The Germans kept the text secret until almost the last minute for fear that the Poles, Czechs and British might start a row about over-ambitious and too federalist phrasing. The Czechs complained angrily but were finally persuaded that the text was too anodyne to worry about. So it proved.

"We, the peoples of Europe, are aware that Europe is our good fortune!" it begins. In reality, the opinion polls suggest that the citizens of Europe are rather divided over the benefits of the EU.

"We must constantly renew Europe's political form," it goes on. "For that reason today, fifty years after the signing of the Treaties of Rome, we are united in the common goal of renewing, in time for the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, the common foundation on which the European Union is built."

That promises storms ahead, since if it means anything at all, it means returning to the vexed issue of the draft EU Constitution, even though the French and Dutch have already rejected it; and the British, Poles and Czechs would almost certainly follow suit, and would probably also resist a watered-down "treaty" instead of a constitution.

In the Netherlands, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen and Europe Minister Frans Timmermans formally wrote to their parliament last week, pledging that they will not ratify a new EU treaty that only differs slightly from the constitution. A possible new treaty should be different in "name, content and length" from the first and it should avoid any impression that the EU is becoming a "European superstate." They argue that more powers should be shifted down to national parliaments.

The "Open Europe" group last week published a poll of all 27 EU member states, showing that 75 percent of the public wants a referendum on any new treaty that gives more powers to the EU. In Britain, 83 percent would want a vote to be held. A majority in all 27 countries would want a referendum. If there was a referendum on a treaty giving new powers to the EU, on average 41 percent would vote for it, with an exactly equal 41 percent voting against. But British voters would vote more than three to one against such a new treaty (67 percent to 21 percent). Majorities would also vote "no" in 16 EU countries, including Germany.

"Only together can we preserve our European social model in the future," the Berlin Declaration continues. "That model combines economic success and social responsibility to the benefit of all citizens of the European Union. The single market and the euro make us strong enough to mould increasing economic interlinkage and competition according to our values."

In recent years, sadly, the EU economic model has produced lackluster growth, high structural unemployment that is double the American or British levels, overcrowded and underperforming universities and a scale of legal and illegal Islamic immigration that is straining Europe's social and political fabric. Its two emblematic high-tech ventures, the Airbus commercial jetliner and the Galileo satellite positioning system, are both in deep trouble.

And the euro is not popular. That same Open Europe poll found that among citizens in the 12 countries that use the euro, 47 percent wanted to keep it, but 49 percent wanted to go back to their old currency.

There is, it must be said, not a great deal of trust about in the EU, even on its 50th birthday. Czech President Vaclav Klaus complained, "The problem is that we are permanently shifting European integration more and more towards a supranational entity. I'm absolutely sure there will be sentences in the Declaration which will be later interpreted: 'Look, this is what you agreed to in Berlin,' even if it is not a binding document."

Apart from vague references to keep Europe "open," the Berlin Declaration rather ducked the pivotal issue of further enlargement, to include Turkey, Ukraine, the remaining Balkan states and possibly some day the Caucasus. The Turks were pointedly not invited to Berlin and made a notably dignified response. The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, "It would have been meaningful, in terms of demonstrating once again the unity of the European family, if Germany had invited candidate countries."

All this is rather sad, because the EU has been a stunning achievement. It (along with NATO) has ended the bloody centuries of Europe's tribal wars and spread peace and democracy to waves of new members, including Spain, Portugal and Greece as they emerged from fascism, and to Central and Eastern Europe as they emerged from communist rule. It has fostered an admirable level of prosperity among its members, even though this has lately become somewhat uneven and tending to stagnate.

The EU has pioneered a new form of post-national government, in which nation-states pool some of their sovereignty for the common good. Many of its admirers see this as a useful potential model for Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China-Taiwan, Latin America, parts of Africa and so on. The EU takes some issues, like human rights, global warming and the fostering of an international system of justice, with admirable seriousness.

But the EU is still faced with the overwhelming question: What now? The Berlin Declaration has notably failed to answer it. Still, it would be churlish to refrain from wishing the world's largest economic unit and (after India) its second-largest democratic entity a sincere "Happy Birthday." Considering the kind of Europe it replaced, the EU has been an almost miraculous success.

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