Elections show Europe's leaders are playing with fire

After the proposed European constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, David Rowe argued for a rethink on the pace of integration. After the latest elections to the European Parliament, a change of direction is even more urgent, he argues

Not since the ‘double no' in 2005 – when referendums in both France and the Netherlands rejected the proposed European constitution – have voters delivered such a scathing rebuke to their political class. I wrote then that Europe's leaders needed to rethink the pace of integration or risk losing the many benefits already achieved.

This might sound like a purely political issue, of tangential interest to risk managers, but it should not be. As with many projects that require broad public support