It will therefore need to develop sustainable substitutes, especially for air and road transport, as well as for shipping.

Biofuels will be one of them, renewable electricity to power electrical vehicles another one. Both will be complementary.

Biofuels produced from corn, soy beans, palm oil, sunflower seeds, sugar cane/beets and rapeseed already serve that purpose at small scale, especially in Brazil, USA and EU. But these crops constitute basic feedstock for human or animal feeding. Their production cannot be expanded indefinitely, due to increasing scarcity of fertile land across the earth.

Humanity will therefore have to search for alternatives. These should grow on land unsuited for food production, require little fresh water and fertiliser. In addition, their production costs and C02 emissions should be low.

Micro algae appear to fulfil these criteria better than other biomass. They grow everywhere with little or no fresh water and fertiliser. Moreover, they achieve much higher energy yields/ha than any conventional biomass.

But to get to large-scale, low cost algae farming it will be necessary to overcome three major obstacles:

• develop efficient methods for harvesting, drying and separating the natural oil;
• prove the economic viability of algae farming and the competitiveness of algae biofuels with conventional biofuel;
• convince investors to enter the field despite high upfront investment.

During the last 20 years scientific institutes in the USA and Europe have undertaken unprecedented research about algae. Today, we know much better about the qualities of different varieties, e.g. their fat content which can exceed 50 per cent, the optimal conditions for growth, etc.

Private companies, both in the USA and Europe, have developed innovative methods for harvesting and oil extraction.

Thanks to these efforts we know that micro algae have a huge potential for manufacturing biofuels in the future.

The EU wants to be one of the front-runners for what is likely to become a major green industry in the future.

Its 2008 biofuel directive imposes to add at least 10 per cent biofuels to diesel/gasoline. It also requires the EU to promote second and third generation biofuels, in the EU and world-wide.

Consequently, the 7^th Research Framework Programme (2007-13) contributes a tiny amount € 21 million to three projects of industrial algae farming with a total cost of € 31 million. The EU has understood the strategic importance of algae farming for its self-sufficiency with mineral oil.

European industry has also waken up to the challenge. In 2009 it has established the “European Algae and Biomass Association” as their EU-wide lobby.

All this can be no more than a tiny beginning. The 8^th Framework Programme( 2014-20) should step up research on algae farming and processing. In parallel, the European Investment Bank and national development banks should offer venture capital to private investors willing to enter the new field.

Europe has a vital interest in making large-scale production of biofuel from micro algae economically and ecologically viable

Respectful of the Treaty limitations the Commission has submitted in November 2011 a comprehensive public health action plan for 2014-20, with a “price tag” of€ 446 million.

Whatever the division of competences between the Union and member States, all EU governments will be confronted with huge health challenges in the coming decades.

The European population will keep ageing, while the active population will decline substantially. These profound demographic changes will put rising strains on the financial sustainability of the health systems. Being confronted with rising expenditures for old age pensions and stagnant tax revenues State budgets will find it difficult to help out.

Life-long health prevention must therefore become the buzzword. As older populations generate higher health costs. it is crucial to enable ageing take place in optimal health. To that end, society has to invest in early prevention against obesity, alcohol abuse and smoking, the three main causes of high blood pressure, cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes and certain forms of cancer. Their chronic treatment causes high costs, which an ageing European society will find difficult to afford.

What action could be taken to improve the state of health of European citizens?

Citizens need to abstain from “unhealthy” life styles. That requires better awareness of related health risks, appropriate incentives and deterrents.

EU member States should make tobacco and alcohol more expensive and raise taxes on tobacco and alcohol, in application of the principle “polluter pays”. Basic health and physical education should be mandatory in all schools. Together with more TV and radio campaigns it may help reduce the risk of obesity, the latest health scourge caused by our life-style.All this will require a long-term comprehensive approach, with medical doctors, nutritionists, food companies, teachers, journalists working hand in hand. It is not possible to legislate good health! “Ownership” also applies to health.Each citizen should know and internalise that the daily energy input must not exceed the output.

