It is not difficult to be depressed about the EU these days. A recent re-read of the Laeken declaration that set in motion the whole European Convention, the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties exercises just made me think (more) how far is EU’s current state (and institutional basis) from the stated ambitions of 2001. Here us a useful reminder of the spirit of the declaration:
“What is Europe’s role in this changed world? Does Europe not, now that is finally unified, have a leading role to play in a new world order, that of a power able both to play a stabilising role worldwide and to point the way ahead for many countries and peoples? Europe as the continent of humane values, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the French Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall… The European Union’s one boundary is democracy and human rights… Europe needs to shoulder its responsibilities in the governance of globalisation. The role it has to play is that of a power resolutely doing battle against all violence, all terror and all fanaticism… In short, a power wanting to change the course of world affairs.”
The truth is that throughout most of its existence the EU was as frustrating and depressive for its supporters as is it now. And yet, it still is the single most successful international organisation in history. So how do we balance euro-pessimism and optimism, history and future, success and failure, analysis and wishful thinking?
The EU spent 7 years (or two decades – depending what’s your starting point) wrangling with endless institutional reforms. For the last few years the underlying feeling with many in Brussels was “just wait for us to adopt/ratify the constitution/Lisbon treaty and then we will show the world and anyone else what the enlarged EU is capable of… just wait a moment, this last effort and we will do wonders… we only need the new institutional set-up and the EU will enter a new historic phase.” Well not exactly. The appointment of Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton only confirmed the EU’s usual modus operandi based on a strong bias in favour of the lowest common denominator and against personalities with strong views and profiles.
But then I’ve finally managed to read Moravcsik’s entire book “The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht” – a detailed history (and theory) of European integration from the 50s to the 90s. Until my recent vacation, I only managed to read its 100 pages long introduction (ie the key theoretical part), 30 pages-long conclusions and scattered passages. Reading detailed histrorical accounts of the EU is useful. It puts things into perspective. The more history I read, the more pervasive is my sense of deja vu and the fewer reasons to be pessimistic I have.
Just like history at school is a long list of wars, EU history often looks like a list of failed initiatives and unfulfilled ambitions. In the best case – it takes decades for ambitions to become realities. A common currency and a European Central bank were first proposed in 1969 (the Euro appeared in 1999). A president of the European Commission (Hallstein) called himslef the prime-minister of Europe already in the 60s. Ideas for a European Constitution and a European foreign minister were first muted in the late 70s-early 80s. Big launches such as the European defence community (of 1954) proved failures, while many “modest” initiatives that few bothered to notice at the time (like competition policy) proved to have a huge impact on European integration.
Any detailed account of EU history reads like an endless list of failures, dissapointments, backtracking, non-compliance with commitments, unfulfilled expectations, hard bargaining, dull and unimpressive bureacrats, selfish national leaders, egoistic states, ever-growing scepticism, blatant behaviour of large member states, a ridiculous common agricultural policy, etc etc.
Just think of the following. In the 50s the adoption of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 was a backtracking from the mega-supranational nature of the European Steel and Coal Community of 1952. Euratom proved to be a fluf. Jean Monnet was not impressed by the Treaty of Rome. Then read the following paragraph in Moravcisk’s book (page 95) about the attitude of the German social-democratic party to European integration in the early 50:
“Though rhetorically pro-European, the SPD had opposed concrete steps toward European integration in the early 50s. The major reasons were geopolitical: integration, SPD leaders believed, undermined prospects for rapid reunification and promoted the integration of a rearmed army into Western military plans… By 1956 SPD started to shift…” not least because the European Communities were less supra-national than the ECSC. For SPD back then European integration was going against dialogue with the USSR with the aim achieving reunification.”
Then the 60s were dominated by De Gaulle’s triple veto of UK’s accession to the EU, the empty-chair crisis and the Luxembourg compromise which introduced a right of veto for member states on issues of crucial importance without any legal basis in the treaties. Since the 70s the European Council further de-supranationalised (or re-nationalised) decision-making. The 70s-80s were considered even worse: two lost decades of Euro-sclerosis. The appointment of Solana in 1999 constrained even further the European Commission’s foreign policy ambitions. Almost every decade since the 50s witnessed often successful pressures towards less supranationalism in European integration.
