Some Europeans have their gaze fixed on Malmö at the moment, where the Eurovision Song Contest is being hosted. Though, it might be worth paying attention to what is going on in London, Paris and Berlin, where different visions of Europe, which we ought to be debating, are developing.

On May 14, the British Conservative Party tabled a bill calling for a referendum, to be held no later than December 31, 2017, on the question: “Do you think the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union?” The terms of the debate were set out by Prime Minister David Cameron in January, when he called for a “new deal” between his country and a more flexible EU. In doing so, he unwittingly laid himself open to pressure from the Eurosceptics in his party and from the UK Independence Party, while writing the referendum into law makes it very difficult for him to back out of it. But he also forced his partners to face up to their responsibilities.

On the continent, François Hollande has finally delivered a broad sketch of his thoughts on the union. On May 16, he gave the EU two years to define the content of a political union. “It is a matter of urgency for Europe,” the French president declared. That these two years will bring us to the end of David Cameron’s government is perhaps no accident.

The French president also proposed an economic government for the Eurozone, with a president and monthly meetings, as well as “a new stage of integration with a fiscal capacity given to the Eurozone and the possibility, gradually, of raising loans.”

It remains to be seen what Germany will propose. And that will have to wait until September 23 and the outcome of the German elections. Angela Merkel seems securely entrenched in the Chancellery, but the country hasn’t heard the last from the Red-Green alliance.

This perhaps explains why the head of the Social Democrats, Peer Steinbrück, also came out with his own vision of Europe on May 14. The programme envisages a stronger European Parliament, which would participate in European Council meetings, and the transformation of the Commission into a government that eventually will be elected and accountable to Parliament.

And Angela Merkel? One year ago the Chancellory expressed its desire to see the Commission play the role of a government and the council of heads of state or government play the second chamber of parliament with reinforced powers. More recently, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble repeated that the banking union, considered a crucial element for the stabilisation of the Eurozone, would not go ahead without a new European treaty. He is therefore expected to know what Merkel is proposing these days.

François Hollande's speech was received cautiously in Berlin, where a gesture from Paris, whose voice has often been hard to hear over the past year, was expected. But no Franco-German initiative is anticipated before the end of the year, when we will know if Hollande and Merkel are condemned to work together for a few years more, or if a Franco-German axis with the Social Democrats may be possible.

The hardest part will come afterwards, when this potential vision will have to confront the vision of the British – and when it will have to confront the reality of European opinion as well. From this point of view, this is another Franco-German initiative that can – and must – promote a concrete vision of the future of Europe: that one that must be put forward by the next European summit, to tackle youth unemployment. We'll certainly be debating that.

Is there still a reason to celebrate Europe Day and the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which led to the founding of the European Union? Not really, I hear you say.

Caught in the grip of the most severe economic and institutional crisis since WWII, Europe is going from bad to worse. To name but a few of the obstacles it faces: Europe has to contend with a rift between a virtuous North whose solidarity has been all but exhausted and a South that is lagging behind; with an integration process that has been blocked by states which jealously guard their sovereignty; with the isolationism advocated by some and the confrontation proposed by others; and with the disaffection of its citizens. In short, for its most ardent opponents, it is only a matter time before the EU collapses.

However, there are reasons to believe that Europe has already hit bottom and may be on the way back. The signs that this is the case are not easily descernible — let’s say that you need a good magnifying glass and a hefty dose of optimism to see them. But they are there nonetheless.

The banking union, which will be indispensable if we are to avoid another sovereign debt crisis, appears to be taking shape. On May 7, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble described it as a “priority project”, and one that he wants to see implemented “quickly”.

The euro, which looked to be on the way out six months ago, is doing better, and it now appears obvious that no one in Europe, and particularly not Berlin, wants to it to disappear. The countries of the eurozone also seem to have come to terms with the fact that they cannot continue to share the same currency without coordinating their economic policies.

With regard to recovery, it appears that Berlin, which has now realised that its interests are best served by European partners that are diligent, but not to the point where they are bled dry, has begun to soften its position on budgetary austerity — a change of tune which had already been heard in Brussels. No doubt, the pressure exerted by Paris, Madrid and the new Italian government had much to do with this development.

In short, we are still in the tunnel but there is a light ahead. And no, it is not the headlight of an oncoming train.

The scars are still far from healed, but Gazeta Wyborcza has aptly summed up what we’re seeing these days, namely “an end to the 24-year war in the Balkans”.

On 19 April, 15 years after the NATO intervention and following months of EU-brokered talks, Serbia and Kosovo signed a treaty to normalize their relations. A gesture quite rightly hailed as historic, even if it does not mean official recognition of Pristina by Belgrade and even if the implementation of the autonomy granted to the Serb-majority areas is bound to prove difficult.

Less than a week after that, the Serb president made a symbolic gesture, this time toward his Bosnian neighbours. Tomislav Nikolić is not going to leave behind an image as powerful as that of German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before the memorial to the heroes of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. But asking forgiveness “on his knees” for “the crimes of Srebrenica”, he acknowledged Serb responsibility for the 1995 genocide and paved the way for a dialogue, which will likewise be anything but easy.

These two events have one thing in common: the desire to turn the page on the wars in ex-Yugoslavia and to take the path towards joining the European Union. In this period of crisis for the European project, the western Balkan nations are showing us that the European Union retains a bit of its “soft power”, its force of attraction, which enables it to stabilize and democratize its nearby neighbours.

But this desire for Europe on the part of the Serbs (who’d have thought Nikolić the nationalist and his Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, ex-spokesman for Slobodan Milošević, would take these two steps?), Kosovars and, in the longer term, Bosnians might turn out to be a dangerous liaison for the EU. For it opens up two possibilities, between which a narrow middle way will have to be found.

Responding positively to these goodwill gestures and admitting Serbia (the most advanced of the three countries) within the next few years would be running the risk of an overly hasty and ill-prepared enlargement. This new member’s economy, state structures, justice system, and more generally its political practices would still be too far removed from the optimum European norms. And it would end up being rejected by public opinion in the EU and causing disillusionment in Serbia itself.

On the other hand, taking into account Serbia’s need to catch up in these domains and pushing back its accession prospects would run the risk of halting the reformist and democratic momentum of its leaders and of its society as a whole.

In other words, Serbia and its neighbours have been making concrete encouraging signs over the past few days, so the EU is going to have to hold out prospects of accession, even while setting certain limits – an exercise in political geometry at which it has always been inept. The example of Cyprus’s accession, which was supposed to help resolve the problem of Turkish occupation of half the island, and that of the erratic talks with Turkey are past cases in point. Especially since the western Balkans, and this is nearly a cliché by now, remain a powder keg.

Croatian accession, slated for 1 July, is not a coincidence. No doubt it will push the leaders in Belgrade towards efforts to avoid being relegated to the group of small Balkan states without accession prospects. But it should be an opportunity, as political scientist Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier recently pointed out, “to place the rule of law at the centre of enlargement policy” – so as to better prepare the welcome for future newcomers and avoid disenchantment the morning after.