[ Western Balkans and EU ]

The "EU pulls itself back from the abyss", titles euractiv.com, referring to the budget compromise. Or maybe also to the future of the Western Balkans. The budget compromise (862 billion euro, less than the Commission and the Parliament had proposed, and less than the EU member states had first agreed in Luxemburg - cf. an info-graph of the FAZ) has opened the way to the candidate status of Macedonia (cf. the Trot-i-net blog, 17.12.2005).

The German weekly Der Spiegel tries to stop us from celebrating these achievements:

Das (= die Einigung auf das EU-Budget 2007-2013) ist aber auch schon alles. Sanierung des EU-Budgets mit seinen ausufernden Agrarbeihilfen: erst ab dem Jahr 2014. Gemeinsame Wirtschaftspolitik der 25 Mitgliedstaaten: nicht einmal in Ansätzen zu erkennen. Erweiterung der EU: unüberbrückbare Meinungsverschiedenheiten. Gemeinsame Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik: Stillstand. Europäische Verfassung: Ratlosigkeit. (Spiegel, 19.12.2005)

OK, OK, money is not everything, and the "puzzle"-approach of the EU is not always very satisfying, but considering how much effort it takes to negotiate these results with 25 members (soon more!), I am glad to see that things are nevertheless going forward.