And what of the dull bureacrats? The European Commission has had 11 presidents since 1958. But who remembers presidents Rey, Malfatti, Ortoli or Thorn? You might remember Santer, but for the wrong reasons. Hallstein and Jenkins are somewhere in the back of the mind, but far from being household names. And only Delors looks impressive, but then many will tell you that he was appointed precisely because no one thought at the time he was a visionary.
And still the EU is somehow considered a big success. The truth is that the EU has almost always been an institution of dull bureacrats pushing for incremental measures that mostly fail, and those that become successes are acknowledged as such only ten years later.
I guess, just like today, committed pro-Europeans have almost always had plenty of reasons to be depressed about the state of the EU. But the European integration somehow muddled through its way into being what it is – a huge success. I don’t know whether now it will be the same – through crises and apathy ad astra. But I am neither pessimstic, nor optimistic about the EU. Or I am both. I did expect more from the post-Lisbon environment, but then maybe there is some unerlying process, boring document or dull bureacrat that is working now on what in 10 or 20 years we will call a success. Or maybe not. The truth is that no one knows.
#1 by Radu on December 15, 2009 - 4:29 pm
What about the (opportunity) costs os delays and failures? Take today’s article “China beats EU in race for Turkmen gas” (http://euobserver.com/9/29158) is a great example: clearly a failure of a EU “committee driven” “leadership” that ended nowhere because of analysis-paralysis and decision-making-paralysis, versus an agile and pragmatic China. What is the economic impact of loosing access to a precious resource, Turkmen gas? How many jobs lost, how many business opportunities lost, how much economical development lost?
What is the point to finally arrive at the train station if the train is long gone? Let us remind one thing, by Charles Darwin, that applies equally to businesses, economies, and (supra)nations: it is not more intelligent, or the strongest that survives, but the one most adaptable to change. Among all world powers (let’s say US, Japan, China, Russia), EU is the least adaptable to change.
Heck, it’s 2009, the European Project is more than 50 years old, I still cannot even find to buy a map with the EU nations shown with the same color. I cannot even find EU on a $9.99 world map!
#2 by Anonymous on December 15, 2009 - 4:49 pm
Give it some time. You couldn’t possibly know now, not even a full month has passed since Lisbon is in force.
To my mind, your one of the worst cases of Euro-sceptics. Hardy a half way between pessimist and optimist as you portray yourself
#3 by John Doe on December 16, 2009 - 11:44 am
Simple question: Why do we need the EU to become a super power on the world stage?
Will it improve the average European Joe’s life? Or will it just satisfy some personal ambitions somewhere at the top?
#4 by Lucian on December 16, 2009 - 2:26 pm
The average European Joe’s life will be better. Because only united we can influence the world. I think you are from UK, and as you can see, the British Empire is long gone, and the influence that you once have in the world is slowly fading along with the Pound. The world is becoming multi polar and we need to be one of those poles. Only as EU we’ll have a voice in the new big boys club of the world.
#5 by Kazimierz on December 16, 2009 - 3:07 pm
“The average European Joe’s life will be better”
There is no such thing as “average European Joe”. A person from Norway has little to do with a person from Serbia or average Russian with average Swiss person and so on.
“Because only united we can influence the world”
There are no common interests that all people from European continent can pursue. In many cases the ideas of USA for example are closer to the ideas of Central and East Europeans then the French or Germans for example. Europe is too diverse and multiethnic entity to have a common goals or interests.
#6 by Rightofvoice on December 16, 2009 - 4:54 pm
I would add that as little as three months ago, nobody was even certain if and when we would have the Lisbon Treaty passed. And – op-là! – today we are way beyond it and we are lamenting that not enough changes have been brought about. Just give it some time. Good decisions and complex developments take time. Check in 1 year and I predict a lot of interesting and important changes will have come about.
#7 by jocelyn braddell on December 16, 2009 - 6:13 pm
Why didn’t the EU look for a workforce to dig the gas line? Ireland for instance has thousands of construction workers out of a job – instead the EU is going to help our government pay to the Bankers, money, tax-payers money, far in excess of toxic debt worth
#8 by Radu on December 16, 2009 - 7:09 pm
To Kazimierz & John Doe: from inside Europeans are all different. When I was a student in Belgium, the citizens of Antwerp were able to tell by accent that other Flemish/Belgian was from the city of Gent, 20 miles away!
