Passage 1
When the European Community's vast single market officially takes effect on Jan.1, there will be no balloons and brass bands, and holiday fliers between EC cities will still face passport checks at airports. Europeans will wake up on New Year's Day with the same 10 per cent unemployment and doubts about European unity.
"There won't be the big bang some might have expected,” says Ricardo Perissich, EC director-general for the single market.
Yet in its current dour mood, Europe risks almost overlooking the revolutionary step forward it has taken in creating the world's largest and wealthiest barrier-free market-and on a continent where, for centuries, economic battles have led to some of history's bloodiest wars.
What did the writer worry about for Western Europe here?