I can't tell if the Guardian is for or against the EU consitution... they're so objective.
/sarcasm
Posted on 05/29/2005 8:04:31 PM PDT by Pikamax
Europe stunned
Leader Monday May 30, 2005
Guardian
France's emphatic rejection of the EU constitutional treaty is a stunning blow at a time when the continent faces grave economic problems and political challenges. Much comment in recent weeks has suggested that a no vote, while embarrassing, could be shrugged off, since the treaty of Nice will allow the union to carry on functioning.
But that misses the point that the constitution was agreed unanimously by 25 member states representing 455 million people from Helsinki to the Azores and from Nicosia to Warsaw. It represents a considerable investment of political capital and is a carefully-crafted compromise between different visions of the union, streamlining its functioning and boosting its clout in a world dominated by an unassailably powerful US. Despite the dire warnings of eurosceptics, it sets limits on integration. Its defeat - by 55% - 45% according to initial official figures - is very bad news for those who want a more coherent Europe punching at its weight. The value of the euro dipped on foreign exchanges last week in response to signs that the nos were holding their lead. Americans, Chinese and Indians, vying for advantage in an interdependent world, will be able to get their way more easily if Europeans are in disarray.
Rejection by France makes the blow doubly painful. It is true that the reasons for the no victory seem to be less about the treaty itself than the country's crisis over its place in an enlarged Europe, the failure of its political class and a reluctance to confront the challenges of globalisation. But the vote marks an alarming retreat from its historic role as a keen European and motor of integration.
Deference to the Dutch referendum on Wednesday meant that official responses to last night's extraordinary result were muted. But it is already clear that there is no point in pretending that the process of ratification should go ahead as if nothing had happened. It is regrettable that France's no means there will be no need for a referendum in this country to clarify, perhaps once and for all, what Britons want from their relationship with the rest of Europe. If there is no constitution to ratify, there is no need for a UK vote. Demands by eurosceptics anxious to provoke a terminal crisis should be firmly resisted.
France's no is highly damaging to the credibility and popularity of the EU, already in very poor shape as shown by the record low turnout in the European elections last summer. But much more than credibility is at stake. The immediate effect of this crisis is that it is hard to imagine that Turkey will be able to begin its membership talks in October, since anti-Turkish feeling was a key issue of the French and Dutch no campaigns. Prospects for agreement on the EU budget for 2007-2003 will also recede. It had been hoped that this could be settled before Tony Blair takes over the presidency on July 1. With Germany facing new elections in the autumn that mammoth task will have to be put off until next year, dangerously close to the deadline.
Much will be said in the coming days about salutary wake-up calls, heard when Denmark and Sweden rejected euro membership and Ireland the Nice treaty. But there will be nothing salutary about this failure if governments retreat from Europe into navel-gazing and narrow national agendas. If Britain carries on demanding its money back in the row over the budget it is far from inconceivable that others will demand their sovereignty back, or resist the call to dismantle protective trade barriers.
The idea of an integrationist Franco-German core emerging from the rubble seems fanciful: what do the two biggest and most underperforming economies in the eurozone have to offer by way of leadership? It will take time for the dust to settle. But even when it has, it is far from certain that the way ahead will be clear.
The canonical mispelling of beeper. A future entry in freeper dictionary.
I can't tell if the Guardian is for or against the EU consitution... they're so objective.
/sarcasm
"I wonder how Buffet feels about the dollar now!"
The general consenses was that the US dollar would go up but with our markets closed today the dollar is down .43. Might take some time for the real valuations for the currencies to become relatively stable.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Many countries have already ratified the EU constitution, and Christianity isn't mentioned in our Constitution anywhere.
"REAL money?";)"
Unless you're talking gold and/or silver, it ain't real money.
That's not being pedantic, that's called being wrong.
The UK has a Parliamentary system. To be the Prime Minister in a Parliamentary system, your *party* has to win the most seats in Parliament.
Blair's Labour Party holds a 60+ seat outright majority in Parliament, re-electing Blair to his post as Prime Minister for a record-setting 3rd term.
FYI, a 60+ seat majority is more than 50% backing of the British population.
Assimilating immigrants who are widely scattered and cannot easily maintain cultural patterns that conflict with the larger society, as occurred in America, is possible. Mutual assimilation of large, well organized and well established populations, such as the nations of Europe, is a bigger problem, to say the least.
The intellectually and/or morally shallow--which include virtually everyone on the Left--refuse to understand--and perhaps are incapable of understanding--that the size of an immigrant population that can be assimilated is finite.
At its extreme, if the immigrant population is larger than the established society, the established society will be assimilated into the immigrant population and not vice versa. This is obvious to anyone with a funcioning brain, but it's beyond the brain-dead morons of the Left.
Those who refuse to see reality are doomed to...uh...let's just say are doomed.
The challenge before the rest of us is to keep such fools from dooming everybody else.
If they just wanted to commit suicide, the problem would be theirs--not ours, but unfortunately they are determined to drag everyone else down that well known, well paved Road to Hell along with themselves, and we cannot allow them to do this.
The mindless Left cannot be allowed to succeed. It's that simple. And the more that everyone understands this the better.
This is why the cultural and political center of gravity in America has shifted from the Leftist enclaves to Middle America, as was dramatically demonstrated in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. The American people can not and do not trust the Left. For good reason! The Left can not and must not be trusted.
Let's hope that the people of Europe awaken to this same reality in time to save themselves.
They know all the political theories. Political debate in Europe is intense and always has been, and governing in that situation is anything but simple.
Check the figures.
Labour polled 36% of those who voted in the general election, the Conservatives, 33%, and the Liberal Democrats, 23%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/issues/4520847.stm#graph
I know the kind ! I did the same a few weeks ago. LOL
Well, congratulations to the soon-to-be newlyweds !
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