However, from the outside (read: other continents) nobody really cares about those differences: all Europeans looks pretty much the same. Ordinary non-EU citizens and businessmen pay no attention to differences between being German or Austrian, or being French or Spanish, they confuse Budapest with Bucharest, they know about “3 Baltic states”, without necessarily knowing their names, they refer to “Nordics” or “Scandinavian”, not knowing or caring that Norway is not in EU (it’s in “E something, right?”). And all regard British as Europeans, not as being on a separate continent like Australia.
For American or Asian companies it is simpler to have to deal with less FX risk because of the Euro, with less custom duties and papers because of the customs union, with more uniform regulations because of Community Law, etc. I work in Texas for a Fortune 500 company with a lot of business in Europe, so I know what I a talking about: it cost is less to do business in several EU countries because of these common regulations standards, that would have cost to deal with completely divergent rules sets. It still cost more than it cost us to do business in States, tough. A stronger European Parliament means focusing lobbying efforts better than going after 27 different parliaments. Overall, less cost of doing business than without a Union.
So there is a difference for “Average European Joe”, as all of the European integration means more business opportunities and more jobs for them.
Examples of countries like Switzerland or Norway are not relevant: both are very small countries, with niche industries (oil for Norway), banking & pharma for Swiss. But what would be a isolated big country in Europe will still be a pygmy on the world scene. And the world LOVES to play divide-and-conquer with Europeans anyway! From an American perspective, I don’t mind being able to leverage some national feeling to be able to squeeze some more concessions from you guys!
#9 by Radu on December 17, 2009 - 6:03 am
“An ignorant people can confuse Chinese with Japanese as well”
No matter how hard I try, I cannot tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese (appearance, language), I cannot make a difference between a citizen from Guatemala from a Colombian, a Saudi from a Yemen, a Polish or a Slovak, etc. It take more than just common school education to be able to make such differences. That’s why these differences are really not important for the outside world.
“Bingo! You just discovered why EU is not needed. An european free trade economic bloc would be enough.”
I guess that’s why you live in the past, and not in the future. A free trade block still has internal borders, and all kind of different regulations, and a higher cost of business. That’s why the EU advanced, because much more economical achievements are there, far beyond of what a free trade area has to offer. And these more economical achievements requires some common institution to manage the whole thing. It’s all about money, no matter how much the socialist in Europe praise the utopia of “equality”.
“Want me to count percentage of GDP and population they make in Europe ?”
Yes, please tell. I can ask rhetorical questions myself, thank you. Population wise they are about 2.8% of the EU. GDP you tell me. I suggest you Wiki that and then come here and tell us.
But that was not the point. The point was that small nations like those are rich because they control some economic niches. Large populations countries like Germany, France, UK, Poland cannot live out of a very narrow industry niches. Any niche or two cannot feed all their mouths. They needed their respective countries to grow from the previous smaller feuds, and now they need a larger Union to grow economically beyond what the nation states allowed them to in the XX century (or what a free trade agreement had to over 40 years ago). History don’t freeze, it constantly evolves, and since the dawns of the industrial revolution, I only see the economics (the money) creating bigger and larger “spaces” to allow for economic growth. First there were “nation” states, then were common markets, now there are things like EU. Tomorrow it will be a world federation. Then an inter-planetary federation, then galactic federation, and so forth. Again, it’s all about money (economics), not about nations, not about cultures.
“Really ? Is Russia a pygmy on the world scene ?”
Who talks about Russia here? We talk about EU. And by the way, in the world powers league, Russia is the pygmy, it’s strength relies solely on the gas valve. They have only one card to play, and you can only win with a single card at hand for so long.
“And anyway why should anybody want to be a giant ?”
