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Will the European Union make it? The question would have sounded strange not long ago. Now even the project’s greatest cheerlead

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问题     Will the European Union make it? The question would have sounded strange not long ago. Now even the project’s greatest cheerleaders talk of a continent facing a "Bermuda triangle" of debt, population decline and lower growth.
    As well as those chronic problems, the EU faces an acute crisis in its economic core, the 16 countries that use the single currency. Markets have lost faith that the euro zone’s economies, weaker or stronger, will one day converge thanks to the discipline of sharing a single currency, which denies uncompetitive members the quick fix of devaluation.
    Yet, the debate about how to save Europe’s single currency from disintegration is stuck. It is stuck because the euro zone’s dominant powers, France and Germany, agree on the need for greater harmonization within the euro zone, but disagree about what to harmonize.
    Germany thinks the euro must be saved by stricter rules on borrowing, spending and competitiveness, backed by quasi-automatic sanctions for governments that do not obey. These might include threats to freeze EU funds for poorer regions and EU mega-projects, and even the suspension of a country’s voting rights in EU ministerial councils. It insists that economic co-ordination should involve all 27 members of the EU club, among whom there is a small majority for free-market liberalism and economic rigor; in the inner core alone, Germany fears, a small majority favour French interference.
    A "southern" camp headed by France wants something different: "European economic government" within an inner core of euro-zone members. Translated, that means politicians intervening in monetary policy and a system of redistribution from richer to poorer members, via cheaper borrowing for governments through common Eurobonds or complete fiscal transfers. Finally, figures close to the French government have murmured, euro-zone members should agree to some fiscal and social harmonization: e.g. curbing competition in corporate-tax rates or labour costs.
    It is too soon to write off the EU. It remains the world’s largest trading block. At its best, the European project is remarkably liberal: built around a single market of 27 rich and poor countries, its internal borders are far more open to goods, capital and labour than any comparable trading area. It is an ambitious attempt to blunt the sharpest edges of globalization, and make capital benign.
The EU is faced with so many problems that______.
选项 A、it has more or less lost faith in markets
B、even its supporters begin to feel concerned
C、some of its member countries plan to abandon euro
D、it intends to deny the possibility of devaluation
答案B
解析 本题信息点是The EU is faced with so many problems，在文章中查阅该信息点时我们找到该信息点出现在文章开头，作者开头便提出本文要讨论的话题——欧盟是否能坚持下去呢?随后指出该问题不久前听起来还很奇怪，暗示不久前人们认为一定会成功，接下来话题转到现在甚至大的支持者(cheerleaders)也开始谈起欧洲大陆面临债务、人口及经济增长速度减缓等问题。由此可知欧盟面临的问题很严重，支持者也开始担忧，所以本题答案为B．even its supporters begin to feel concerned。
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