I. Vocabulary

A. Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian:

on a voluntary basis; to hold back; popular support; to track opinion; numerous indications; to be unintelligible to smb; inertia; annual growth; GDP (gross domestic product); GDP per capita; to benefit from; immense potential; economic circumstances; common currency; longstanding differences; to substitute smth for smth; to drive up prices on smth; spike; the increase in trust (upsurge of trust); to ebb to smth; margin of … percent; to substantiate; identity; diversity; reference point; impinge on; merchandise export; plurality (weak plurality); cumbersome structure; pivotal issues;

В. Find in the text English equivalents for:

Активно развивать политическую и экономическую интеграцию; единая внешняя политика и политика госбезопасности; экономическое неравенство; финансово-бюджетная политика; вводить в обращение (о деньгах); искусственно поддерживать курс валюты/цену; на фоне обвинений в плохом управлении и назначении на посты по знакомству; националистические настроения;

II. Answer the questions:

1. How do the Europeans feel about the EU?

2. What is the reason for such fluctuation in their attitude? (Give your opinion as well)

3. How can it be proved that the Europeans support EU integration?

4. What was the reason for the Convention on the Future of Europe to convent?

5. Describe the situation with the EU GDP.

6. What are the obstacles in the sphere of economy to overcome?

7. Which countries are not in the euro zone?

8. What can be said about satisfaction with EU institutions?

9. Speak about political identity

10. What are the relations between the EU and Germany? How do common people asses its influence?

11. Enumerate the problems with the EU's expansion.

III. Comment on the following quotations:

• The policy of European integration is in reality a question of war and peace in the 21^st century (H. Kohl)

• "If I had been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better arrangement of the Universe" (Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile)

• We can never prove that a continent-wide collection of independent, fully sovereign European democracies would not behave in the same broadly pacific way without the existence of any European Union. May be they would, but would you care to risk it? (Timothy Garton Ash)

• One basic formula for understanding the Community is this: ‘Take five broken empires, add the sixth one later, and make one big neo-colonial empire out of it all.’ (Professor Johan Galtung)

IV. Read the texts and comment on their headings and answer the following questions:

What are the texts aimed at?

How do they contribute to our understanding of the EU (its institutions; demands for would-be members; public attitude, etc)

When is a banana a banana?

Many people consider Europe the epicurean center of the world, and the EU's "food fights" bear out the in­tensity of that continent's decision toward gastronomical policy.

During onе discussion in the Council of Ministers in 2002 over а proposal to locate new EU food safety agency in Finland, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi argued that it should be put in Parma, Italy, on the grounds that "Parma is synonymous with good cuisine. The Finns don't even know what prosciutto is," Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium pointed out reasonably that "the gastronomic at­traction is not argument for the allocation of an EU agency," And President Jacques Chirac of France asked aloud, "How would it be if Sweden got an agency for training models, since [it has such] pretty women?" Berlusconi was unpersuaded. "My final word is no," he proclaimed, and the conferees put off the decision until after lunch.

The many tales of attempts by bureaucrats to regulate everything, which have become part of the political lore of Europe, have also often included skirmishes over what food can be called.

Many Europeans reacted with bemusement, for example, at the EU's banana contretemps. The details аrе slippery, but it all stemmed from а bunch of regula­tions promulgated by the EU bureaucracy that, among other things, specified that imported bananas had to be at least 5.5 inches long and 1.1 inches wide, and could not be abnormally bent. Great Britain, where archeologists uncovered the remains of а banana skin dating back to the mid-1400s, was especially offended. "Brussels bureaucrats proved yesterday what а barmy bunch they are – by outlawing curved bananas. The crazy laws were drawn by thumb-twiddling chiefs who spent thousands on а yearlong study," protested the British newspaper, the Sun. An EU spokesperson rе­plied that while, indeed, bananas of abnormal shape could not be imported, that "in no sense" meant that EU regulation banned "curved bananas because а curve is а normal shape for а banana".

