Departing EU Chief Laments Divided Europe

Speaking on Belgian national television Sunday, Prodi, who is stepping down from his five-year-term at the helm of the European Commission, lamented the inability of the 25-member bloc to find common ground on key issues. The EU Constitution, which should have been seen as a good opportunity to clear up any differences, does not go far enough in integrating power, Prodi said.

"Europe is still divided," he said, citing for example problems with agreeing on economic policy. "We have the euro but we don't have a harmonized economic policy."

The Stability and Growth Pact rules underpinning the euro, which is currently shared by 12 of the EU's current 25 member states, were effectively suspended last year after EU heavyweights France and Germany were let off the hook despite serious and repeated breaches of the euro zone's criteria for maintaining good budgetary discipline.

"It is a very, very difficult problem ... to have a single currency and not to have a single policy to protect that currency. There is a great risk," Prodi added, in what he said he hoped was his last interview before leaving office.

A recipe for failure?

Prodi has stayed on as a caretaker head in Brussels after his successor, Jose Manuel Barroso, withdrew his new team amid a veto threat by EU parliamentarians,. A new vote is scheduled on Thursday and Barroso hopes to take office next week, and begin getting on with the work he was appointed to do.

The Italian politician lamented that the EU Constitution, signed with great fanfare in Rome last month, falls short of his hopes, notably because it leaves veto rights intact in many policy areas.

"With 25 countries, it is impossible to take decisions," he said. The Constitution should have helped streamline the voting process, but instead it offers two different decision-making systems: double majority, which requires support of 55 percent of member countries, representing 65 percent of the bloc's population, and simple majority vote. To make the situation more complicated, certain sensitive areas, such as foreign, economic and defense policy, are excluded from majority voting.

On the issue of admitting Turkey, which hopes to win an EU greenlight at a summit in December, Prodi said politicians must work hard to persuade Europe's skeptical public of the potential benefits.

"The door is open .. but it will take time, we have to work together openly and transparently. Otherwise European public opinion will not agree," he said.