
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993                   TAG: 9311010076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM                                LENGTH: Short

EUROPEAN UNION TAKES EFFECT TODAY

With more of a whimper than a bang, the European Community is ushering in a new era in its decades-old drive for a united Europe.

Today, nearly a year behind schedule, the dozen nations will put in place their Treaty on European Union, linking the political and economic fates of their 346 million people more closely than ever.

Over time, EC citizens will be able to vote and run for office in other EC countries. Foreign ministers will speak with a single voice on world issues. Their currencies will one day fold into one.

"We leave the European Community and enter a European Union," said Portuguese Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva.

Yet the nations will be far from a United States of Europe even after implementing the accord, which calls for common foreign policies and a joint central bank and a single currency by the end of the century.

Few, if any, celebrations are planned. Most EC nations are in a recession that has sent unemployment rolls to their highest levels in three decades. More than 18 million will be out of work next year.

Opponents of the treaty in Britain, Denmark, France and Germany nearly killed it, contending it would turn over too much national sovereignty to a powerful EC administration in Brussels. Other EC nations are: Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

The monetary merger will begin Jan. 1, with the opening of a European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt, Germany. The EMI would become a full-fledged central bank no later than 1999 and issue a single currency after that.

by CNB