Because if you are not a master, you are a servant of a master. Look at Norway, they were defenseless when Nazi came. They went in Norway like a knife in a piece of cheese. Look at the British, they were a force back then, an Empire, they did not have to whine to foreign courts, they resisted by themselves. Americans helped them to win the war, but at least British resisted by itself. Look at Poland: it was a sheep between two wolves. You are safer now in the EU in face of Russia then if you’d be outside, like Ukraine. Don’t lie to yourself that NATO is enough. Is not. NATO is to protect Western investments, and Western investments requires integration to Western economy (EU). Even Turkey is halfway into EU already, at least part of the EU Customs Union, and begging for years to join. Why? Because their economy needs to grow beyond national border. And because their workers want to go to work in West as badly as the Polish did after they joined the Union.
“It doesn’t have to enforce divisions-Germans trying to exterminate other people in Europe and Russians trying to enslave them did all work for them in regards to dividing.”
I suggest you study more history. Divide-et-impera is a method you use with a stronger opponent, same size as you or bigger. You just crush the smaller ones. Germany today is not the Germany of yesterday. They were able to move forward, just like Japanese. You as Polish are safe from the Western side, but for some reasons that I miss you would prefer to be the sheep outside the (Eastern) fence chased by the big bad bear.
“Serves them right, and the weaker Europe is in regards to USA, the better for Poland”
When EU is not united, Americans (and others, Russians, Chinese) win and you loose. We don’t count spite as a profit. If that is what you value the most, we are glad to use that in our favor to make all the money, and you have all the spite you want.
How is so? When Americans invest in Poland, they don’t do that to spite any other European. They do it just because they have a greater return of investment, that’s all. You have a logic that is not known here in America. Heck, Americans even don’t want to give you free visas, but they want you to subsidize any investment in Poland, or they quickly move to Slokavia. Because EU is weak, Americans treat Polish as second class EU citizens (no visas), and you seems to like it
#10 by Radu on December 17, 2009 - 6:54 am
“Somehow I don’t think people’s ignorance is a reason for China and Japan to be in one state.”
Asians begs to differ from what you think about them (speaking about ignorance):
ASEAN Vows EU-Like Bloc by 2015
NYT: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22414608/ASEAN-Vows-EU-Like-Bloc-by
Union of South American Nations is also trying to copy EU. African Union also is trying to copy EU. You know when you are successful when other are imitating you.
And that is to tell that EU is copying United States, which is of course, the most successful Union of States in the history of the mankind.
“Germans trying to exterminate other people in Europe”
This is the thing that keeps you a prisoner of the past: revenge. French were crushed by the Germans just like Polish. It’s true that Polish had to suffer numerically more, but France had higher pride as a world power than Poland in 30′s, and the defeat felt as bad. I am not counting suffering here, that is not my point. My point is that after WW2, the French reflected at what happened: out of revenge following WW1, they’ve humiliated Germany with the Treaty of Versailles. What was the result? A bigger, stronger Germany, that rose from its ashes and crushes everybody in the continental Europe. Revenge leads to revenge, blood leeads to blood. It took the Americans to put up the fire.
After the WW2, a wise French guy, Robert Schuman, come up with a brilliant idea: break the revenge cycle. End it. Forget about revenge. The idea was to put revenge aside, leave to historians, and form with Germany (which has learned its lesson, too) an economical union greater than the power of each of member state added separately. As long as you are a prisoner of revenge, you are an easy target for anybody, that will use your weakness to make them stronger. Russian, Germans, Americans, they will all exploit you unless you can think rationally and not emotionally in this world.
If French could live beyond revenge and offer their hand to Germans only 5 years after the war, why Polish cannot do the same thing 60 years after the war?
Read this excerpt from Schuman Declaration:
“The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany.”
(break the age-old revenge cycle).
“It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organization open to the participation of the other countries of Europe. The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims.”
Which means: let’s make money together, as a team we are more valuable than as individuals fighting each other. Makes sense, isn’t it? I expect your comments now. Please don’t bother to quote from Marx or Hitler about “class struggle” or “revenge”.
Closing this remark to the original point, ASEAN, USAN, or AU can only be successful if they can bury their revenge cycles, which they were not able so far. Teams are always stronger than individuals.
#11 by Anonymous on December 17, 2009 - 8:25 pm
Way to go Radu!
Love your point about the USA being the most successful federation of states in the history of mankind.
