- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 May 2001 23.32 BST
One by one, Europe's leaders have been setting out their stalls on the future shape and powers of the European Union. The stalls are stocked with catchy phrases: a "federation of nation states," a "superpower not a superstate," a Europe led by a "pioneer group", a Europe of this, that or the other.
And there is plenty more to come: last December's EU summit in Nicecalled for a great debate among Europe's citizens, not just their elected politicians, before new treaty talks in 2004.
Integrationist-minded Belgium, taking over the EU's rotating presidency in July, has already promised a ringing declaration at its summit in Laeken in December - an ambition viewed nervously in Britain and sceptical points north.
In every member state the big questions - and their answers - are rooted in national politics. The French prime minister's view differs from that of the president; there are competing visions from Germany's foreign minister and its chancellor.
Behind all the speeches is a dramatically shifting background, which rarely figures in British debate about the EU.
France and Germany, first of all, are no longer the powerful motor driving the "European project". The six states that founded the European Economic Community when they signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 - Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries - are diminished in a union of 15 and could be dwarfed if the union expands to 27 members.
Mr Chirac was famously stunned at the Helsinki summit in 1999 when a "tour de table" of the leaders of the 13 applicant countries produced only one - Romania's - who spoke French. The rest were happier in English.
Prospective membership for countries as far apart as Poland, Cyprus and Bulgaria is changing the politics and economics of the union: thus the need for the bitterly contested institutional and decision-making changes agreed at Nice. As the geographical and power balance shifts, a discussion about democracy and legitimacy has started. But the EU already has far greater power than was envisaged at the Rome signing in 1957.
Experts often describe the union as having an elegant edifice of different "Doric pillars". But the reality is of a tacky, wacky Heath Robinson construction which badly needs rebuilding.
"Nobody has ever done anything like this before," said one Brussels insider. "Issues of government, transparency and accountability need to catch up with the extent of what the EU now does."
As the British commissioner Chris Patten has argued - against Tory sceptics - democracy is a far more important issue than sovereignty, which nations already agree to share in Nato, in the UN, or in taking on other international tasks.
Questions about the European parliament, notoriously remote from national electorates, mingle with worries about an unelected commission.
These are not abstract issues. Germany's state governments fear the undermining of their powers and privileges by distant Eurocrats: thus Mr Schröder's distinctly non-integrationist call for some community powers to be "repatriated" to the national level.
French farmers, and patrons such as Mr Chirac, see a day when the common agricultural policy will no longer provide generous subsidies.
Spanish regions, helped by EU handouts, see their share being claimed by Czechs and Slovaks.
Opinion polls consistently show that Europe's citizens want the union to act on issues such as food safety and environmental problems.
Practical and philosophical questions mingle: if the EU is to handle the challenge of immigration and asylum collectively, will states agree to laws that supersede their own?
Can common standards be agreed for workers' rights in a Gallic-type social treaty à la Jospin?
Last year, commentators hailed the Nice treaty as a vindication of the nation state because it left intact the ability of governments to veto decisions in key areas such as taxation.
But as Mr Prodi, Mr Jospin and others have shown in their speeches, the tide of integration has not turned, and the great debate is far from over. As long as they want to construct Europe, its leaders will have to agree how.
