Should Britain join Europes Fourth Reich?

[parallelepipete]

What a loaded question.

How is the European Union the "Fourth Reich"? First and formost, its HQ ain't in Germany.

Suckers!

I'm afraid when I saw this poll yesterday I thought it was a wind-up. Obviously not...

 

[Isambard]

multilingual yawning.

You're right, let's forget this multi-lingual bollocks. Let's do it all in Europe's most commonly spoken language eh? It's only fair.
Answers on a Postkarte bitte an:

 

[Dhimmi]

I'm a Eurosceptic personally, I have no illusions that a united Europe will be perfect. But it has meant a lot less bloodshed than previously.
Sounds like a real benefit to me.

What a pile of waffle. A peaceful europe isn't the result of the EU, it's a grass roots response from the population. Through very different experiences we've all come to the same conclusion at the same time - we're bored of shooting at each other.

 

[Cadmus]

Don't be so sure of yourself if you're not sure of the facts. avoid the embarrassment.

Peaceful Europe has lots to do with the EU.

The initial treaty of what is today a set of treaties forming the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community treaty. The rationale behind it was simple: states aimed to create a common market in coal and steel so they can control Germany's arms production. At those days, Germany was deemed to be the 'prone to war' one. In this context, a peaceful Europe is the result of the EU. But not only the EU.

General European integration (thru EU or other forms, i.e. Council of Europe) has lots to do with anti-war policies.

 

[Poi E]

You're right, let's forget this multi-lingual bollocks. Let's do it all in Europe's most commonly spoken language eh? It's only fair.
Answers on a Postkarte bitte an:

The multilingual is fine. It's the bollocks that bothers me.

 

[citydreams]

The eurosuperreich is a myth; AFAIK, that was in no-one's plans, who got the EU to where it is today

I refer the honourable Jezza to "The Great Deception - The Secret History of The European Union" in which the authors go to great lengths to show the forces at work in creating a federal europe. In particular I point to the life of Jean Monnet, The League of Nation's General Secretary

 

[kyser_soze]

You see who wrote that? Not exactly a couple of authors out to make a VERY specific point about Europe.

The funniest thing about most of the Eurosceptics is that they almost all idolise Churchill who was a European Federalist before anyone - he made more than a few speeches about how a united Europe would be a requirement for peace, prosperity as well as security against the then USSR/USA stand off...

I'm not the world's biggest fan of the EU as it's currently structured and it's policy goals and methods, which are still largely based on the dirigiste model of France; it's lack of accountability; it's appalling levels of corruption and the victimisation and legal harrassment of whistleblowers; but I'm damn glad I live where I do and not the US or elsewhere.

 

[citydreams]

Churchill who was a European Federalist before anyone -

no he wasn't.. that's the point of the book. EU as a federal state had more to with America than Churchill. Yes, he made a couple of speaches about a united europe that added impetus to the 1st wave of reform, but it would have happened without him. Besides which, his Europe didn't include England.

 

[Dhimmi]

Don't be so sure of yourself if you're not sure of the facts. avoid the embarrassment.
Peaceful Europe has lots to do with the EU.
The initial treaty of what is today a set of treaties forming the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community treaty. The rationale behind it was simple: states aimed to create a common market in coal and steel so they can control Germany's arms production. At those days, Germany was deemed to be the 'prone to war' one. In this context, a peaceful Europe is the result of the EU. But not only the EU.

Save your six form insults for your chums.
You're suggesting that the people of europe didnt become anti-war after witnessing two of them, no they waited for a coal & steel treaty to be signed.
I suggest they became anti-war after witnessing two of them and the damage done to all. The EU is not responsible for this. An example of it's inability to deliver peace is the former Yugoslavia in the nineties.
For me a result of a peaceful europe is the EU originally based on worthy principles and high ideals sadly devolved into an increasingly distant and intrusive mother of all quangos.

 

[gosub]

Didn't vote in your poll, don't agree options are that limited and as a EUroskeptic get very fucked off when people start painting the EU as colonial expansion of one of the states particuarly as the technocrats sucking soverienty from the member states are drawn from the UK civil service more than anywhere else. A German complaining about being absorbed into a new British Empire would be missing the point equally.

To the poster correctly claiming the EU is not a state (currently) points for pedentry but as the EU has supremecy over the law, its own law enforcefment agency, its own combined armed services, its own currency, parliament, foreign embassies and is ratifying what it calls a constitution along with other "trappings" of statehood such as a a president, flag, national anthem etc.. What therefore do you consider the EU lacks in order to make it a state?

Concerning bananas as usual it is what I take to be a proponent of EU intergration that brings that up. It does not ring true, but explains why the intergrationist project is in such dier trouble. The history books of 50 years hence will not explain that the EU consolidated its power due to those with misgivings cared more for the curvatue of a banana than the erosion of democratic accountabilty.