A paper prepared by the German Christian Democrats in 1994 suggested that a core of member countries should integrate more deeply, leaving others to tag along if and when they could.
One very, very strong club side with a core of its country's internationals in it will help any nation.
The finalists include: Roger Bootle and his team at Capital Economics, an economics consultancy based in London, who argue that a euro crack-up, while leaving a northern core of countries that revolve around Germany, will also result in the weaker nations going their separate ways as they have less inter-nation trade to bind them together.
But the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has for the moment secured a long-cherished French ambition: an agreement on holding frequent summits of national leaders from an inner core of countries, excluding Britain.Britain could yet secure a seat at those summits, backed by others (eg, Germany) alarmed by Mr Sarkozy's boasts about a new, two-speed Europe.
One concerned the future shape of the Union, and whether an inner core of countries could race ahead to ever-tighter integration, perhaps even presaging a federal superstate.
Using a combination of network and sentiment analysis, we were able to find a core of highly central countries discussing e-cigarettes in a positive manner, while more isolated countries discussed negative aspects of the topic without much interaction.
The establishment of a core group of countries willing to assist the United States in this objective, including America's principle European allies Great Britain, France, and Germany, will send a powerful message to ISIL's leadership and foot-soldiers that the entire world -- not just the U.S. -- views its activity as abhorrent and incompatible with even the most basic of human rights.
Attempts by diehards to forge a core group of countries that builds a United States of Europe would also founder because, outside Belgium and Luxembourg, there is no longer a serious appetite for a federal Europe.Ireland is a small country, to be sure.
European leaders first started dreaming about a single currency more than 40 years ago, and a core group of countries agreed in principle on the idea back in 1971.
Provisions to allow a core group of countries to forge a closer defence union, from which they might exclude others, are also meeting opposition from Finland, the central Europeans and the British.