The EU can play a supporting role to civil society and help in the transmission of best practices to member States. The € 70 million annual budget that the Commission has programmed until 2020 should be more than sufficient to these ends.

To overcome the crisis Europe needs to step up productive investments, rapidly and without bureaucratic strings. Most governments are not willing or able to do so, fearing a negative impact on their public deficits and credit ratings.

In this desperate situation the European Investment Bank should be able to come to the rescue.

Being 100 per cent owned by the 27 member countries, its role is to support EU policies by offering favourable long-term project financing. To help the EU minimise the negative impact of the economic crisis it has substantially raised its lending, culminating in a volume of € 79 billion in 2009.

Its lending is focused on:

• Small and medium size companies, which are at heart of job creation.In 2011 some 120 000 MSEs benefited from € 13 billion low interest loans.
• Energy- and climate related projects;
• Investments linked to EU structural programmes.

Since 2009 the EIB has regrettably wound back its volume of lending to € 50 billion envisaged for 2012. This does not appear to be the right approach. The Bank should, on the contrary, go to the limits compatible with its AAA credit rating and step up annual lending to € 80-100 billion in order to boost innovation and employment.

To that end it should:

• Raise its capital basis from € 232 to 300 billion.Member states will be reluctant to take additional financial commitments. But they give in if there is sufficient political pressure. as the recent capital increase of the IMF has shown. The EU Heads of Government should therefore decide on a capital increase at the forthcoming European Council meeting devoted to EU economic growth in June.
• Leverage EU structural funds and invest them exclusively in productive projects which the EIB will co-finance.The EIB should take over from the Commission and member states the lead for assessment of all projects financed by EU structural funds. This would boost their economic impact

Such a deal would have several advantages:

• It would help fighting unemployment, without governments having to increase their budget deficits.
• The EIB lending, combined with the grants from the structural funds, would give a boost to productive investments in the weaker EU member countries, which should be the sole beneficiaries of such funding for the next seven years.
• SMEs willing to invest would obtain access to medium lending at favourable rates.
• The EU would enhance the efficiency of structural policy by designating the EIB as the main agent for implementation.

Under optimal conditions, these innovations might generate an additional productive investment of up to € 200 billion per year, € 80 from the EIB, € 40 billion from EU structural funds and € 80 from private banks and companies.This is a substantial amount, especially if the lending focuses on the poor and hard-hit EU countries.

The Argentinian nationalisation of 51 per cent of the oil and gas company YPF, owned by the Spanish Repsol is the latest case in point.

Argentina argues it needs to exert full control over its oil and gas resources. This is far-fetched: YPF has been subject to Argentinian national jurisdiction, and the nationalisation of the company will not make the country self-sufficient with oil and gas.

Under international law, Argentina is authorised to nationalise YPF provided there is a public interest and shareholders receive fair compensation, which Argentina is not prepared to grant. What is called “nationalisation” is therefore a multi-billion Euro criminal act of plain theft!

In the case of trade disputes, the WTO Tribunal offers a well-established platform for settling dispute. WTO members respect its rulings, if only for fear of reprisals.

Disputes concerning investments in third countries are a different matter, as they usually involve big financial interests. The World Bank International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) lack the clout to impose its rulings. Argentina has been taken before the ICSID more than any other country and become notorious for non-compliance.

The EU has offered Spain its “support”. Both the EP and foreign ministers have issued appropriate declarations.

Theoretically, the EU could retaliate by suspending imports of beef, soy beans and other agricultural products from Argentina. This would inflict considerable damage on Argentina, but China would be happy to come to the rescue. More important, it would not be legal under WTO rules. Last not least, Spain might not even obtain a majority within the EU for such a far-reaching act of solidarity.

