Will, or the desire to do something, is veryimportant to the completion of the ECo-C; the certificate is no obligation, nocompulsion, and for someone to take it, they must have (first and foremost)developed the awareness that they need to apply themselves to improve theircommunication procedures. Furthermore, anyone who failed to understand thissimple need would fail to apply themselves and then… simply fail alltogether.Which brings us back to the will to try and the will to succeed.

The ECo-C is hardly the first setting in whichwillpower can and does make a difference; the European CommunicationCertificate simply follows the European Union itself.

In the grand scheme of things, good relationscan come about two ways: through long mutual exchange and contact, or throughdeliberate action; and in our particular example, as in the ECo-C, it was thelater: the EU could never have been created and built if not for the mutualengagement on the part of the German and the French to build and maintain goodrelations.

It was surely not easy; there were surely majoras well as minor issues to overcome. But the will to reverse a century ofdistrust and ennimity was stronger than the hiccups on the road to success.

Looking back on all that, we European citizenscan only be glad for the relative success of the European project. But on amore mundane, everyday scale, we can also be glad that a certificate existswhose purpose is to teach individuals to harness their will and develop theessential skills that went into this political project in the first place. Communicationto ensure that the partners remain on the same page. Conflict management todeal with the past. Self-marketing to make oneself known as one is, andteamwork to build the future.

In this instance, the egg came first. But asever, the point was the chicken that will lay the next egg. As for what thatwill be, time will tell.