In an article published in the Madrid daily newspaper El País on 1 October 1997, on the eve of the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, MEPs Jean-Louis Bourlanges (European People’s Party), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Group of the Greens), Gianfranco Dell’Alba (European Radical Alliance), Olivier Duhamel (Party of European Socialists), José María Mendiluce Pereiro (Party of European Socialists) and Antoinette Spaak (European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party) paint a gloomy picture of the economic, social and political situation of the European Union and harshly criticise its inability to take up new challenges.