Will the EU spin out of control or into cohesion in 2020?
With its collection of councils, clubs and commissions, the EU is like an unruly family, but Ursula von der Leyen is a good mom
02 January 2020 - 14:45
Centrifugal or centripetal — which force will prevail in the EU in 2020? A lot suggests it’ll be the former, with the EU drifting apart. Its third-biggest member state is preparing to exit. Populists are railing against Brussels and want their “sovereignty” back. Conservatives in the north balk at deeper integration of the eurozone.
One woman who wants to nudge the EU in the opposite direction is Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission. The EU needs “a centripetal force, coming again and again as the uniter”, she once told me, when she was still defence minister of Germany...
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