The United States of Europe? Is an increasingly united Europe poised to challenge America as a second global superpower? (International).

As soon as the new euro coins and bills hit the streets in January, the SuperBowl bowling alley in Frankfurt, Germany, warned customers that it would no longer accept payment in German marks. "It is difficult to keep two separate cash-drawers and difficult to make change," explained the manager. "So we decided, right from the beginning, that we would only accept euros."

The smooth introduction of the euro, which replaced the currencies of 12 nations, may be the most striking symbol of Europe's new unity. But even bigger things are in the works: In what is known as the Convention on the Future of Europe, delegates from across the continent are assembled in Brussels to write a constitution for a sort of United States of Europe.

It's been more than 200 years since the United States wrote its constitution. But that hasn't stopped Europeans from drawing comparisons. "It is a pale shadow of Philadelphia," said Heather Grabbe, an expert on the European Union at the Center for European Reform in London, referring to the city where the American constitution was born, "but a shadow nonetheless."

The old continent seems to be flexing its muscles, and looking a lot more like the United States. Fifteen European nations--with different languages, histories, and cultures--now make up the European Union (EU). The EU has its own parliament, a court system, a central bank with a single currency, and it is building a 67,000-member armed force. Where once travelers were halted at national borders for passport checks and customs controls, people and goods now sweep freely from one EU member to another--just as travelers move across state lines in the U.S.

A BRAVE NEW EUROPE

Suddenly, some Europeans have begun to think that together they could rival the U.S., and they are saying so. Opening the Brussels convention, former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato summed up the optimism. "This convention is about Europe making its voice heard in the world," he said. "Very often we hear the observation that the world is now run by one superpower. A unipolar world is a dangerous one. But a single Europe could give us a voice."

The idea behind the European Union first emerged in 1946, when most of Europe lay buffed in the ruins of World War II. Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, proposed "a kind of United States of Europe," and leaders across the continent seconded the idea. The reasoning was simple: In order to contain the demons of nationalism that had spawned two world wars, and to promote economic cooperation to avoid another worldwide depression, the nations of Europe would have to overcome centuries-old differences and unite. It was a radical thought for countries like Germany, France, and Britain, which had fought bitter wars against each other for centuries.

FROM NO TARIFFS TO NO BORDERS

The first concrete step came in 1949, when 10 European countries joined the U.S. and Canada to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. Though not strictly European, NATO, which promised member countries mutual military protection, laid the groundwork for future collaboration. During the 1950s, the core countries gradually began cooperating on a wider range of subjects. In 1957, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community. In order to assure a free flow of trade between those nations, tariffs were dismantled--first on key products, like coal and steel, and later on all goods. In 1979, the first European Parliament was elected. Later, border controls were abolished and all citizens were guaranteed the right to work in any member country.

The EU was officially born in 1992, when the Treaty of European Union, which called for the creation of a central bank and a single currency, was signed in the Netherlands.

A CHALLENGE TO THE U.S.?

Today, the EU is a major economic force. Its population is greater than that of the U.S. The total value of the goods and services produced by its members rivals that of the U.S.

While Europe is emerging as a unified player in the world, it is far from challenging the U.S.'s status as sole superpower. Most recently, American military action against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan has highlighted the vast military superiority of the U.S. over its European allies. And Europe's inability to avoid the recent economic slowdown has demonstrated its continued reliance on the engine of American economic might.

Moreover, many ordinary Europeans, unsettled by threats to their national identity from immigration and globalization, are increasingly skeptical of further European integration. In recent elections, voters in several countries, including Austria, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, cast their ballots for extreme right-wing candidates. In France, an extreme rightwing candidate for President, Jean-Marie LePen, criticized the loss of French sovereignty under the EU and demanded that France drop the euro, or at least allow the French franc to be re-established alongside it. In Italian elections last year, one populist leader, Umberto Bossi, suggested that the EU was a sort of dictatorship imposed on Europeans against their will, and mockingly referred to it as "the Soviet Union of Europe."

MOVE TOWARD EXPANSION

Despite such opposition, there is a movement to greatly expand the borders of the EU and European integration. After the collapse of Communism in 1989, formerly Communist states across Eastern Europe, seeing the EU's economic and political benefits, lined up to request admission. So far, 13 countries have applied for membership, and 10 of them, including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, are expected to be admitted by 2004.

