Will the European Union make it? The question would have sounded strange not long ago. Now even the project’s greatest cheerlead

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问题    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.
   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.
   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 harmonisation within the euro zone, but disagree about what to harmonise.
   Germany thinks the euro must be saved by stricter rules on borrow spending and competitiveness, barked 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.
   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 harmonisation: e.g., curbing competition in corporate-tax rates or labour costs.
   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.
The EU is faced with so many problems that

选项 A、even its supporters begin to feel concerned.
B、it has more or less lost faith in markets.
C、some of its member countries plan to abandon euro.
D、it intends to deny the possibility of devaluation.

答案A

解析 细节题。题干的意思是,欧盟因为面临很多问题以至于出现了什么状况。考生通过第 一段的最后一句话可以得出,A项“甚至它的支持者们也开始感到担忧”为正确答案,此处只 要理解“cheerleader”是“啦啦队队长”的含义就不难做选择。B项为“它多少已经失去了对市场 的信心”,而文章第二段提到的是“Markets have lost faith…”,即“市场已然失去了信心…”,并 非B项所表达的意思,故为错误选项;C项“它的一些成员国计划放弃欧元”以及D项“它意 欲否决贬值的可能性”都无法在文中找到依据,故均为错误选项。
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