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TIME

The Incredible Shrinking Europe

It was supposed to be the moment Europe grew muscles. Last fall, after a decade of work to simplify policymaking and make the European Union more efficient at home and stronger abroad, the last few holdouts signed a 1,000-page document known as the Lisbon Treaty. In November, the E.U.'s first real President and Foreign Minister were chosen. Europhiles dusted off their familiar dream: of a newly emboldened world power stepping up to calm trouble spots, using aid and persuasion where it could, but prepared to send in troops when it had to. Brussels would lead the fight against climate change. And Europe's economies would prove to the ruthless free markets of North America and Asia that the social market still offers the best way out of an economic crunch.

The dream didn't last a month. At the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, it was China and the U.S. who haggled over a final deal, while Europe sat on the sidelines. Instead of a foreign policy triumph, 2010 began with an unseemly squabble over whether or not to bail out Greece, whose debt has dragged down Europe's currency. At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he would be skipping an E.U.-U.S. confab in Spain in May, frustrated, it appeared, with the endless summitry that goes with accommodating the E.U. Little wonder that Europe finds itself in one of its periodic bouts of angst-ridden self-doubt. And little wonder that the rest of the world is asking questions: What does Europe stand for? Where does it fit into a world that seems set to be dominated by China and the U.S.? Would anyone notice if it disappeared? Click here for more.