EU effectiveness, unity suffers in crisis

BRUSSELS, June 9 (UPI) -- Arguments among European Union member states over how to address the economic crisis has exposed deep cracks in the EU's effectiveness, analysts say.

Although the EU is not on the verge of collapse because of antagonisms between members, low election turnout and last week's gains by right wing parties opposed to its immigration policies, its advocates are downscaling their ambitions and few speak any longer of the EU as a significant political or military counterweight to the United States, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Joschka Fischer, a Green Party politician and former German foreign minister, told the Times the European Commission "played a zero role in the present crisis, and this was a transnational crisis, so the role of the commission should have been just the opposite."

The EU "didn't try hard enough to help its people through the crisis," laid off French worker Dany Valcke, 53, told the Times. "It probably doesn't even have the power for this. Sometimes I wonder what it's for, if not for this?"

Also reportedly hampering the effectiveness of the EU are sharp disagreements between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the role of public spending.