Reading this week's papers you could be forgiven for thinking that the EU is facing a cataclysm of Wagnerian proportions. The constitution debacle has left "Europe in turmoil" says the Times of London, while the French daily Le Monde refers to this week's meeting as a "high-risk summit for a Europe in crisis." In fact putting "crisis" and "Europe" in the same sentence has, over the last few weeks, become as much of a journalistic cliché as ending an article with "it remains to be seen." But is it actually true? Do the, to put it mildly, rather lively budget negotiations at the EU summit in Brussels held on Thursday and Friday this week actually amount to a crisis?

No, says Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the London-based think tank, the Centre for European Reform. "Do you think that in the past EU leaders didn't spend three days haggling behind closed doors over the common agricultural policy? Of course they did," she says. "Every time. It would be nice if that wasn't necessary, but we have just taken on ten new members, we have a new currency and less money to go round." The budget debate "is normal and it's certainly not a crisis," she adds.

"We have moved a lot over the last few years: a single currency, new common policies and several enlargements," she says. "So it is understandable that people need time to get used to all the changes." Barysch also argues that the massive attention focused on this week's summit has a lot to do with the fact that the meeting comes hot on the heels of the Dutch and French rejection of the European constitution.

Talk about Bad Timing

In fact, many experts believe that unfortunate timing is one of the main problems which the EU is facing at the moment. Professor Christian Koenig from the Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn in Germany says that "by lumping the (constitution and the budget) together, the political elites in London, Berlin and Paris are actually talking themselves into a crisis."

He says that the media is also guilty of confusing the two issues by not explaining that they have nothing to do with one another: On the one hand the budget dispute is a regularly scheduled discussion which takes place every five years, while on the other the EU constitution is a one time only decision. And even the constitution difficulties aren't such a big deal, he says. "The fact that the constitution was not ratified simply means that we will have to carry on using the existing treaty framework for a while longer than hoped for," he says. "But this is no reason for a crisis."

Who Needs a Constitution Anyway?

Nevertheless no one is denying that the situation is serious. The referenda results in France and Holland were a clear indication of widespread dissatisfaction in Europe -- and the only concrete result so far to come out of the summit is a decision to delay the ratification process. In other words, do nothing; hardly inspirational.

While the EU can certainly survive without a constitution, decision-making with 25 vetoes will be cumbersome to say the least. There is a general consensus that some sort of institutional reform is needed. But the difficulties faced by the constitution is a major distraction from what the EU should really be doing. Instead of dealing with pressing issues such as economic reform, high unemployment in many member countries and trade relations with China, the Union will have to spend even more time and resources trying to push through a controversial -- and unwieldy --treaty document. No wonder Europe's leaders are looking exhausted at the prospect.

But if nothing else, the EU, adept as it is at fudging far from ideal compromises, is more resilient than it is often given credit for. The European Coal and Steel Community of 1952 was viewed as too much, too soon, too fast, as was the treaty of Rome in 1957, which set up the European Economic Community. Despite major reservations at the time and apparently insurmountable problems, this then morphed into the European Union with the treaty of Maastricht in 1992.

Each stage of growth was accompanied by prophesies of doom and unattractive political wrangling, not dissimilar in tone and content to today's rather messy debates. What has, of course, changed is that European economies are now weaker and the union is larger. The current debate also comes at a time when the citizens of many EU member states are unhappy with their national governments.