The new UK coalition government has made an encouraging start, mixing pragmatism with calls for a change of course to meet the demands of the time. The UK is going slow on demands for repatriation of powers from Brussels, but it has promised to earn a stronger voice by sending more high-level officials to work inside the EU's machinery. It has also criticised the (mainly French and German) heel-dragging towards Turkey's membership bid as out of touch with that country's rising importance, signalled the UK's own choice to back a bigger say in EU foreign policy for the newer members in eastern Europe, and presented an agenda to make the Union less insular and protectionist. 

In foreign affairs, the task of bringing coherence looks all but impossible, and can only be done with creative persistence. Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, the troubling reality is that the larger EU countries are at cross purposes on many of the big issues of the time. They include responding firmly to Russia's descent into hegemonistic authoritarianism, the urgent need for energy security, the commitment to Afghanistan, even the centrality of ties with the US — still the ultimate guarantor of Europe's security — and where to draw the boundaries of Europe through the EU and Nato. 

The penny is at last dropping and a self-critical wind is blowing inside the circle of European policy makers and thinkers. The key strategies the EU has pursued in the face of current challenges are "drifting in the wrong direction", says Richard Youngs, the head of the Fride think-tank in Madrid, which provides fresh thinking on Europe's role in the world. He deplores the growth of what he calls "Euro-nationalism", characterised by economic protectionism and the habit of responding to problems with more regulation.

For too long, a veil of silence has covered these awkward realities because some divisions appear unresolvable. The resulting evasions and denials, coming after the backdoor scramble to enact all the significant parts of the failed EU constitution under the new label of the Lisbon Treaty, have sapped the belief even of ardent believers in the EU project. 

The financier and philanthropist George Soros sounded a sharp warning in a recent speech in Berlin, saying that the crisis of the euro had the potential to destroy the EU. He placed the main blame on Germany for insisting on enforcing strict fiscal rules on others, such as Greece, while refusing to balance its own economy in ways that could help the weaker eurozone states to recover. In that way, he said, "Germany is endangering the European Union."

Soros also warned of the rise of xenophobic, nationalistic extremism in several countries — he singled out Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, but might well have mentioned others. In a worst-case scenario, he declared, that tide could also undermine democracy or even destroy the EU.