Política Externa Europeia

Thirty years ago, Henry Kissinger posed the question: "Whom do I call when I want to speak to Europe?" Now, the former U.S. secretary of state says: "I think one knows whom to call; I don't think Europe has yet decided how to give answers to all the questions."

The reason, Kissinger says, is that the EU's foreign policy approach is fragmented and weak. "They have not yet managed to articulate a foreign policy that involves a willingness to make sacrifices," he said.

Of course, Europe has achieved its consummate goal "to create a zone within which internal wars could no longer take place," as Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador both to the United Nations and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, put it.

But that is far short of nirvana. "It fell tremendously short of achieving an efficient, democratic and responsive organization," said Holbrooke, who is now vice chairman of Perseus, a private equity firm. "It became a big bureaucracy engaged in a lot of issues which probably would have been best left to individual countries."

No IHT.