Learning from history – strengthening the Union Let us not forget that the EU is a union of Member States but it also has to be a union of European citizens. Their elected representatives at the European level and the Union institutions should drive the agenda on the future of the EU, not a few Member States.
As much as I welcome a Franco-German initiative to revive the debate on EMU deepening, this should not become an alternative or parallel process that might come at the expense of other, in particular smaller Member States. History teaches us that European integration has been most successful when it was based on the community method, not intergovernmentalism.