Politically, the challenge of managing as many as 25 countries, rather than the current 15, will be daunting. The economic disparity between wealthy Western Europe and the impoverished ex-Communist East will be stark. European leaders agreed to the expansion last year, and the agreement they signed must be ratified by all member states. But last June, Irish voters resoundingly rejected it. The Irish vote followed a similar referendum in Denmark, in which voters turned down the euro, preferring to continue using Denmark's own currency, the krone. Still, the EU's expansion is expected to go forward, though perhaps more slowly than planned.

ECHOES OF PHILADELPHIA

The current constitutional debate in Brussels mirrors one of the key disputes that faced America's Founding Fathers: states' rights versus federalism. In this case, the tension is between conflicting desires for national sovereignty versus a strong central authority. It took 100 years and a bloody civil war to resolve the issue in the U.S. The question facing Europeans is whether to embrace a central leadership that overrides the divisive interests of the member states, as the Federalists favored in Philadelphia, or to remain a loose forum for cooperation among sovereign states that handle most issues locally or nationally.

Hoping to move toward the Federalist model, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair recently proposed establishing a strong president of the European Council, the gathering of EU leaders that decides common policies. But others would rather move in the opposite direction.

"The convention's real task," said Jens-Peter Bonde, a delegate from Denmark, and a staunch anti-Federalist, "is to put the union on a diet and send more power back to the national parliaments."

In some ways, the Framers of America's constitution had it easier. "Indeed, the Founding Fathers started with certain advantages that for the European Union are distant ambitions," The Times of London noted in a recent editorial, including "a shared language, the forging of a collective consciousness as a result of the War of Independence, and significant economic mobility."

Europe's road to unity will be long, the Times concluded, but not impossible. Even in Philadelphia, it noted, the quest for consensus wasn't easy.

[IMPORTANT EU DATES:]

1957: Treaty of Rome creates a common market In Europe.

1979: First European Parliament is elected.

1992: Treat on European Union is signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

1998: European Central Bank is established.

2002: Euro is introduced.

2004 (projected): Addition of 10 countries to union; constitution in place.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Why do you think former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said a world run by one superpower (the U.S.) is a dangerous world?

* Should Americans be concerned about the emergence of a European superpower?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the radical changes in politics, economics, and thinking among Europeans who abandoned centuries of conflict and joined a new union of equal peoples.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

CRITICAL THINKING: Students may begin to understand the dramatic shift in Europeans' thinking if they switch their thinking for a moment from Europe to the land now known as the United States.

Ask students to imagine that the colonial powers that once ruled the Americas never lost their grip. Refer to a U.S. map. Break the country into four regions, with Britain controlling the east, from Maine to Georgia, plus Oregon, Idaho, and Washington state. France controls a swath hundreds of miles wide, running northwest from Louisiana to the Canadian border. Spain, controls Florida and everything from Texas to Oregon. How would today's Americans view each other if these regions had repeatedly fought over land? Suppose that even in peace trade meant customs logjams at the borders between Texas and Louisiana, Illinois and Missouri, California and Oregon. Now suppose Americans spoke different languages. Would the mix of different cultures, laws, and histories in this part of North America almost guarantee conflict between the regions?

COMING TOGETHER: Ask students to consider the mechanics of bringing the Europeans together.

* What is so important about knocking down trade barriers? (Nations that depend on each other for vital materials such as coal and steel are less likely to endanger their supplies by going to war.)

* Why use a common currency? (Again, countries are less likely to hurt other countries' economies if by doing so they would also be threatening their own economic health.)

DEBATING THE UNION: Remind students of the opposition to further integration in countries like France, Denmark, and Italy. Ask students to develop two arguments. In one they support Tony Blair's call for a stronger union. In a second they support Jens-Peter Bonde, who opposes the loss of national control.

POPULATIONS OF EU AND U.S.

                U.S.        EU         EU

2002            287.4       375
               million    million
               people     people
2004                                   450
(projected)                          million
                                     people

Note: Table made from bar garph.

NUMBER OF MEMBER COUNTRIES

1951            6
1973            9
1981           10
1986           12
1995           15
2004           25
(projected)

Note: Table made from bar garph.

JOHN TAGLIABUE is a correspondent for The New York Times based in Paris. Additional reporting by EDMUND L. ANDREWS of the Times.