This leaves Spain with no alternative but to sue Argentine for infringement of the existing bilateral treaty on investment protection and accept the mediation that Columbia has graciously offered to the two parties.

In an era of increasing direct investments in third countries it is high time for the international community to firmly establish the principle of equitable compensation in case of nationalisation and adopt an international treaty defining the rights obligations of host governments and investors.

The EU should take an appropriate initiative, if possible jointly with USA and China.

To appreciate these figures one has to compare them with the surge of European population between 1850 and 1950: during Europe`s demographic explosion its population only doubled, from 276 to 547 million, thanks to rising levels of education, increasing recourse to contraception and massive emigration to America.

Sub-Sahara Africa is the poorest region on the planet, fraught with misery, unemployment, criminality, over-crowded urban areas, corruption, bad governance and recurrent conflicts .

Throughout history Africans never had to care much about controlling the size of their families. They had plenty of land for food and fire wood; and whenever the balance between man and resources became disturbed high infant mortality restored it. With the arrival of modern medicine in the 1960` the traditional patterns of demographic control have ceased to function

Today, Africans are the only major group of the human species that has not learned to adapt their offspring to the increasing restrictions imposed by their natural environment.

A family size of more than five children per woman, which continues to be prevalent in much of sub-Sahara Africa, is no longer sustainable. According to UN projections the family size will decline only very slowly during the next decades.

African governments do not seem to be much concerned. For them big populations often constitute a power factor, in line with ancestral tribal traditions. Still, some have started to wake up to the issue. Thus South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Lesotho have been successful in containing their population growth thanks to improved education and health services. The Nigerian government has launched free distribution of contraceptives in 2011.

Unsustainable population growth in sub-Sahara Africa should also be an EU concern: Europe is likely to become the preferred destination for millions of desperate Africans unable to make a proper living at home. Is the EU prepared to welcome such an influx ? It might be happy to receive doctors, nurses, engineers and technicians, whom Africa desperately needs for its own development. But what about the vast majority of those who lack the necessary training for making a decent living in a competitive European stetting?

African and European political leaders should therefore get together and discuss how to confront these demographic challenges. The EU cannot substitute itself to African policy makers. It cannot impose any recipes. But it can advise and help by financing appropriate actions.

The EU is by far the biggest donor to sub-Sahara Africa. About € 5 billions annually are programmed for 2014-20. A big chunk of that funding should be set aside for population and education programmes, especially for girls. Achieving literacy and basic understanding of reproductive health is the condition sine qua non for stabilising the African population by the middle of the century. Failing to curb the demographic explosion will neutralise all efforts to improve the living conditions.

It is time for Africa and Europe to wake up to the common challenge and engage in a comprehensive ten-year programme focused on practical primary and secondary education.

But while the consequences of the US financial crisis are reversible this will not be the case for climate change. Beyond a critical point it will become impossible to restore the earth to its status quo: Many changes will have become irreversible and the earth less habitable for human beings and innumerable species.

Both crises lead to an identical interrogation: why are human beings incapable of taking preventive action, even if they foresee events unfolding in the future?

The answer seems simple. Human beings enjoy life as it is and reject the very notion that it could change to the worse. Therefore they do not trust any “story tellers”; and the further the risk lies in the future the more averse they are to taking preventive action.

This goes for individuals, but even more so for groups.

Those far-sighted US bankers and officials who had early recognised that something was going profoundly wrong in the financial system did not dare to propose the necessary curative action, fearing that those in charge would not listen.

It was only after the crash of Lehmann Brothers and the visible turmoil in the financial markets that the President of the Central Bank and the Finance Minister succeeded in convincing Congress to approve in no time a bail-out-package of close to $ 1 trillion.

Climate change is almost not well perceivable and advancing very slowly. Neither a multi-billion cash injection nor a Congressional vote can stop it! Slowing the process requires profound changes in the life-styles of more than five billion people in USA, Europe, China, Japan, Russia, Australia, Canada and Brazil, combined with a massive deployment of alternative technologies.

