The great European project is in deep trouble

To lose a fourth space rocket at launch is perhaps not the best way to begin a European summit billed as "historic", "crucial" and all the other clichés reporters use when trying to make the money-grubbing details of European negotiation interesting.

But then, if one was to be honest, most of Europe's joint projects have gone pretty badly so far. The concept of a European defence force, originally scheduled to be discussed in Copenhagen, has never really got off the ground. The euro, which got off to such a flying start at the beginning of the year, is springing leaks all over, under the twin pressures of recession and budget deficits. Even the Copenhagen meeting, advertised as a giant leap into a brave new world of a doubled membership, has been hijacked by Turkey demanding a date to start negotiations for future membership.

In one way, we should be grateful to them. Without Turkish intervention, this would have been destined to be another of those European meetings where high ideals were trampled in the mud of money. With Turkey, we are at least back to the big issues of Muslim inclusion and north-south divisions.

If it were up to me, I would have given them a date to start negotiations a month ago when the expansion deal for the current new members was agreed. Once you start expanding membership at the rate the European Union is now, most of the objections to Turkey – that it is insufficiently advanced economically, that it is half a Middle Eastern not a a European country, that it will upset the balance because of its size – fall away. Indeed, a Mediterranean country of Turkey's size is needed all the more if the balance between north and south, now tilting uncomfortably towards the north-east and Berlin and away from London, Madrid and even Paris, is to be kept.

The mere fact that Turkey's diplomats and the politicians of its new government have been able to hijack the summit this way should show that they are ready for the leap. Anyone who wants to enter a club so sorely in need of fresh blood as the EU should have their name put on the waiting list immediately, and not be asked to go to the back of the queue at the tradesman's entrance.

The real point is that Turkey should never have been allowed to hijack this summit. It's been obvious for a year or more that Turkey was not going to accept a rebuff with a shrug and a "never mind", just as it was obvious that you were never going to get a deal on Cyprus without holding out the promise of firm EU membership to Turkey. The things that have changed are the prospect of war in Iraq, which would profoundly destabilise Turkey with its large Kurdish population, and the election of a pro-Islamic party in the recent elections. But these make Turkish engagement in Europe all the more urgent.

You can blame the mistakes over Turkey on the system of rotating presidencies in the European Union, which has left a small inexperienced country such as Denmark in charge of the operation at such a moment. You can lay the cause on Germany, which is determined to scupper Turkey's chances, partly on the ground of economics and partly because it does not want a countervailing force to Europe's thrust into Eastern Europe. And you can put it all, as oversensitive Turks do, down to the instinctive feeling voiced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, head of the convention looking into the union's future structure, that the Turks are "not one of us".

But the real reason, I fear, lies much deeper. It is that Europe cannot cope with what it has on its plate today, never mind what it will have after enlargement. To talk of the Copenhagen summit as a "historic moment" may be true in terms of the facts and figures of adding 10 countries to the present 15. It bears no relation to what is actually happening in the union or the public perception of it. That is of an institution that has lost its way, that is increasingly divorced from, if not actually an obstacle to, the lives of ordinary citizens.

The traditional engine of growth in Europe – the Franco-German alliance – is stalled. Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder are trying to revive it. But the simple truth is that the two countries have little in common and much in disagreement. The old partnership was based on a strong Germany economy and strong French political leadership. But Germany is no longer growing and yet is no longer prepared, with expansion taking place on its east, to hand over political leadership to its west. France wants the political leadership but has too many enemies and too few friends to be a leader on its own. Britain has blown its chances of taking the reins by its alliance with America on the Iraq issue.

The European Commission, in the meantime, is in no position to take up the slack, as it did under Jacques Delors and Roy Jenkins. Romano Prodi is a busted flush, at odds with his own commissioners over future reform and lacking the alliances with European capitals that he needs. The commission as a whole is still reeling from the wave of scandals that blotted its reputation a few years ago. Its foreign policy is fatally split between competing commissioners and Xavier Solana.

Above all, this summit is overcast by the hovering clouds of recession. All the major summits of the past – Maastricht, Rome, Messina and Madrid – took place against the background of decades of economic growth and a general sense of citizen satisfaction. The European Union (or the EEC) may not have captured the imagination of Europe's citizens. But it was given the credit for the post-war growth.

That has gone and, with it, the sense of the legitimacy of the great European project. On the most pragmatic and immediate level, the governments of the existing members no longer have the funds to finance generous terms for the newcomers. Poland's farmers won't get a fair deal because the money isn't there. Hence the demands for Britain to give up its rebate.

In the longer term, all of the 10 new entrants are supposed to start preparing soon after their accession in 2004 for entry to the euro. There isn't a hope in hell that more than a couple of them could conform to the terms by the end of the decade, never mind earlier. The greatest flaw of this summit, however, is that it has put the cart before the horse. The new applicants are being voted in today. The decision-making and forms of European government to cope with an enlarged community are not to be decided until next year, after the constitutional convention chaired by M. Giscard makes its report in summer.

If enlargement is "historic", the constitutional negotiations are tectonic. Or, to put it more simply, while Copenhagen will determine the size, the constitutional talks will provide the shape and the structure of Europe of the future. There's no doubt which is more important.

Which is why Germany, France, Spain and most of the larger countries have put their top politicians onto the convention, while Tony Blair has contented himself with keeping Peter Hain as his representative while making the poor man Secretary of State for Wales as well. Mr Hain's an articulate politician, good with the press. But for this job you need a toughie, with a clear idea of what exactly he is looking for in the final deal. Mr Hain doesn't fit either bill. But then neither, I fear, does Mr Blair.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk