Oh, please..."Old Europe leading New Europe?"..Yup..that meake saa whole lot of sense....have you looked at the figures for economic growth in Poland and Eastern Europe, vs, that of Germany and France?..The whole EU concept, is unweildy and unworkable..the only ones who benefit are the beaurocrats...
European reality is sometimes a bit different to the media image that is projected from the outside.
In difference to "new" Europe the countries of "old" Europe decree over a developed, affluent and technologically powerful economy while the economy of "new" Europe has to be developed first. Although they have high growth rates (thank God) the economies in Poland and eastern Europe are much smaller than those in western Europe. Germanys economy is i.e. 5 times as big as the economy of Poland if we take the purchasing power parity. If the economies of eastern Europe are fully developed their growth will slow down too - naturally. I am sure that they will develop fast, but to be realistic it will take a minimum of ten years (probably more) until they have comparable standarts to the western part of the old continent.
BTW the concept of a European conferation is not that bad for the possible member nations: They can do many reasonable things like combining their millitary or use their bigger political weight to take influence on certain issues of their interest. Maybe we are even able to get rid of some useless administration. Who knows?
"have you looked at the figures for economic growth in Poland and Eastern Europe, vs, that of Germany and France?.."
The difference is that growth in "new" Europe is low and in "old" Europe is very low or don't exist at all.