Unfortunately those most responsible do not assume their political obligations, and some continue denying the phenomenon or its seriousness.

As a consequence, the international community has been dragging on from one climate conference to the next. This frustrating game has been continuing for 20 years without much hope at the horizon.

Climate change has ceased to be a top agenda item for heads of government, who bother more about their next elections, war risks in the Middle East, public debt and other short-term events.

Even Europe, traditionally the most engaged continent, is getting tired of fighting climate change on its own. It is no longer prepared to be the front-runner as it is becoming more aware that its action is largely ineffective globally, unless other major emitters of green house gases like China and the USA make similar efforts.

But the game will have to go on. It will require immense patience. One day, when climate change may have become almost irreversible, Humanity is likely to act under the impact of terrifying climate disasters, devastating huge patches of fertile land and killing millions of people within a few months.

Humanity will need its “Lehman Brothers crash” before starting to act with courage and effectiveness. This is likely to happen before the end of the century.

Fortunately, the rising scarcity of fossil energy, water, food supplies and minerals, coupled with continuing demographic growth, will accelerate the awareness of global disasters at the horizon. Oil is likely to become very expensive in the coming 40 years, gas will follow before the end of the century. Unfortunately this leaves huge untapped coal reserves as the last straw.

Humanity should therefore engage in a two-track strategy: change life styles as to material values, mobility, housing and diet and deploy alternative technologies like wind, solar, wave, biomass and, of course, energy efficiency. This will be an up-hill battle. The longer Humanity keeps delaying the necessary action the less likely will climate change come to a halt.

Annual climate conferences will continue. But hopefully they will progressively change their nature and focus more on action and follow-up than solemn but ineffective declarations and targets.

There is little reason to celebrate this anniversary. Though we have witnessed stunning economic progress in East Asia, the Gulf and several Latin American countries, the inequalities of living conditions on earth have widened further; the global population has grown by almost two billion more people, and C02 emissions have gone up by more than one fifth since 1990.

Altogether, the planet has become substantially less sustainable since 1992; and Humanity is heading for disaster if it fails to wake up to the issues that it will be facing in the coming decades.

The 2012 Rio Conference on Sustainable Development is therefore more than appropriate.

It will focus on seven priority areas: jobs, energy, cities, food security, water supply, oceans and disaster readiness. Each of these is very important for the future of Humanity. But it will be next to impossible to address them effectively while ignoring rapid population growth as one of the underlying basic causes.

As long as global population keeps growing by some 80 million annually. the planet will not be sustainable The overriding objective for Rio should therefore be an agreement among all 200-odd participant countries to actively promote the two-children family.

Every new-born should be entitled to share the blessings of modern civilisation, from food, to water, electricity, housing,sanitation, health and education.

But with every new born it will become more difficult to provide such blessings; on the contrary, persistent population growth will make it more difficult to contain environmental damage and climate change.

Rio+20 should therefore proclaim the right of all women to have free access to reproductive health and contraceptives. Giving all women the choice to freely meet their demands for contraceptives and reproductive health services, would help reducing global emissions of green house gases in 2050 by 17 per cent, according to UN estimates.

Population growth may no longer be a vital issue for China and other medium income countries.

But it will still be the single major handicap for higher living standards in sub-Sahara African countries. These countries are not only the poorest on earth but also those witnessing a population explosion that defies all historical experience: How can sub-Sahara Africa cope with a further demographic surge, doubling its population from one to two billion people within less than 40 years, while being unable to properly employ, feed, educate and care its present population!

How should owners of Greek State bonds who had just been forced to renounce two thirds of their claims appreciate such a news! They bail out a country that still can pay its central bank shareholders a dividend!

At first sight it is a scandal! At second sight it is much less so. Indeed, most of the dividend payments flow into the Greek Treasury, the State being the biggest shareholder. Only € 13 million go to private shareholders.

