Posted on 12/20/2005 5:03:30 AM PST by Atlantic Bridge
Europe managed to come up with a budget agreement. But more important questions remain unanswered. The fact is, a 25-member European club has proven to be incredibly unwieldy. The solution could be the creation of an EU core.
(Excerpt) Read more at service.spiegel.de ...
Oh, please..."Old Europe leading New Europe?"..Yup..that meake saa whole lot of sense....have you looked at the figures for economic growth in Poland and Eastern Europe, vs, that of Germany and France?..The whole EU concept, is unweildy and unworkable..the only ones who benefit are the beaurocrats...
All members are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Read that far and I didn't have to read any farther.
Socialism doesn't work, period.
As for being unwieldy w/25, that 50 state thing doesn't work for the US, now does it?
The EU was doomed from the start. It requires that its members give up sovereignty.
European reality is sometimes a bit different to the media image that is projected from the outside.
In difference to "new" Europe the countries of "old" Europe decree over a developed, affluent and technologically powerful economy while the economy of "new" Europe has to be developed first. Although they have high growth rates (thank God) the economies in Poland and eastern Europe are much smaller than those in western Europe. Germanys economy is i.e. 5 times as big as the economy of Poland if we take the purchasing power parity. If the economies of eastern Europe are fully developed their growth will slow down too - naturally. I am sure that they will develop fast, but to be realistic it will take a minimum of ten years (probably more) until they have comparable standarts to the western part of the old continent.
BTW the concept of a European conferation is not that bad for the possible member nations: They can do many reasonable things like combining their millitary or use their bigger political weight to take influence on certain issues of their interest. Maybe we are even able to get rid of some useless administration. Who knows?
This is the reason why it makes sense to a European core to work closer together on a federal base. They can do their own desicions in a working democratic frame while the "old" EU is not democratic at all. This is a development to more capacity to act.
The several states in the US also gave part of their sovereignty to Washington.
You are right. This is the biggest problem of the whole thing.
This sounds to me basically like anti-American France and Germany conspiring to turn the EU into an anti-American project. This is so gratuitous and unnecessary. The US traditionally has been neutral to positive about European integration, thinking, erroneously as it has turned out, that the Europeans were our friends. Since they have turned knee-jerk opposers of anything the US stands for, and simply hate the US and identify falsely as the focus of evil in the modern world, while giving a complete pass to Islamist terrorism and its supporters, I think we have learned our lesson. The Europeans are not to be trusted.
It will be one of the challenges that this new confederation is not anti-american. There are big benefits for western Europe if it can unite. Just think about lean administrations, a combined defense and bigger influence on its issues of interest. Of course, if America still is thinking in the old "divide et impera" categories, it will see this development as a threat. It will not not help anyway if this should be the case since your nation has only very limited influence on those issues.
Nevertheless I hope (and I am sure) that there is the will on your side of the Atlantic to solve the problems on this planet through co-operation and not with primitive pressure. It is simple realism to see that western Europe has its very own interests of course. The thing is that they are nearly congruent with the US-interests. We want to have stable conditions to sell our goods around this world. Therefore we need to be save from terror, crazy nations with nuclear arms and we need stable conditions like valid patents, working norms etc. This is the reason why America should see those changes as a great chance. It is better to speak with one working government than with the governments of Chirac, Schroeder, Verhofstadt and whoever.
BTW - if I understand your name (according to the bulla of pope Bonifatius VIII.) in FR right, you already accepted the European hegemony since the Pope is undoubted a real European. (Just joking ;-) )
While true of France and Germany, many other European countries are our friends and allies.
Of course if the true Holy Roman Empire were to be brought back, that would be a different story...
Ping! This is maybe of interest for you.
"have you looked at the figures for economic growth in Poland and Eastern Europe, vs, that of Germany and France?.."
The difference is that growth in "new" Europe is low and in "old" Europe is very low or don't exist at all.
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