EU suffers from 'general fatigue,' says France

The European Union needs a bit of a jump-start, according to France's EU minister, Catherine Colonna, with her remarks translated by the EU Observer. She rightly points out that the Union is largely acting as it did when it was a 12- or 15-member organization, even though now it's at 25 and growing - and its newer members are markedly different than the founding six.

Nosemonkey, aka Europhobia, elaborates on this at The Sharpener (that's a lot of blogger lingo!). He has several of Colonna's more bold statements, which for some reason the EU Observer left out.

In particular:

One does not become a power by using just 1% of your GDP, says minister Colonna.

She proposes an expanded role for the EU, with more work in business and industrial policy. While increased harmonization can be helpful, as long as it doesn't reduce competition, increased regulation might not make the EU any more popular with its member states. But there must be a way to increase the organization's stature.

Mme Colonna's critiques of the Union overall are quite constructive, and hopefully they will lead to more dialogue on the subject. Perhaps we've had enough time to reflect on the constitutional "non" to now start considering the EU's next steps.

And Colonna isn't the only French leader to encourage the EU to pick up the pace - it was just a few days ago that President Jacques Chirac criticized the Union's slow response to the recent battles in Lebanon. Indeed.