This being said, the news raises three questions:

• Should European central banks which have transferred most of their traditional powers to the ECB maintain the status of private corporations whose shares are quoted at the stock exchange like those of commercial banks?

The answer should a priori be negative, even if some central banks have a long history, the Greek bank having been founded back in 1927.

• Was the Greek Central Bank right to pay dividends considering the volume of risky loans to the shaky Greek banking sector?

The answer should also be negative. The 2011 profit should rather be used to reinforce the reserves.

• Is the Greek Central Bank with 3000 employees compared to 9.000 in the Bundesbank not over-staffed?

That seems to be the case even if the Greek Central Bank assumes oversight functions in the insurance sector that no longer befit national central banks.

This leads to one policy conclusion: After more than a decade since the creation of the Europa Central Banking System the ECB should introduce a stricter controls over its 27 affiliate banks, which should progressively harmonise their opus moderandi.

Whatever alleviating factors, the Greek Central Bank has failed to show sensitivity when deciding to pay dividends to its shareholders less than one month after the country narrowly escaped insolvency.

The decline of carbon prices is due to three major factors:

• stagnating energy demand;
• free distribution of emission quotas;
• improvements in energy efficiency, thanks to technical progress and higher oil prices.

Combined they have led to a massive overhang of unused emission permits that bear upon the market. That is why many experts recommend to take it out of the market through a set-aside operation of about 1 billion emission certificates, the equivalent of 1 billion tons of C02. But such an operation might be no more than a temporary expedient instead of curing more inherent systemic flaws.

It is preferable to reflect more thoroughly about the optimal ways of implementing the “energy revolution” to which the European Council has committed Europe at its special meeting February 4th 2011: What is the most expeditious way of reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 per cent between 1990 and 2050?

• By the middle of the century European electricity generation must have become a close to zero emitter of C02.

That is technically and economically feasible through a new energy mix composed of wind, solar, biomass, ocean and nuclear sources. Each Member state should retain the freedom to fix its own energy mix on the basis of climate conditions, natural resources and past experience with technologies.

By 2020 the EU is committed to a 20 per cent reduction of its emissions.

That will hardly be enough to reach almost zero emissions by 2050.

The EU must step up the annual rate of reduction of emissions.

By 2030 the EU should have reached a 40 per cent reduction over 1990; before the end of 2012, it should make this objective mandatory in view of offering utilities a sufficient time of for adapting their power generation mix.

• There is no need to set aside large quantities of unused certificates in view of raising market prices.

Power companies will have to auction all emission certificates after January 1st 2013. This change, combined with the prospect of a much faster reduction of emissions after 2020, will boost the futures prices for electricity and emission certificates, which will reverberate on present prices.

• The EU will need to tackle those sectors that are not subject to ETS with more vigour. This goes for mobility and buildings, the two biggest emitters after electricity and industry. It should toughen the emission standards for vehicles and recommend Member states adapting excise taxes to higher oil prices, even if this may provoke a temporary uproar.

For buildings it should have the courage of launching substantial renovation programmes as instruments for job creation.

• These measures are largely independent from the level of C02 prices.

But they would help the EU reducing its overall energy demand in the run-up to 2050, which will be a a conditio sine qua non for implementing its very ambitious long-term reduction goals.

I offer my modest contribution to this debate.

The EU will have solved most of its sovereign debt problems by 2020.

This follows logically from the progressive, reduction of member states` budget deficits.

By the same token the EU will reinforce its role in macro-economic governance.

By 2020, major macro-economic policy issues will be debated and resolved at EU level, on the basis of Commission proposals and EP +Council decisions.

Globalisation will force Europe to operate this way, whether member States like it or not.

Member States will no longer be able to decide the volume of their public expenditures and receipts in full independence.

They will have to submit to a strict scrutiny by the EU Commission and the ECOFIN Council. This is the price to be paid for EU fiscal and economic sustainability.