If we Europeans want to go beyond being second class citizens of this globalised world, we must develop a structure (read: federation) to match USA.
It is that simple!!
The ones that can’t comprehend this are stuck in the XIX century I’m afraid.
#12 by IM on December 17, 2009 - 10:14 pm
With the risk of being over-academic. I would say that Moravcsik is only one author among others, but there are many others, however he is one of the must reads for any serious researcher:)
You should be more careful with the years you write, either you write the year a treaty entered into force or the year it was signed either 1951/1957 or 1952/1958. I would refrain from “the Treaty of Rome in 1957 was a backtracking from the mega-supranational nature of the European Steal and Coal Community of 1952.”
Last, but not least EU never had a clear vision of its future and it worked. And secondly the initial idea was to prevent war in Europe and the task was successfully accomplished. No third world war took place in Europe. We should be happy at least about that.
) It’s true that it could have been more.
#13 by janus on December 18, 2009 - 11:25 am
#17 by Radu on December 18th, 2009 – 6:13 am
well Radu, I can tell you something you might not like. The acession to the EU was used by the western powers to demolish and eviscerate our industrial base. Was it outdated? a bit. was it inefficient? a bit, but not by much. As an example: we could produce stainless steel in large quantities that rivaled the english and french national steel industries together, as a single state. After the inept handling of new managers for a year it was sold of to western steel companies that were thought to keep the industry running. The westerners shut down the plants, dismantled them, took some better equipment west and demolished the buildigs. Now we have to import steel from germany for the manufacture of high quality implants (which we can do pretty well) because the industry here was eliminated. Were the companies profitable? Marginally (with good handling, they were profitable as far as 1994 before being sold). Was there room for improvement? Yes. Lots. But why should the french industrial corporation care? Easier to borrow a hundered million dollars (on reputation alone), buy up your competition, take their best machinery, shut it down and then sell on the market for 3 times the price? And that is a story that can be repeated over and over for the sugar industries, chocolate manufacturers, generic medicines, train manufacturing, aircraft industry, chemical industry… Basically the hurried “privatizations” of the 1990 allowed the west to use their banking system to give us unbacked paper for our industries, which was backed up only by faith in western banks, demolish all competition in the east and then make us therefore dependent on overpriced imports. Before, we ourselves manufactured and exported sugar where our manufacturing base covered our needs from 45% of its capability. After the “harmonization and synchronizing of national standards” we were ordered as a nation to reduce the amount of sugar manufactured and exported to the EU countries or the goverment would be made to pay fines. So the goverment made a scheme that sold allowances for the manufacture of sugar – basically it raised the variable cost of manufacturing by about 25%. That made our industry uncompetitive, and it started to dwindle, as a direct result of efectively being taxed in a much harsher fashion than the western manufacturers. After about 30% of the industry went bankrupt and the rest had dire financial problems, Nestle came in and utilized leverage to buy up half the remaining companies. It then funneled money in for a couple of years to undercut the competition, and because it was from external sources it had to go to the EU regulatory body…which did nothing about the unfair competition and dumping prices, which cause the remaining native producers to go bust. Since then, sugar prices have increased 4X over the space of seven years. The wages of the remaining workers have been reduced by inflation, as they have not seen a raise for the entire time nestle is the owner. Similar predatory tactics where the “common regulatory bodies” and “harmonizing treaties” are used to remove the jurisdicion from local authorities, and the EU does nothing until it is too late has been repeated so often it is not even funny. It is not sudden changes and military conquest anymore – its direct usage of leverage of large cash in an efectively unregulated market because the decision take ten years or so to make in the EU has efectively ruined our national economies. As the year 1995, between 6 and 7% of the populace had been recieving state aid(not unemployment benefits, but social aid for the poor to help pay for housing etc). As of the year 2009, that proportion has incread to 25% and is rising. In the year 1995, it took and roughly 200 average wages to buy an apartment – today, that same apartment would go for 320 average wages. This all through that inflation being oficially lower than wage increases, that being the way the consumer basket is put together here. The amount of housing space per individual available nationwide has dropped for 20 years in a row. Proportion of mandatory payments in the average household (taxes, rent, food) has been rising for the past 15 years in a row. I dont know about you, but to me that sounds like our living standard is actually decreasing.
