LONDON -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democratic Party have done Europe a great service -- although it may not have been the one Schroeder intended.
By endorsing proposals for a full-blown European central government, patterned on the current federal system in Germany itself, the German leader has at last ignited a real debate about the kind of Europe people want to live in and how it should be organized.
Broadly speaking, the head of Europe's biggest and strongest member state wants to see the present European Commission upgraded into a proper government, with the present Council of Ministers metamorphosed into a kind of upper parliamentary chamber, along the lines of the present German Bundesrat.