LONDON -- Since the original European Common Market was founded in the mid-1950s, the Continent sought a common economic role, to be followed by growing political integration. Now, there is general agreement on the first count that a new institutional framework is needed to give the community more political punch, and a convention has been called under former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing to study reform. Some countries think Europe should have a president at the top of the European Union rather than the present commission in Brussels.

That, however, is clearly a process that will involve much debate, given the questions of national sovereignty involved. But, if politics is the more difficult of the two European tasks, the development of economic cohesion appeared to be reaching a point of fruition through the creation of a single market, and then through the introduction of a common currency that moved into the everyday life of the people of the 12 member nations with the introduction of euro notes and coins at the beginning of this year.

But now, as political uncertainties grow, so, too, economic progress is also being affected. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that, as the EU gears up to accept new members from East and Central Europe from 2004, the power of the big states is making itself felt once again in a way that runs counter to the hopes of the more federal prophets of a united Europe.