EU politics

[thedarkproject]

I'll be quite glad if the whole European Union project goes belly-up as a result of all the recent wrangling. We have the current EU president saying that the constitution will not be renegotiated - despite France and Holland, quite important countries, voting against it - and in fact claiming that "I really believe neither the French nor the Dutch rejected the constitutional treaty".

Now, as I understand it, the wording of the French referendum was "Approuvez-vous le projet de loi qui autorise la ratification du traité établissant une Constitution pour l'Europe? " which is essentially, 'do you approve of the bill authorising the ratification of the European constitution?' The Dutch version was "Bent U voor of tegen instemming door Nederland met het verdrag tot vaststelling van een grondwet voor Europa?" which Wikipedia tells me means "Are you for or against approval by the Netherlands of the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe?" (Is that right, spillher?)

Both seem pretty clear to me, but no, Mr Juncker - current president of the EU and Prime Minister of Luxembourg, a country right next to France and not far from Holland - is claiming the people didn't vote the way that they did. Whether you are for the European Union or against it, is that the sort of politician you want in power - one who refuses to take not one but two national referendums seriously?

And on top of that we have the French saying that they want the EU to stop paying Britain's rebate, which was created to offset the fact that we get very little back in terms of agricultural subsidy, yet are utterly unwilling to make any concessions with regards to the disproportionate amount of such subsidies that go to their farmers. France isn't a poor Eastern European country, it's just one that refuses to reform its industry and is happier for others to subsidise it.

Why do we do all this? It seems like a tremendous waste of cash and a source of limitless antagonism, over someone's impractical utopian dream.

Comments

[fiendil.livejournal.com]

Got some of my more Tory anti-Europe friends who say that most of our trade is done with the US and other non-european countries, so we don't stand to benefit from being tied closer in.

And yeah, the only way we're ever gonna get a consensus which could set up a democracy in a USA style way, is gonna be if someone pulls off a unification by force. And we know how that ended last time someone tried that.

[soldatengrab.livejournal.com]

most of should be irrelevant, it should be the fact that SOME trade is conducted through europe which should be a guiding factor. If you set up a democracy by force people resist. Look at germany post WW1, Democracy was installed by force there, and the people revolted, and reinstalled a dictatorship, albeit with Fuhrer rather than kaiser. total integration is a LONG way away, I'm pretty confident in saying it wont happen in our lifetime (especially not after this constitution). The union has benefits, untold benefits, purely in the fact that through such cooperation between states (largely in *surprise surprise* the balkans) several costly wars have been avoided. Im of the persuasion that, if the union has saved so much as one life, it is a worthwhile establishment.

[njaard.livejournal.com]

That's totally specious, the UK does hardly any more trade with the US than any other european country only because the US is bigger. I bet Germany trades more with the US than it does with France.

You make the EU bigger than the US, and behold, you'll find that the UK will trade with the EU more than it does with the US.

P.S. conservatives are weak of mind