Times of London: Europe's Challenge

Opinion - Gerard Baker US Editor Times Online:"European civilisation has sown the seeds of its own decline and fall": "This week, voters in France and the Netherlands sounded the alarm. Characteristically, while the Dutch seem to have got the message about the social costs of its ruinous ultra-liberalism, the French have got the wrong end of the stick and want to escape from globalisation behind high walls of social protection.

But the challenge is now upon Europe. The longer it puts off the inevitable reforms - economic, social and political - the harder it will get. And if it chooses to defer a real response for ever, the greatest civilisation in the history of the planet will simply continue to sink beneath the waves of its own economic irrelevance and moral ennui. "