Just in the moment the single currency is coming into force, the European community is withdrawing in a moral , structural and politic crisis whose outcomes are unforeseeable. “We are as an alpinist, “ says one of the most influencing Commissaries, “who after reaching the top of a crest finds himself in front of three or four ways and he does not know which of them take.” 
The Euro has been an important target for everyone, even if- on the practice side- has lessened Brussels powers to give them to the European Central Bank of Frankfurt. And now what do we must do? Must we dedicate to reform structures, to the widening to the East, to pass a foreign common security politic? Or must we provide first of all to clean up at home, eliminating wastes and bureaucratic errors risen in these last years? 
Or must we consider that, prevailing socialist governments within the Union, Maastricht parameters are not any more the Gospel and that we must get back to the Keynes development policy hoping to create employment? 
Or must the commission submit to the fact that, apparently against the trend toward the single currency, we are present at a re-nationalization process of problems, a little in name of  the well-known principle of subsidiarity, a little abhorring the European bureaucracy many countries start to consider as an enemy?
A visit, even brief, to the Brussels halls allows realizing how it is spread this dismay feeling. Regarding Commissaries, among whom fortunately the Italians Mario Monti and Emma Bonino, who are always present and make their work with enthusiasm and efficiency, there are other commissaries whom you can see hardly more than twice a week and who leave their Ministry management to the executives who- due to  the latest wave of scandals - are more and more afraid to assume their own responsibilities. Even under the pressure of widening (each member state has the right to an employees quota, that cannot be covered by subtracting employees to other countries), the personnel has exceeded  quota 17.000, keeping  on growing, even if slowly, and salaries absorb already the 5% of the community balance.
The quite imminent changing of the guard - besides representing a stop of new initiatives - plants a lot of questions. It falls in a moment when, eleven of the fifteen European governments are hold by Left man, two are great coalitions and only two are centrist-right wing. 
Even if, in some great Countries, it is in use the tradition to name a Commissary belonging to majority and another coming from opposition, it is unavoidable that the next Commission will be more Left oriented than the present one. In addition, due to a no written principle of alternate government,  the presidency too must turn to a socialist, or at least to a man (as it will be Romano Prodi) who pleases to socialists. But if the Left, already majority, European Council level, “would occupy “ the Commission too, many priorities at Brussels could change, emphasising increasingly the social aspect and new management phase coming on. Among the so called “Maastricht apostles “, that is who want to go on the way of financial rigour and avoid Europe launching into new adventures before settling the single currency, a big worry is spreading. “It is clearly arousing' says a high executive who wants to remain anonymous, “that the list of four socialist in power in the main Countries of the Union- Schroeder, Jospin, D'Alema and, to a less extent, the same Tony Blair “want to set apart the monetary policy and engage Europe in big and expensive projects that could create employment. So well, here many observers are convinced that this return of the expenditure party is premature, since the recovery has not been carried out yet and there's the risk to compromise the sacrifices made for years.
Concerning the “apostles of Maastricht” they will influence next Commission, and how much resistance they could opposite to the reviving eurospenders, it is to see. But  even if defences were dismantled at Brussels, at Frankfurt the European Community Bank, whose management has been named before the politic change, are putting up barricades. If the directives outcome from the informal summit of the new government leaders at Portschach, by the middle of October, would be translated into politic initiatives, we will find ourselves facing, maybe for the first time in Europe, an ideological background struggle among several institutions, that it could also produce dead and wounded.
But these ones are only the Eurocrats torments, nowadays struggling against a series of burning dossiers whose expirations sometime cannot be postponed. 

The target is a price lowering to make them more competitive, global level. So the attempt is to pass by degrees from the  production subsidies policy to direct subsidies to farmers. That means that they will be paid to warrant protection to rural world and to avoid the exodus from land, instead of supporting agriculture. These new subventions, instead of coming from the community cash, will fall, at least partially, over the national governments, with the result of transferring the charge of interventions. The difference in concepts  is colossal, and it could also bring- by degrees- to the abolition of that monstrosities like the milk allowances, that cost to Italy thousand billion for production looses and fines. All is aimed, besides a general balance dimensioning, to avoid , following the entering in the EU of low productivity but strong production countries, as Poland and Hungary,  the expenses going out of control. One by one the different dossiers, olive oil, wine, fruits and vegetables are settled, but for meat, dairy products and seeds items (for us the main problem is rice) the struggle is still heated.
Alike considerations concern  the structural funds that, widening to East, would  go all to the new members, leaving the present beneficiaries (among which Italy, if able to present good project and to finance them at 50%) empty handed. The Union, first considering the widening to East as a kind of proper act, a proper reparation to Countries who cursed with communism for forty years , is realizing step by step that their enter, without a long period of training and legislative adjustment looks in most cases quite unsurmountable. I.e. prospecting to offer free circulation in Europe to four million Pole workers, expelled by their system, scares Germans  to death, and thinking about having Slovenia at the east frontier, able to appeal, thanks to low wages, the north-east entrepreneurs does not enthusiasm the Italian government. In  the involved countries too it prevails the disenchantment: they are a bit irritate of being always under examination, to loss their decisional autonomy, so hardly regained from USSR, in favour of Europe and to be compelled to make , at the double, a heavy normative adjustment, without any warranty of being admitted at once to the benefits they aimed at.
Anyway something must change to make the Commission's activity not to become only a routine. There are huge things to do so to complete the single market and to ease the Euro operating: first, the co-ordination of fiscal policies, observing a behaviour code regarding companies tax matter, aimed to avoid the unfair competition between the Union countries: on the other hand it concerns very technical matters, unable to stimulate imagination an so to make the citizens' idea of Europe progresses: also the European Constitution project, that the Federalist Movement cares so much, can be useful , but it is not enough. It's the new leaders' duty inventing a spring. But, considering the a few retro concepts showed about economic matters, would they be able to?