Evidently, their pre-occupations are elsewhere. And with some reason, as whilst the world around them is in movement, Europe, itself, seems helplessly lethargic. To the extent that some of them perceive the Union as the engine behind a chaotic and barely manageable globalisation that seemingly generates socio-economic inequity. Uncontrolled immigration and the failure of integration, low growth and unemployment, a race to ever greater competition and delocalisation, poverty and precariousness, terrorism and wars, pollution and climate degradation, ... as many problems that will end up entangled and produce a feeling of generalised insecurity.

And herein lies the danger, when anxiety settles in and a society becomes apprehensive about itself and the surrounding world, it often leads to a loss of autonomy which inevitably breeds sectarianism and reactionary ideas. In turn, this can fuel a tendency to fall back on so-called 'traditional' values such as religion, family or even the nation. Demagogy and populism then take the relay, unscrupulously taking advantage. A pope makes a controversial argument in a German university and the world is dangerously close to ignition. In the hope of salvation, a president of a republic makes a political hold-up by offering his people to decide by referendum on the fate of another people in a candidate country, but which, in the end, is only able to gather the 'Non'. An equally pernicious armada launches itself against the Euro and the European Central Bank accusing them of being the cause of economic stagnation whilst omitting to explain that without the Euro they would not have survived faced with the past Asian and Latin American financial crises, with huge hikes in oil and gas prices, and would therefore have had to resort to periodical devaluation of their currencies, sometimes in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Europe incontestably has its weaknesses and many unfinished projects. Undoubtedly, Europe needs a new political grammar. But before even thinking of embarking on an inventory of the pluses and minuses, one must attribute the palm to the winners of Europe's failings: its heads of state or government who ever too rarely are prepared to engage in along the community path through the pooling of their policies. To grand declaration made in 'Europe', rarely do concrete measures follow suit and once 'at home' they then adopt revised positions adjusted to the seemingly all important internal priorities. And then they even accuse 'Europe' of all the ills, even those for which is has never been attributed competences such as employment, legal immigration, social security, education, to mention but a few. And too bad if Europe after 50 years is also the abolition of internal borders, a single market, a common agricultural policy, the regulation of genetically modified organisms, Airbus, environmental norms applicable to all member states - whilst forgetting on the way that for many of the new member states, conforming to all of this has not been easy. Whilst we have great difficult in detecting the predicted invasion of Polish, Czech and other new member states workers in the Europe of 15, that we try in vain to measure their incidence on social security regimes or that we scaremonger about the danger of companies moving from the 15 to the 12, when in many instances they are already in Asia, lets return to the reality of norms regulating borderless phenomenon such as the quality of air, of water, of our maritime environment, of nature and nuclear security - a regulation on toxic products (REACH), judicial cooperation, the reunification of our continent, a neighbourhood policy, a Euro-Mediterranean partnership, a process of stabilisation and association with the western Balkans and an embryonic energy policy.

Some believe that steps forwards in European construction have only happened when faced with challenges. Ironically, today, Europe is faced with an original challenge. Six years before the Treaty of Rome and EURATOM, the six founding states signed the treaty on coal and steel. Fifty years later, Europeans must reduce their energy dependency, ensure security of supply and do so this time taking into account climatic degradation. North Sea gas and oil are on the road to extinction.

In November 2000, the Commission's Green Paper on secure energy supply was already uncompromising: without radical change in our consumption and production habits, the EU's energy dependency will by 2030 have reached 70% - more precisely 80% for gas, 66% for coal and 90% for oil. And as uranium, the EU is already nearly 100% dependent on imports. Figures which are all the more preoccupying because the regions expected to supply us are in permanent politico-economic instability.

It will have taken an interruption in supplies linked to the disputes between Russian and the Ukraine, and more recently Byelorussia, for Member States to realise the necessity for a common supply diversification strategy. And thereby explain the interest of projects such as the 1,760 kilometre pipeline carrying oil from Baku to the EU and passing though Turkey or even, 'Nabucco' which will transports gas from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and maybe even one day, Iran, via Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria. Besides Turkey, the transit countries are all within the EU, and the majority, only very recently...

