After the Wall

BERLIN: Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Helmut Kohl's dream of a united Germany leading to a politically united Europe remains unfinished business.

It is set to stay that way despite the approval of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty this week by the lone holdout, the Czech Republic.

Resistance by Euro-skeptical Britain and reluctance by France to share more sovereignty prevented the EU moving any further towards Kohl's dream of a full political union akin to Germany's own federal system of governance.