For all its faults, the single market is the greatest asset of the European Union. Making sure that capital, goods, services, and labor flow ever more freely within the single market should thus be the Union’s top priority. The economic crisis has put it in question, though. Lord Mandelson, a former European trade commissioner now back in Britain as business secretary, is thus to be praised for his speech in Brussels early this month in which he warned that, without bolder leadership, the Union risks playing a “merely walk-on rôle” in a “totally reordered global economy” dominated by America and China (“Single Market Bargaining,” November 14, 2009). The warning has come a bit late, though. The Union has been an extra without any lines for quite a while already. Making sure that the single market works well ensures that it keeps a walk-on rôle at best. In the longer run, even this is hardly guaranteed in a totally reordered global economy.