#14 by Radu on December 18, 2009 - 4:38 pm
“Or what? You will send me to re-education camp ?”
The scars left by the years of totalitarian regime are deep into your soul. That’s why you are so confrontational. The answer is simply “or nothing”. I really don’t care about you. The “rule” of democracy is that the minority accept the rule of the “majority”. I may not agree or voted with our current American president, but this does not mean that I will start a revolution, or provoke anybody to send me to a re-education camp, or support the independence of my state. I just live with it, mind my own business, and go to vote next time. Seeing that 75% of your fellow citizens had a different opinion in 2003 on the EU accession than you place you on the minority side, whenever you like it or not.
“It’s like saying to Balts in 1989″
Most of your examples are biased. Baltics never voted freely by 75% to be part of USSR. As far as I know, there was no French or German tank in Poland in 2003 when you freely decided to join the EU.
“Funny, majority of Polish people support death penalty in our state”. Another wrong example on our side. Death penalty ban was championed by the Council of Europe way before EU existed, and which Poland joined in 1991. Do not confuse the two. Council of Europe has nothing to do with EU whatsoever. If you would not be so fixated into your opinions and the attempt to show that you are right, you may discover that some things you think you know are actually different in reality.
The key to progress is to learn from your own mistakes. Otherwise, you will repeat them over and over. For one to learn from his own mistakes requires that he is able to admit that we was wrong. France, Germany and other nations did it. Many Eastern Europeans, including Polish did. Obviously from this thread, some more are still way to go. I’ve, for one, learned a lot about the euro-skeptics in this thread.
#15 by Radu on December 18, 2009 - 5:12 pm
To janus: Thank you for sharing these details. They are somewhat similar, but also different in some aspects from the experience of my own native country that also emerged out of the dark age of red and walked into the EU.
Don’t blame others for the conditions in which Poland joined EU. The accession was initiated by a democratically elected government, the accession’s terms and conditions were negotiated by your democratically elected government, and their conclusions were approved by 75% of the electors in 2003. If the net benefits were realized or not, it is a function of the quality of the “homework” done before accession. This is true for any other member-state, for any individual or company signing any contract.
But let’s look beyond details for a second: the communist economy was producing some things, usually much poorer quality than in west, especially in light industries. But it was inefficient, it had higher costs than in the West, because the “efficiency” (measured in $), “profits” were simply ignored, being regarded as “capitalist”, “old regime legacy”. The truth is, anytime when basic economics is ignored, the whole things is doomed (see also the IT bubble at the end of 90′s, as an example from “the other side of the fence”). Because of the inefficiencies that build up over time, the whole socialist economy collapsed in 90′s. My native country also claimed huge steel production quotas. But I don’t eat steel, so that did not helped getting the food I wanted.
Therefore, in 90′s, the accession to the EEC/EU was seen as a solution of the problem, mainly because of the EU non-reimbursable (not loans) development funds, working abroad opportunities, etc. The effectiveness of how each member state absorb those funds, is a function only of the competency of that member states bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, politicians and citizens (see Ireland vs. Greece, for instance)
However, like in any negotiation, one gives something and one receives something. By joining EU, any new member-state made some concessions for some perceived benefits. Nobody forced any new member-state to join. Where referendums were held, majorities of sovereign nations valued the benefits more than the costs. But was anybody aware that realizing the benefits requires work, too?
In many cases (I don’t know in Poland) incompetent politicians never talked about the costs of joining the EU. They setup false high expectations from the accession. The benefits are not “equally distributed” to all new EU citizen, neither are the costs. Naturally, some feel that they’ve lost. Such is life. Who said the life should be fair to anybody, by the way? Marx? To hell with Marx.
But is completely biased to look at one side of the equation (in your example, costs). Do you really believe that there are no net benefits (not for you, for your country)?. I think that there were benefits, too. For one, I’ve seen Poland riding this economical crisis better than many other member-states (both “West” and “East” within the EU). This tells me that a higher majority of the population than in some other member-states learned (the hard-way) how to behave economically, how to elect more responsible political leaders, and I think that that is a net benefit for you, guys. Your political & economical elite may not be perfect, but I see is as in better shape than in the neighborhood (even that of the UK, I think). “Good” and “bad” are always relative to something.
