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View Full Version : An Expanded EU


Haloface
11-16-2007, 03:11 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7095657.stm

- Ignore for a moment that the new Foreign Secretary is just introducing a new idea because that's what new people do.

The EU as a trans-political idea, spreading certain Western ideas and goals to desperate areas?
An interesting notion, using the EU as a carrot to make potentially troublesome countries potentially good. There could be an argument that it's worked in Turkey, where they've worked hard to meet with a number of requirements, economically and politically, in the hopes of membership.

So if this is the direct opposite to the EU as a superstate, as some have called its increasing expansion in the past decade, how on earth will it help to stabilize the already implosive tendencies of the current members? If a constitution can't even be agreed on, how will enlargement ever help to stabilize an already unweildly bloc?

I stand by what I've always said: before expanding, we need to sort the centre out first, as a secure and bound power, a model for the rest of the EU and for future members, not through constitutions but bound by treaties, more a league than a federatation, based on principles of economic, legal and military cooperation, not of some sort of cultural-political union, enshrined in some holy constitution.

Bylimet Spiritwalker
11-16-2007, 06:39 AM
I stand by what I've always said: before expanding, we need to sort the centre out first, as a secure and bound power, a model for the rest

I have heard the same argument regarding the Bush-Cheney "program" of spreading Democracy throughout the Mid-east.

Lleauric
11-16-2007, 06:47 AM
The Fundies in this country would lose their mind, but I wonder if a universal currency wouldn't be a good thing. The dollar has been like a universal currency for so long, as this new world dawns on us it seems certain to be replaced in that standard by the Euro or the Yuan.

Haloface
11-16-2007, 07:04 AM
Well, seeing the performance of the Euro in all its "glory", I don't think a universal currency would be anything like a good idea. The strength of the Pound Sterling undermines the Euro glaringly, which is the reason why so many member states have turned away from accepting it.

Haloface
11-16-2007, 07:49 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7097736.stm

- Hmm, best bite my tounge, eh?