Although European-U.S. ties have improved in recent years, America's plan to establish an anti-missile system in Central and Eastern European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic have caused disputes inside the EU. As Poland and the Czech Republic agreed to cooperate with the United States on this issue, other EU members such as France and Luxembourg claimed that the two countries' decision will split Europe again and break up the continent's stability.

Moreover, the EU members have different ideas on the future enlargement of the union.

As EU integration proceeds, its members find more divergent interests in such areas as setting up a unified market, realizing the free flow of energy, designing common energy policies and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, many Europeans have apathy or antipathy toward the union, which cannot easily be erased within a short time. All of these are tough tasks for Germany to deal with during its presidency.

The difficult situation follows from the EU's dilemma in 2005. After enlargement, the EU faces two basic long-term challenges---a new political environment and globalization. As more new members joined the EU, their interests and views became multilateralized; thus disputes became inevitable and crises broke out frequently. Therefore, the EU members' stances on integration are diverging further from each other, and they are more and more wary about the EU's future. How to establish a new "political space" that is in accordance with the new situation, how to confirm a mutual target for the 27 members, and how to balance their political plans and national interest requirements are the crucial problems of the EU.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Europe's integration. During the past 50 years, this integration has experienced three stages: the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Community, the EU's predecessor; the Maastricht Treaty, which set up the European Union; and EU enlargement. After these three time- and energy-consuming stages, the EU needs a period of rest, readjustment and reflection to prepare for the next stage, or the exhausted EU might fall apart.

The EU's downturn is inevitable during its development, because the above-mentioned problems have always existed with its integration process. Under the pressure of enlargement and globalization, these problems created a temporary dilemma for the EU and caused shocks to the union. However, its 50 years of experience enables the EU to pass through the current difficulty. The world community will be watching to see what decision the EU will make toward further integration and to reestablish its global authority.

The author is director of the Department of Western European Studies of the China Institute of International Studies