Will the European Union make it? The question would have sounded strange not long ago. Now even the project's greatest cheerleaders talk of a continent facing a "Bermuda triangle" of debt, population decline and lower growth.
欧盟能行吗？在不久前，这个问题是听来让人觉得奇怪。如今，即使是最热衷欧盟事业的人也在谈论欧洲所面临的百慕大三角问题，这三大问题是：债台高筑、人口下降和经济增长放缓。
As well as those chronic problems, the EU face an acute crisis in its economic core, the 16 countries that use the single currency. Markets have lost faith that the euro zone's economies, weaker or stronger, will one day converge thanks to the discipline of sharing a single currency, which denies uncompetitive members the quick fix of devaluation.
欧盟除了存在这些长期性的问题外，其经济核心还面临一个严重的危机，该经济核心指的是使用统一货币的16个国家。人们曾相信，欧元区经济体，无论弱国或强国，只要本着使用统一货币的原则，就能避免了那些缺乏竞争力的国家采取货币贬值这一权宜之计，就能有朝一日实现统一。如今市场已经丧失了这种信念。
Yet the debate about how to save Europe's single currency from disintegration is stuck. It is stuck because the euro zone's dominant powers, France and Germany, agree on the need for greater harmonization within the euro zone, but disagree about what to harmonies.
然而，就如何力挽欧元于瓦解的辩论却陷入了僵局。陷入僵局原因在于，欧元区的两大主导力量－法国和德国一致同意有必要在欧元区内实现更大的协调统一，但在对哪些方面进行协调统一这个问题上又存在分歧。
Germany thinks the euro must be saved by stricter rules on borrow spending and competitiveness, backed by quasi- automatic sanctions for governments that do not obey. These might include threats to freeze EU funds for poorer regions and EU mega-projects and even the suspension of a country's voting rights in EU ministerial councils. It insists that economic co-ordination should involve all 27 members of the EU club, among whom there is a small majority for free-market liberalism and economic rigour; in the inner core alone, Germany fears, a small majority favour French interference.
德国认为应该通过具有严格条款的借贷支出和竞争来节省欧元，对于不遵守条款的政府要实行类似的自动制裁方法。这些条款可能会冻结提供给较贫困地区和（欧盟）重大项目的欧盟资金，甚至暂停一个国家在欧盟部长级会议上的投票权。德国主张经济合作应该包括所有27个欧盟成员国。但欧盟中有一半多一点的国家信奉自由市场主义和严格的经济政策。就欧盟核心成员国而言，德国担心上述国家会支持法国的干预。
A "southern" camp headed by French wants something different: "European economic government" within an inner core of euro-zone members. Translated, that means politicians intervening in monetary policy and a system of redistribution from richer to poorer members, via cheaper borrowing for governments through common Eurobonds or complete fiscal transfers. Finally, figures close to the France government have murmured, euro-zone members should agree to some fiscal and social harmonization: e.g., curbing competition in corporate-tax rates or labour costs.
以法国为首的“南部”阵营想法迥异，法国提倡在欧元区成员国组成的内核中设立/建立“欧洲经济政府”。这意味着政治家们会干预货币政策和可实现资金从较富裕成员国流向较贫穷成员国的再分配体系，这种（资金）再分配是经由政府通过普通欧洲债券或彻底的财政转移进行低息借款而实现的。最终，那些与法国政府联系紧密的大人物颇有微词：欧元区成员国应该同意使用一些财政和社会协调方案：例如，抑制企业税率或劳工成本的竞争。
It is too soon to write off the EU. It remains the world's largest trading block. At its best, the European project is remarkably liberal: built around a single market of 27 rich and poor countries, its internal borders are far more open to goods, capital and labour than any comparable trading area. It is an ambitious attempt to blunt the sharpest edges of globalization, and make capitalism benign.
但解散欧盟为时尚早。它仍然是世界上最大的贸易区。它现在处于最佳状态，欧洲的项目工程非常自由：（它是）围绕由27个贫国和富国组成的单一市场而建立的，较之任何类似的贸易区，它的内部边界对于商品、资本和劳动力更为开放。它拥有一个宏图伟志，即钝化全球化这把剑最锋利的一面，同时使资本主义市场趋向良性发展。