The same goes for key macro-economic variables that determine the competitiveness of member States.

These are sensitive transfers of sovereignty that should have happened in 1997 when the monetary union was decided. By 2012 member States have finally accepted central overview and formulation of basic economic and fiscal policies at EU level.

But the more powers the EU Commission and ECOFIN will obtain in budget/economic policy overview and formulation the more national parliaments will see their powers being curtailed. More EP control over the Commission and involvement in defining policy guidelines will therefore become indispensable.

That should happen without changing the Treaty.

But in the long run, the Commission will need even more democratic legitimacy by having the Commission President elected by the EP. In this way the Commission will become independent from member States. Its composition will reflect that of the EP. Its numbers need no longer be identical to those of member States. Its efficiency will increase, as it will no longer be bound by the principle of collegiality.

The future Treaty should also change the designations: The Commission should become “EU government”, its president “EU prime minister” and Commissioners “EU ministers”.

This would facilitate citizens` understanding of the functioning of EU governance; and European parliamentary elections will matter much more than today and attract more political talent to the European scene as the crowning of national careers.

These modifications will, of course, require Treaty change as part of a major institutional reform to be envisaged around 2020, which should review the entire institutional set-up.

The European Council constitutes a sui generis institution that has no parallel on earth.

It resembles a supreme executive branch of government. Called upon to give high-level political guidance for Europe it overlooks all institutions, including member States. That is possible because of the democratic legitimacy it derives from the heads of government being elected democratically in their respective member countries.

Its President assumes the role of an EU President, while the Commission president functions as the EU prime minister, in charge of running the Executive.

Calls for combining the two functions should be dismissed. There is no reason to change the institutional balance between Commission and European Council. A merger would overcharge a single President and endow him with excessive powers.

But in order to confer more democratic legitimacy on the president, the EP should give its assent to his/her designation.

The Legislative functions as a bi-cameral system, largely copied from the German precedent.

The Council of ministers represents member States` governments, enjoying an indirect democratic legitimacy. With legislative acts being adopted by 55 per cent of member States representing 65 per cent of the population voting in favour, this system takes into account the composition of the EU with a majority of small States, rendering it impossible for a majority of small States to out-vote the few big ones.

It does not call for urgent reforms.

The EP functions increasingly well.

There is no reason to endow it with a formal right of initiative. It can call upon the Commission to come forth with proposals. That should suffice in a European-type of “executive democracy”, where the bulk of legislative proposals originates in the Executive.

It suffers from three weaknesses, which should be addressed without a Treaty reform:

• The absence of a single electoral code

This will hopefully be addressed in time for next elections in 2014; the EP is in the process of preparing appropriate texts for Council approval.

• The weakness of its pan-EU political party groupings

It is up to EP member parties to tackle this flaw by forming EU-wide party federations, which will be of crucial importance for a viable European Political Union.

• The over-representation of small member countries

This flaw has been largely addressed by the degressive proportionality introduced through the Lisbon Treaty. Formally it constitutes an infringement on the basic “one man one vote”principle. But this does not undermine the EP`s democratic legitimacy, no more than that of the US Senate composed of two senators per State whatever the size of its population.

The EU does not need more powers for acquitting its present functions.

It possesses the power to initiate legislation in essentially all policy areas, outside culture , health and education. After the recent transfers of competences for macro-economic, monetary and financial matters it is also better equipped to harness economic crisis situations.

Much of national legislation already originates at EU level; the EU should therefore use its powers sparingly and abstain from demonstrating excessive zeal. The principle of subsidiarity should be enshrined in gold in every Brussels office!

The decision-making process, however time-consuming and cumbersome, has become at least as transparent as in member states.

Long-term road maps, green and white papers and open hearings/consultations show every interested citizen the direction and basic objectives being pursued.

