operation, and the widening of the EU and NATO to take in Central European members. It looks at the broad political and policy implications of the EMU and shows how this historic step is being viewed in the United States. Elizabeth Pond sees these developments as the beginning of a new postnational European system that is replacing the centuries-old nation-state system. She traces the end of belligerence and anarchy on the European continent as compulsory Cold War co-operation becomes a habit and as French-German reconciliation becomes the pattern for reconciliation between other old enemies. She follows the conversion of NATO into a reluctant peacemaker in Bosnia and the decision of the USA to remain a European power. She describes the leap of faith needed to create the European Monetary Union and charts the magnetic attraction of both NATO and EU in shaping the democratic, economic and social revolutions in Central Europe. She warns about the strains that will face the trans-Atlantic relationship when the euro equals the dollar as a reserve currency. Then she concludes by agreeing with former Polish Foreign Minister, Wladyslaw Barteszewski that we are witnessing, after the original birth of European consciousness a millennium ago, the rebirth of Europe.