雅思阅读练习题分享：Next Year Marks，请认真阅读训练
Part I
Reading Passage 1
You should spend about 20 minutes onQuestions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage1 below.
Next Year Marks the EU's 50th Anniversary ofthe Treaty
A.
After a period of introversion and stunned self-disbelief, continental Europeangovernments will recover their enthusiasm for pan-European institution-building in 2007.Whether the European public will welcome a return to what voters in two countries had rejectedso short a time before is another matter.
B.
There are several reasons for Europe’s recovering self-confidence. For years Europeaneconomies had been lagging dismally behind America (to say nothing of Asia), but in 2006 thelarge continental economies had one of their best years for a decade, briefly outstrippingAmerica in terms of growth. Since politics often reacts to economic change with a lag, 2006’simprovement in economic growth will have its impact in 2007, though the recovery may beebbing by then.
C.
The coming year also marks a particular point in a political cycle so regular that it almostseems to amount to a natural law. Every four or five years, European countries take a largestride towards further integration by signing a new treaty: the Maastricht treaty in 1992, theTreaty of Amsterdam in 1997, the Treaty of Nice in 2001. And in 2005 they were supposed toratify a European constitution, laying the ground for yet more integration—until the calmrhythm was rudely shattered by French and Dutch voters. But the political impetus to signsomething every four or five years has only been interrupted, not immobilised, by thissetback.
D.
In 2007 the European Union marks the 50th anniversary of another treaty—the Treaty ofRome, its founding charter. Government leaders have already agreed to celebrate itceremoniously, restating their commitment to “ever closer union” and the basic ideals ofEuropean unity. By itself, and in normal circumstances, the EU’s 50th-birthday greeting to itselfwould be fairly meaningless, a routine expression of European good fellowship. But it doesnot take a Machiavelli to spot that once governments have signed the declaration (and itseems unlikely anyone would be so uncollegiate as to veto it) they will already be halfwaytowards committing themselves to a new treaty. All that will be necessary will be toincorporate the 50th-anniversary declaration into a new treaty containing a number ofinstitutional and other reforms extracted from the failed attempt at constitution-building and—hey presto—a new quasi-constitution will be ready.
E.
According to the German government—which holds the EU’s agenda-setting presidencyduring the first half of 2007—there will be a new draft of a slimmed-down constitution readyby the middle of the year, perhaps to put to voters, perhaps not. There would then be a coupleof years in which it will be discussed, approved by parliaments and, perhaps, put to voters ifthat is deemed unavoidable. Then, according to bureaucratic planners in Brussels and Berlin,blithely ignoring the possibility of public rejection, the whole thing will be signed, sealed and anew constitution delivered in 2009-10. Europe will be nicely back on schedule. Its four-to-five-year cycle of integration will have missed only one beat.
F.
The resurrection of the European constitution will be made more likely in 2007 because ofwhat is happening in national capitals. The European Union is not really an autonomousorganisation. If it functions, it is because the leaders of the big continental countries want itto, reckoning that an active European policy will help them get done what they want to do intheir own countries.
G.
That did not happen in 2005-06. Defensive, cynical and self-destructive, the leaders ofthe three largest euro-zone countries—France, Italy and Germany—were stumbling towardstheir unlamented ends. They saw no reason to pursue any sort of European policy and the EU,as a result, barely functioned. But by the middle of 2007 all three will have gone, and this factalone will transform the European political landscape.
H.
The upshot is that the politics of the three large continental countries, bureaucraticmomentum and the economics of recovery will all be aligned to give a push towardsintegration in 2007. That does not mean the momentum will be irresistible or even popular.The British government, for one, will almost certainly not want to go with the flow, beginningyet another chapter in the long history of confrontation between Britain and the rest ofEurope. More important, the voters will want a say. They rejected the constitution in 2005. Itwould be foolish to assume they will accept it after 2007 just as a result of an artful bit oftinkering.
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