Our prime minister tells us that we needn't worry about the European antagonism because at the end of the day, Washington, not Brussels, calls the shots.
Those who want more should look not to Brussels but to the 27 national capitals.
This is not a Brussels joke, but a tricky question in an ever-expanding European Union.
Mr Prodi is now president of the European Commission, but not even Brussels has divine right over royal matters.
Indeed the institutional change most needed to remedy Europe's democratic deficit is not in Brussels or Strasbourg but in national capitals.
Perhaps it's better to recognize that most solutions to America's problems--now and in the future--will be concocted not in Brussels, Berlin or Paris, but at home.
That is not how Brussels and Frankfurt see it.
WSJ: The Weekend Interview with Bernard Connolly: Why the Euro Crisis Isn't Over
She added that the Justus Lipsius building, where meetings are now held, was never intended for its current use, because in the past European summits used to be held in a range of European cities, not just Brussels.
BBC: Cameron hits out at multi-million pound new EU building
Leaving aside the assumption about EU membership being a good thing, it is still not clear whether Brussels would accept negotiations on that basis.
They have yielded powers not just to Brussels, but to independent central banks (for 11 of them, to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt), and to sub-national governments in their own regions.
Mission creep is not peculiar to Brussels.
ECONOMIST: America, Europe and the management of danger: A hazardous comparison | The
Worse, the commission's proposal is that it would not only give Brussels power to close parts of the market, but also allow national governments, municipalities and other bodies to shut out some foreign bidders (though only with explicit support from the commission).
"The working hours of British doctors should not be set in Brussels, " said Mr Cameron.
BBC: Cameron EU speech: Business leaders give mixed messages
The two countries were not prepared to leave Brussels without measures to reduce their borrowing costs.
Why should it be any different if the orders come from Brussels, not Washington?
ECONOMIST: Europe's stability pact meets national sovereignty
And France does not want to give Brussels more power to dictate national economic policies.
Brussels need not take charge of tax and spending, nor need Eurobonds cover all government debts.
In the event, that has not stopped diplomats in Brussels carping about Austria's inexperience.
However, this Belgian town south of Brussels has not one, but two football teams within its city limits.
BBC: North East football agent linked to failed Belgian club
If they would only look and learn, the Conservatives could find some strong allies in Brussels, not just implacable enemies.
True to his belief that Turkey must be eastern as well as western, his gaze is not locked solely on Brussels.
In the past he has assumed the role of chief cheerleader but he chose to point out that "more Europe" does not mean "more Brussels".
But bureaucrats from Brussels are not the only opponents of the amendment.
But it is not up to "Brussels to tell British mothers and fathers how much leave they should take, " said Conservative MEP Philip Bushill-Matthews.
The bureaucrats of Brussels do not enjoy the same public esteem as the sleek administrators of Paris, but they are well rewarded in other ways.
As this network develops, and as appeal of air travel falters, riding the rails between Paris and Bratislava, or Birmingham and Brussels may not seem like such a bad idea after all.
So, the way UK officials tell it, this wasn't about an open-ended veto for the City, it was about preserving the single market in a number of specific areas, where the wind in Brussels has not been blowing our way.
The German foreign minister went out of his way to say that he hoped the UK would continue to play an "active" and "constructive" role in the EU. He offered a concession: he agreed that not everything decided in Brussels needed to remain at a European level.
It was a plea for Europe to change itself for its own sake - abandoning the shared goal of "ever-closer union", accepting that the single market rather than the single currency was the key shared ambition and agreeing that powers should be returned to member states not inexorably transferred to Brussels.
应用推荐