Fresh start for Europe

Let us then imagine what Europe needs to do to confront its most pressing challenges, especially if it were able to do so without the political constraints of 50 years of EU deal-making and ramshackle institution-building.

On top of that, let us make a major leap of imagination and suppose that even though this scenario of the EU at "Year Zero" means we would not have a half-century of intra-European cooperation to draw on, the nations that today make up the EU would nevertheless be keen to adopt far-reaching joint policies.