It would be a non-sense not to consider the energy sector as an integral part of a comprehensive ESDP which remains still intergovernmental. And as long as Member States jealously guard their singular interest in foreign policy, we cannot be surprised if we turn up after the American bombs and get to organise humanitarian aide and reconstruction instead of playing a leading part in projects such as a regional Conference on water where Middle-East countries could commit to a practical management of this vital resource.

However, and despite the structural incoherence of ESPD, the Union, through its neighbourhood and enlargement policies, has unmistakably contributed to conflict prevention both in Europe and beyond as well as improved its geostrategic performance.

Security of energy supply provides part of the answer to energy dependency: the Union will necessarily have to massively invest in renewable energies allowing thus new jobs and stability of energy prices. This is even more indispensables because climate degradation requires it. There will be no credible sustainable energy policy without a least 25% of consumption coming from renewable energy by 2020. If the directives on both green electricity and biofuels are to conform to a new timetable, there must also be another directive to promote the use of these energies for use in heating and refrigeration. But countries such as Germany and France cannot keep on defending their energy oligopolies for a proper functioning of the market. They also must agree, among others, on ownership unbundling to enable new companies to enter the market.

However, these energy policy reforms do not deal with the root cause of the problem: consumption itself, which is linked to energy efficiency. Demagogy falls into the false caricature of a return to candles. On the other hand, lucidity and political responsibility affirms that it is possible to both reduce our energy needs and preserve our quality of life. A sustainable European energy policy must therefore stimulate innovative technologies which are respectful of the environment and that can develop new high performance materials, among others in building renovation and construction field ( using 40% of the EU energy) and also much less energy hungry technologies, that could for example be used in household appliances and automobile sector.

All of this must go hand in hand with changes in habits. On this last point, an awakening seems to be taking place. From the preoccupation of an ecological minority, climate degradation has finally broken out and is now the concern of a majority of citizens. Individuals such as Al Gore, Nicolas Hulot in France and Nicholas Stern have had an important role.

Last October, the previous Chief economist of the World Bank handed in his report to the UK government: if within the coming 10 years we have not found a way of reducing greenhouse gases, the cost for the world economy come 2100 will exceed the cost of the two world wars to reach 5500 billion Euro. And the social effects are comparable to the 1929 crisis and estimates that 200 million people will be displaced due to floods or droughts. We are clearly well beyond a normal electoral term...

When the European states wanted to reduce their budgetary deficits, they established the stability pact. Today, face with climate degradation we are forced to emulate this model and apply it to the environment.

Through a change in our consumption and production habits (Clean coal is a myth. We must reach a moratorium on new plants and foresee the closure of old ones) , and taking into account a sustainable transport policy, among others by internalising the social and environmental costs and applying a specific taxation (nearly 30% of greenhouses gases come from transport which consume 70% of the EU's energy and with an oil dependency of 70%) we can reduce by at least 30% the emission of greenhouses gases, more particularly CO2, by 2020 and by 40% by 2030 without any need of nuclear energy. And the aim is to achieve climatic stabilisation which requires a global temperature at 2°C above the pre-industrial temperature averages.

By establishing a binding climate stability pact as instrument of a EU global and sustainable energy politics, the Union would immediately impose itself as a beacon for the continuation of the Kyoto objectives but it would also impose itself in terms of competitiveness and innovation.

Suffice to consider the industrial world to understand that the Union can have real economic benefits by taking the lead. British Petroleum did not hesitate to invest in solar energy.

We are faced with a huge challenge that we can already engage. Whilst we wait for the new USA president who would have committed his country to Kyoto protocol and, it is allow to dream, would have joined the Europeans into integrating it into the WTO rules. And, of course, the new constitutional treaty - emanating from a convention and adopted following the double majority principle by an European referendum on the same day as the European parliamentary elections-, which will preserve the legal base enabling the adoption of measures in co-decision with the European Parliament, will also provide a new horizontal article: Combating climate change as fundamental principle for all common policies. An improvement that the New President of the Commission, elected by universal suffrage, could use for his inaugural speech...

Published in the special publication "European Union: The next 50 Years. 50 Top thinkers set out their ideas for Europe" of the London School of Economics and the Financial Times, as well as in the french newspaper  "Le monde" (21/03/2007)  and the german newspaper "die tageszeitung" (23/03/2007).