One lesson I’ve learned many years ago, that helped be me be successful (by my own standards) here in the United States, is that nobody cares about myself better than me, that nobody owns me any favor, and that is only me to be held accountable for my successes or failures. Blaming others (foreigners) for taking care of themselves instead of me does not help one to be more successful.
Same things applies to nations, and teams of nations like EU is trying to be. It is up to Poland to determine if it can be successful in the EU, it is up to the EU member states to determine if they want to be a powerful team on the world scene or just a “bunch of”, a laughing stock of the world.
#16 by Kazimierz on December 19, 2009 - 1:26 am
Hitler’s party, NSDAP, got about 33 percent of votes in November 1932, not a majority!.
Hitler became the Chancellor only because other parties were not able to form a coalition. It is worthy to remember that while discussing democracy.
#17 by al on December 26, 2009 - 5:21 pm
Wow, this Orbie quote is filled with contradictions.
“Europe” had nothing to do with the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights; the history of Europe was in fact a prolonged battle against both of those. On top of that, every EU-related treaty since the 1951 Treaty of Paris has worked to undermine both (the law permitting trials in absence destroys the Writ of Habeas Corpus, for example; hate-crime laws legislate on people’s thoughts rather than actions, and undermine the concept of equal protection under the laws). Never mind the fact that every EU “accession” treaty (especially the Treaty of Lisbon) reads like it was plagiarised from the constitutions of the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, the latter two being mockeries of the US Constitution.
Oh yes: what are “humane values”? That has nothing to do with human values, to be sure; it’s an extension of so-called “humanism”, an atheistic hodgepodge of “ethics” that have nothing to do with human rights (and in fact are strongly related to some Satanic cults, especially that of LaVey).
(And if anyone thinks that the French Revolution stood for freedom, think again; it was the forerunner for every leftist reign of terror that plagued the 20th Century, never mind being a big failure to boot. It doesn’t deserve a mention beside the Magna Carta or Bill of Rights.)
Intentional?
#18 by Johann Müller on February 3, 2010 - 1:14 am
A bit sad that we have to have European Council on Foreign Relations writing on the EU (completely unrelated to the American Council on Foreign Relations, of course … ho, ho). Clearly Soros and the US have their teeth into Europe pretty solidly. We are a vasal to be closely controlled by our master … forever. Depressing, time to stop reading the EU Observer, I think. Good bye.
#19 by Isabel Suess on February 4, 2010 - 1:43 pm
Dear Mr. Popescu,
Currently we, the team of MEDIA CONSULTA – PR and advertising agency based in Berlin, Germany – are collecting the entries for the European Young Journalist Award 2010 on behalf of the European Commission. During our research we came across your blog and your posted articles. In this regard we would like to ask you whether you would like to become a nominee for the Award. The Award focuses mainly on articles or blogs, which reflect a critical view about the EU and its enlargement, as well as its integration.
All the additional information to the Award can be found under the following website. Furthermore a factsheet about the Young Journalist Award is enclosed.
http://www.eujournalist-award.eu/
Should you have any questions, you are welcome to contact us using the below-given contact information. We would really appreciate your contribution!
Best wishes,
Isabel Süß
MEDIA CONSULTA International Holding AG
Isabel Süß
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#20 by Johann Müller on February 5, 2010 - 8:52 pm
Yes, to be associated with the American/European Council on Foreign Relations is sure to bring you many rewards … well done … just be sure you don’t ever blog off-message, Nicu, or you will quickly become an unperson.
#21 by Joe Noory on June 16, 2010 - 4:30 pm
I genuinely don’t understand this European obsession with wanting power over others, having and doing nothing of any genuine significance in geopolitics, economics, or culture to create it, or to have it as a result of any world need for it.
For goodness’ sake, they couldn’t even scrape up a dozen helicopters for a relief mission to Chad for two years, or face the facts in the former Yugoslavia for a decade.
It looks more like avarice and delusion than history or destinty. In fact, their instincts which still run along the lines of authoritarianism and lacking any understanding of the limitations of centralized power make European leadership more of a danger to humanity than a benefit.