Onсе the Europeans аgreed on what a banana was, they also agreed to impose lower tariffs on bananas from their former colonies than on bananas from other places. That drove Americans bananas because many of those other places were Caribbean and Central American countries with close ties to the United States. Washington then butted heads with the EU by threatening to retaliate by barring cashmere and other EU products. This got the goat of Scottish cashmere producers. In the end, the two economic superpowers were able to escape the horns of this dilemma by agreeing that the EU would gradually end its preferences for its bunch of favored countries and equally admit the bananas from the U.S.-favored bunch of countries.

The reputation of Eurocracy was further darkened by the chocolate imbroglio. Having decided that bananas could indeed be bent, at least somewhat, and in the right places, policymakers turned to the sticky issue of what constitutes chocolate. The battle line was drawn between the eight EU countries that rе­quire chocolate to consist entirely of cocoa butter and the other seven EU members that allow up to 5 percent vegetable oil chocolate. Representing the purists, the head of the Belgian chocolate company Godiva proclaimed that only " 100 percent chocolate should be called... chocolate." Answering back for the non- doctrinaire chocolatiers, а representative of Great Britain's largest chocolate-maker, Cadbury, urged, "Let's cele­brate Europe's regional diversity and recognize that there are different ways of making chocolate". The purists won the first round when the European Parliament voted З06 to 112 in favor of their position. But the war wasn't over, for the European Council of Min­isters had to make the final gooey decision. "Whatever we do will be attacked from onе side or the other," an EU spokesperson has complained. Compromise was the sweet solution. An early 2000 ruling declared that chocolate with vegetable oil could be shipped throughout the EU. Moreover it could be labeled choc­olate, but only in the seven nonpurist countries. In the purist eight, it would have to be labeled "family milk chocolate." Not that it has anything to do with families or milk. Ah well, as Forrest Gump mused, "Life is like а box of chocolates."

Give Russian equivalents

on the ground that; to be unpersuaded; conferee; to put off the decision until; political lore; to be involved in a skirmish; contretemps; to outlaw, to ban, to bar; thumb-twiddling (thumb-twiddler); spokesperson; to drive bananas; close ties to; to retaliate (+ against; for); to get one's goat; to escape the horns of dilemma (to be between….); to darken one's reputation; imbroglio

Sex and the single currency

No one loves Europe's prospective single currency more than the Italians. Three- quarters are "very happy" about monetary union, say opinion pollsters. This year they uncomplainingly paid а hefty "tax for Europe" so that they could join it. There is even а prime-time television programme, Maastricht Italia, devoted to extolling the euro. Theу love it, all right; but do they know what it is?

Not if you believe а survey recently published in Il Mondo. The newspaper said that only 21 % of Italians know that the future single currency is called the euro. Slightly fewer get half-credit for identifying it as the ecu, а basket-currency that is а forerunner to the euro; and 59% haven't а clue what the object of their desire is called. Theу have even less idea where its headquarters will be. Only 0,2% managed to identify Frankfurt as the site of the future European central bank. Quite а few Italians, according to another poll, think the euro is а nickname for the European Union or а satellite television station.

Do Italians know less than other Europeans? Apparently, though Eurobaro­meter, the EU's pollster, does not ask Europeans what the single currency is called "as widespread knowledge of the name euro is now taken for granted".

There is other evidence that ardour and ignorance go together. According to Eurobarometer, the countries that deem themselves well informed about monetary union (cool-headed northerners like Denmark, Finland, Germany and Britain) are the most euro-skeptic. The enthusiasts (Italy, Greece, Spain) admit to being ill-informed. These hot-blooded southerners are about to discover what happens when kerbside seductions turn into lifelong commitments.

Give Russian equivalents

monetary union; to pay a hefty tax; to extol the euro; to get half-credit; a basket currency; a forerunner to smth; ardour and ignorance; a euro-skeptic; to be ill-informed; life-long commitments;