EU needs to build further on its proud past

MAY 9 will mark the 64th anniversary of Europe Day. It was on that fateful day in 1950, in the aftermath of World War II, that the then French foreign minister Robert Schuman presented the Schuman Declaration, proposing the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was the embryo from which today's European Union (EU) evolved.

The EU has much to be proud of, especially during the first 50 years of its history. It has enlarged from an initial core of six members to 28, including countries from the former Soviet bloc. Its members have, by and large, co-existed peacefully under democratic regimes. Its institutional development has been marked by a succession of impressive milestones: the creation of the European Commission to propose EU-wide legislation, backed by an impressively large civil service; a regional policy to transfer resources to poorer parts of the union; the establishment of the European parliament, the creation in 1993 of a single m…