But now that the Arab world is being remade from within, European policy must change too.
Acting together, they show themselves finer and bolder judges of European policy than is the commission.
Not long ago, European policy makers seemed stuck on the notion that austerity promotes growth.
Stocks were buoyed by hopes that European policy makers will coordinate a program to back-stop European banks.
He does not believe that the current European policy - the Berlin-Brussels austerity strategy - is correct.
These measures need further qualification, says Tomas Valasek, president of the Central European Policy Institute in Slovakia.
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Those economies have been shaped by European policy and by the desires, demands and greed of northern Europeans.
Instead, the stability of Mr Dzurinda's government must depend mainly on the perceived success of its pro-European policy.
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That prospect looms because the old masters of European policy across national governments the foreign ministers have been losing their clout.
He also called for "a sense of clarity" on the government's European policy.
Put it another way: when it comes to Greece, European policy makers would still rather not have a crisis tomorrow.
He also claimed the Tories had adopted an extreme anti-European policy that would produce short-term gain but long term losses.
The European policy that emerged from Mr Bush's visit appears to resolve the administration's strategic indecision in favour of the Europeanists.
One answer that economists might give is that European policy makers are conflicted on the subject of fiscal austerity and growth.
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Indeed, events in Europe may well be the undoing of New Labour's plans to build a European policy around the third way.
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The European policy framework only serves to exacerbate the continent's economic headaches.
The European policy so far has been engagement with Ukraine's political class.
But it is hard to know how it hopes to reconcile these aims, harder still to discern the ultimate goal of Germany's European policy.
Mr Bersani has pledged to continue with Mr Monti's reforms but suggests current European policy needs to do more to promote growth and jobs.
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Yet David Cameron has still to fix a date let alone finalise the text of a long promised speech spelling out his European policy.
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The short-term prospects for emerging market equity rests on U.S. and European policy makers, which is like tight-rope walking over Niagara Falls, wearing ankle weights.
"I'm not looking for any substantive agreement that will change policy, " said Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium.
Doesn't Mr Kohl's prestige in European policy count in his favour?
The Cyprus bailout has, to some extent, changed European policy: "Bailing in" depositors and bondholders is now on the table when dealing with Europe's troubled banks.
"There are few areas of Norwegian democracy today where so many know so little about so much as is the case with Norwegian European policy, " he says.
Mr Bersani, a former Communist, has pledged to continue with Mr Monti's reforms, but suggests current European policy needs to do more to promote growth and jobs.
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Mr Delors says he wanted to be the government's European policy supremo but was instead asked to be justice minister and Mr Jospin's second-in-command an offer he refused.
Some flexibility has already been shown by European policy makers.
But they are dogged by property speculation from the north, and an economy distorted by European policy, as much as they are by their own shortcomings as a young democracy.
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