It is the length of the process, its multi-linguistic nature and the need to reconcile conflicting member States` interest groups rather than that of parties that distinguish the EU decision making process from that in member States.

This being said, the EU political process suffers from structural handicaps that are common to all democratic governments acting in the interest of hundreds of millions of people like USA, India or Brazil.

It is far away from the rank and file citizen. Its decisions cannot square the individual interests of 500 million citizens; they need to be abstract and are therefore not easy to communicate. This weakness allows member states and interest groups to criticise EU legislation, despite having been involved in its elaboration.

There is no recipe against this handicap except permanent, crystal – clear information. The EU has substantially improved its information policy. But considering the complexity and width of its action it will never be possible to achieve perfect communication, especially if national governments lend only half-hearted support.

External policy remains a raw point of EU policy making.

Thanks to an effectively managed common trade policy, the EU is well equipped for defending its commercial interests. But foreign and security policy remain sensitive areas.

Though individual member states have no longer much clout on the international scene, their diplomatic and military machineries cling to competences that have become increasingly meaningless. For understandable reasons, foreign ministers do not want to see their role reduced to that of elaborating and approving common positions in the Foreign Affairs Council. They like to travel, attend international conferences and enjoy the visibility and prestige that traditionally went along with their functions.

Since the Lisbon Treaty, the EU disposes of a sort “foreign minister” in charge of initiating common policies and chairing the monthly meetings of foreign ministers. Unfortunately the present incumbent had never before been involved in foreign policy. which may explain her timidity in making policy proposals. She also had to put in place a brand-new administrative machinery. Last not least, foreign and security decisions require unanimity, which is huge handicap for decision making.

Despite these serious shortcomings it should be possible to make substantial progress towards a common external policy, as outlined in the Lisbon Treaty. Europe simply has no alternative to acting jointly if it wants to avoid being completely side-lined by increasingly powerful players. To this end, foreign ministers must learn think in terms of European interests. As a first practical step, they should de facto renounce their veto power.

The importance of national foreign ministries will rapidly shrink.

This is an irreversible trend. Small member States have already adapted to the new situation. Their role in global affairs has already been minimised. Bigger member States will follow. All of them will be able to reduce or close embassies in countries where EU delegations offer equivalent services, from general diplomatic/political information to trade assistance and consular functions.

The creation of the European External Action Service and EU Delegations throughout the world will give a boost to the common foreign and security policy.

The mingling of national diplomats with EU officials in a joint machinery will create productive synergies and a European foreign policy mentality.

In the long-term the Service should become a normal department of the EU Executive. But its immediate priority should be on European presence and influence across the world.

At the overdue reform of the UN Institutions France and UK will also have little choice but to abandon their permanent UNSEC Seats into a single one for the EU, the alternative being the loss of at least one of them to increasingly powerful countries like India and Brazil.

An EU security and defence policy hardly exists, though Article 42 of the EUT provides for it as integral part of the common foreign policy.

It should progressively lead to a common defence policy. Member states will come under rising fiscal pressure to reduce redundancies and enhance the efficiency of national defence. They will have not much choice but to bundle their operations in areas where neither NATO nor individual member countries are able or willing to meet their security challenges.

The recent decision to extend the anti-pirate mission in the Indian Ocean to air-driven operations against coastal targets is a timid example of what may be ahead in the future.

EU membership is bound to increase further during the next decades until essentially all European countries willing and able to join may have done so.

There is no urgency to complete this historical process. It has taken the USA almost two centuries to complete its Federation. Why should Europe not take one century for achieving its unity! Being the smallest continent in demography and geography Europe has an overriding interest in uniting if it wants to remain a meaningful international actor.

Enlargement should therefore be seen as a strategic component of EU external policy. By the middle of the century the EU might count up to 40 countries with about 600 million people, bordering on the Arctic Ocean in the North, Russia in the East, the Caspian Sea and Iran in the South East and the Mediterranean in the South.