An uncoupled Europe ahead?

The Washington Times ^ | June 30, 2004 | Marian L. Tupy

[xsysmgr]

The EU-U.S. summit comes at a time of great changes in Europe. On May 1, the European Union underwent the greatest expansion in its history, and negotiators are putting final touches on the European constitution.

Territorial "widening" and constitutional "deepening," however, may not symbolize Europe's growing strength.They may represent the zenith of its integration. The Bush administration should be aware of the troubles Europe faces and fashion U.S. foreign policy so as to minimize the negative consequences of Europe's probable break-up.

[blanknoone]

I would die laughing if Britain was simultaneously in the EU FTA and entered into a FTA with America.

[.cnI redruM]

The finance ministers of France and Germany and their minimum corporate taxes remind me of "Fair Traders" in our country who favor trade agreements only if they include price supports for inefficient industries.

I think as long as France and Germany have the military firepower to at least partially help in places like Checkoslavakia and Yugoslavia, these smaller and weaker nations will put up with their hegemony and just take it and pay up.

On balance, this situation will remain stable for at least 30 or so years. Sort of like Metternich's Concert of Europe. This is particularly true if both the US and Great Britain play along with France and Germany.

[Malesherbes]

The canary in the mineshaft is whether all 25 members of the European Union ratify the new constitution. Unanimity is required for it to go into effect, and odds are that Britain, Poland, and at least a few others will reject it.

What the article posits about a functioning "demos" applies to the USA as well. We have the conditions for a functioing market economy, but socially our country is split in an increasingly divisive way between liberal activists and fed-up conservatives.

[expatpat]

On balance, this situation will remain stable for at least 30 or so years. Sort of like Metternich's Concert of Europe

I don't think it will last that long. The course of events moves much faster now than in the 19thC, especially that part of the 19thC.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

First off, we MUST act to keep the Brits out of the EU--and I think that undermining and ultimate dissolution of the European Union should be job #1 for our foreign policy in the 21st Century. We just spent ten trillion dollars breaking up the Soviet Union. Why reunite it six hundred miles west?

[.cnI redruM]

More on the French and German tax initiatives...

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/06/tax_competition.html

[Penner]

Messrs. Sarkozy and Eichel are disingenuous. The entire point of a minimum corporate tax is to make the new members less competitive. Alas, that kind of economically suicidal policy is not likely to be accepted in Central and Eastern Europe, whose people were constantly asked to make sacrifices under communism. Altruism was lauded as the highest of civic virtues. But by the late 1980s the new members had little to show for it. They are unlikely to sacrifice their economic prosperity to help France and Germany balance their budgets.

Yes, I'm sure that Central and Eastern Europeans prefer poverty over prosperity. These countries need Germany and France a lot more than Germany and France need them. Altruism does play a role in the EU, though that concept is beyond the grasp of the author who displays a stunning ignorance of the European point of view.

[RJL]

The Bush administration should be aware of the troubles Europe faces and fashion U.S. foreign policy so as to minimize maximize the negative consequences for France, of Europe's probable break-up.

[Billthedrill]

One of the ironies of the early 21st century may well be a centralized, bureaucratic, quasi-socialist Europe kept afloat by trade with decentralized, capitalist Russia and China, with Marx spinning in his grave. But he did make the right call: "History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."