EU Leaders Blame Each Other After Summit By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer


BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union leaders blamed each other after a summit collapsed without any real agreement on what lies ahead for the half-century project of uniting the continent. But they agreed Europe is in a crisis.


At an EU summit held amid a growing sense of anxiety and drift, leaders of the 25 member states failed to resolve strident disputes over spending. Nor did they present a clear plan to save a proposed EU constitution that was decisively shot down by voters in France and the Netherlands.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker called the damage profound. In the weeks ahead, EU diplomats and others "will tell you that Europe is not in crisis," he said early Saturday. "It is in a deep crisis."

The leaders agreed to postpone the November 2006 deadline by which all members were to have ratified the charter. They said the extra time would be used to digest the results of the French and Dutch referendums.

But they didn't explain what will happen next, or how long their period of "reflection" will last. All 25 nations must ratify the charter for it to take effect, and 10 have already done so.

In the meantime, Denmark and Portugal joined Britain in putting their planned referendums on the constitution on ice.

"This is no more than a holding exercise," said Richard Whitman of the London-based think-tank Chatham House.

Among the problems faced by the bloc are mounting competition from growing powerhouses like China, double-digit unemployment in EU heavyweights like France and Germany, and how to deal with membership bids from poor regional neighbors like Turkey.

But EU leaders disagree on the way forward, with France and Britain arguing over the latter's budget refund and the former's prodigious farming subsidies.

At the heart of the problem, there appears to be a widening philosophical gulf among the EU's biggest members. Are free-market economic reforms the answer, as Britain advocates? Can they be reconciled with the generous welfare systems of France and Germany?

On Saturday, Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw blamed the collapse of the summit on member countries that are "trapped in the past" and refuse to reform their economies.

"Europe is divided," he said in an interview with the BBC. "It is essentially a division between whether you want a European Union that is able to cope with the future, or whether you want a European Union that is trapped in the past," he said.

"The choice before Europe and the EU is how we achieve both prosperity and social welfare," Straw said.

Graham Watson, who leads the Liberal Democratic group in the European Parliament, was more blunt. "Europe is leaderless," he said. He warned that "drift and delay rather than decisive action" could characterize EU dealings for months.

EU leaders refused to accept, at least openly, that the proposed constitution is gravely wounded.

"I obstinately want to believe that neither the French nor the Dutch rejected the constitutional treaty," Juncker said.

"Citizens very often say 'no' to the constitution because they refuse Europe in its current state," he said.

There are strong fears in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere that eastward expansion has gone too far, too fast.

The resounding rebuke of the EU constitution in both of those countries was seen as cries of alarm about the expansion process — and European leaders took note by taking enlargement off the summit agenda for the first time in years.

The prospect of membership for predominantly Muslim Turkey raises questions about cultural identity for many Europeans. But some analysts see a deeper dilemma.

"The real problem is that in most European countries — in the 'old' ones, not just in the 'new' ones — there is a total lack of European identity," said Peter Filzmaier, a political scientist at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria.

The constitution was designed to help combat this problem, calling for ever closer union among the bloc's 450 million citizens. It would bestow trappings of statehood — including a flag, a president and an anthem — on the alliance and foster closer cooperation in areas like defense and crime-fighting.

But the skepticism of French and Dutch voters is spreading. Questions have even been asked of the euro, the common currency used by 12 nations that went into circulation in 2002.

In short, there is a growing gap between EU leaders and their people.

"What we can see now is not a crisis of the EU, it is a crisis of the EU elite," said Miroslav Sevcik, director of the Liberal Institute think-tank in the Czech Republic. "They seem not to serve the citizens any more but to form a group of people who attempted to dictate to the others."

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John Leicester, the Associated Press bureau chief in Paris, has been reporting from France since 2002

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