European Parliament elections highlight how change, like labour reform, is so difficult to effect, writes Jean Pisani-Ferry.

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher believed the euro was always going to lead to the Germanification of the eurozone rather than the Europeanisation of Germany, according to her biographer Charles Moore.

In the 1980s I was a big fan of Europe. The EU Commission came across as a strident advocate of competition, open markets and progressive economics.

When President Higgins addressed the European Parliament recently he expressed recurring concern that the founding values of the European Union are being threatened and disregarded.

French President François Hollande named a government dominated by moderate left-wingers yesterday after Socialist Party boss Martine Aubry, overlooked for the post of prime minister, said she no longer wanted to be part of the new cabinet.

Winning came easy but François Hollande now has to learn to govern, writes Michael Mainville

Increasingly, fiscal and political union is regarded as the answer to internal European strains and to avoiding a two-speed Europe, says Giles Merritt

One of the main architects of the single currency, Frenchman Jacques Delors, has said the current eurozone crisis was inevitable.

FRENCH Socialist leaders Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry — bitter rivals despite coming from the same wing of their party — face a tight battle for the right to run against Nicolas Sarkozy.

THE European Commission has had some real leaders, men with elements of greatness: Walter Hallstein, Roy Jenkins, Jacques Delors — father of the EU single market — come to mind.

PERHAPS, like me, you have found this week’s Ryder Cup celebrations more than a little surreal? All those mud-splattered Brits, mainly, but not exclusively, Welsh, chanting “Europe, Europe” at Celtic Manor, while living in a nation which, with the possible exception of Greece, is the most Euro-phobic of any of the 27 member states of the EU?

Greece blamed the rest of Europe for not helping its crippling financial crisis today.

France has entered what was likely to be a bitter final campaign week before a national referendum on the European Union’s constitution, with polls showing undecided voters could make or break the neck-and-neck race.

I don’t want to suggest that Ireland’s EU presidency wasn’t important, or that it wasn’t a great success.

A SENIOR Fianna Fáil TD last night came out strongly in favour of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern taking the job of President of the European Commission — if he were offered it.

THE race is on for the presidency of the European Commission.

STICKING by a vision and having the courage to face change are the secrets to being a successful leader, former Irish EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland told students in Dublin yesterday.

IN 1992, the then president of the EU Commission, Jacques Delors, said: “If in the next 10 years we haven’t managed to give a soul to Europe, to give it spirituality and meaning, the game will be up.”