Joined: Jan 18, 2008 Posts: 70 Location: The Netherlands
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:05 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
My opinion about Europe...
Let me start with this "constitution" thing. A few years ago i was really against this so called "constituation" thingy and my vote was a clear "nee". The reason for being against this "constitution" didn't have much to do with the contents of this document at all.
I can't speak for every Dutchy, but i think the reason for us to vote "nee" did have everything to do with the aggressive "ja" campagne from the government. The Dutch didn't/don't trust the government and almost felt like being forced to vote "ja" for this weird document nobody with a sane mind would ever read. It just didn't feel right.
After the voting i made a prediction (many did) that the government would try to find a way to push this "constitution" in our throats using complicated political maneuvering no "normal" person could understand. The prediction was; "they change some words, give it another name and then make it happen without us knowing about it."
Now this prediction has come true with this new Lisbon Treaty. It's funny, but i didn't even know about this treaty before reading about it on this very forum. Now, that says a lot about the transparancy of the EU.
A few things have changed in my opinion about the EU. And this change in opinion is mostly caused by the media, i'm sure of that. My current opinion is that i really don't care anymore about what those politicians in their black suits are doing with the EU. I voted "nee" against this constitution, but if i ever get the chance to vote again then i'm going to vote "ja". The resons for this is that i think it takes just too much time and important decissions have to be made, now!
Euorpe has a great potential. You have to be blind to not see this. Someone else in this topic said it like this; "Europe is like a wolf in sheeps clothes" and i can't agree more on this observation. If Europe is able to get its act together then Europe will be very strong in almost every aspect.
Many things have to change before Europe can throw away its sheep clothes. I think btu2012 made a good list of things that has to be done in his post on page 6 of this topic. I'm going to single out a few items on that list, just for fun.
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2.There is no European vision or pan-European identity.What does the EU live for ? It was created to avoid inter-european war, but this
isn't sufficient as a destiny
The vision i have for Europe is nothing less then a mighty empire. Yes, i am serious. It's not necesarry to reduce every country to a state. But we need to clearly define some goals and a plan to accomplish those goals. We need strong leadership; the Germans can do that. We need to get strong enough to seriously compete with the USA, China, Russia, India, etc. Right now we are too depandant on the USA for security.
The USA is going the wrong way. They are loosing their norms and values. I'm not an anti-American, but i just don't see any future in that country anymore. Europe has to take the role as "leader of the world".
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4. It is clear that Europe can be powerful only if it becomes more in its organization like the United States (no, I am not American). By this I mean that it needs a federal system, federal police force, federal army, federal military and hi-tech industry, federal level educational structures, a president and parliament elected on non-national basis (through direct vote) and with sufficient power
to devise and implement EU-wide policy.
Yep, and the beauty in all of this is that it is not necesarry to remove local organizations to accomplish this. We can have a local police and a federal police. We can have a local army and a federal army. We can have a local government and a federal government. We just have to integrate all of this in order to make it work. Somehow.
The fact that Europe still doesn't have a "constituation" or a good EU wide government has a positive side. When things get though (peak oil and stuff) there are not already structures in place that could make it difficult to adapt to the new situation. We can start fresh.
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5. The EU needs a united army and unified military institutions, including a EU-wide military-industrial complex. The army need not be as large as in the US, but it needs to be lean, mean, hyper-fast, hyper-lethal and extremely hi-tech.
O boy! I just have to say something about this. IF Europe becomes more united then you can expect to see one of the strongest militarys in the world. Really! Don't underestimate Europe's ability to wage war. If necesarry Europe can raise an army before you can say army.
Some Americans would argue that Europe is not able to defend itself and didn't fight a serious war in the last 60 years. This may be true, but there was not really a reason to fight. There was/is no serious enemy anywhere near us and Russia is not a big fear around here. And...to add to it...why fight if you can just as easily let another fight for you? Isn't that smart?
As a Dutchy i really like the USA. In the first place i'm gratefull for the invasion during the second world war, without it i was probably born as a German. The USA was always known for democrazy, freedom and the idea that the USA is protecting us from evil communists or dictators. But now things have changed. The USA is loosing its values faster the the speed of light.
Europe can't trust the USA for its security anymore. We can't trust the USA to defend our values or our freedom. So, it's time for Europe to become the new leader of the world. Europe's potential is huge.
The UK is another story. One day the UK will discover that the USA simply used them as a tool. The USA doesn't care about the UK and one day they will say; "good luck, good bye". I really wish we could trade the UK for Canada because i know Canada would be a good and helpful neighbour without attitude. Too bad this is not possible.
Anyway...as a Dutchy i'm totally not impressed by the UK. Especially not if theytalk, full of proud, about how they ruled the waves and foolish things like that. We ruled the waves too; we where even brave enough to fight you. haha...said by a proud Dutchy.
To end;
It is cool this topic is not dominated by American opinions about Europe; they know nothing about it. I'm very optimistic about Europe's future and i hope we can somehow make this "constitution" thingy work. It's time for a new leader of the world; Europe.
Just my opinion.
Have fun!
Roach _________________ "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." ~ Albert Einstein
Joined: Jul 04, 2008 Posts: 147 Location: Europe: European Historian
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:55 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Ive studied this for a long time..Heres my thoughts>
The UK-
Will be the absolute worse place in Europe post peak oil. With a population of 62+ million people "20% of which are immigrants" a land the size of a post stamp, and a farm population of 2% with no energy or gas..The UK really has little time to live...And they don't have their colonies to fall back on nor a strong generation "like was in the days of WW1. I don't see any good. And ave debt in the UK exceeds the USA..thus a housing crash will be first followed in 2012 by a cliff like event on the energy front. By 2020 it will be hell to live there. I have very bleak future of the UK. It will be one of the absolute worse places to live.
Belgium and the Netherlands
Will be one of the first to pull out of the EU..causing a currency crisis of the Euro
France-
Will likely by 2012-2015 have total civil unrest. "Even more so then the Revolution produced" I expect many cities to go up in flames "as the welfare is cut off from the 10+ million immigrants there.
Germany
Similar to France. I just was reading about WW2 and Plan Leibanstram "land to the East... Hitler was well familiar with the food problem of the Germans..and they had a few famines "1917 and early 1930s they had a food crisis. Germans do have coal, but without NG and oil they are going to be royal screwed.
Most of these nations all have a Housing runup..similar to the USA...and are going to experience a crash and will then produce a crash of liquidity..Nobody will have any money.
The Nuke route
I dont see conventional war. I see a low scale nuclear exchange "about 200-300 bombs world wide going off. I also see this happening next decade. And I think many of the Western European countries will witness a "Threads " like senerio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads
Joined: Jul 04, 2008 Posts: 147 Location: Europe: European Historian
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:13 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Code:
We need strong leadership; the Germans can do that.
Angela Merkel....Give me a break! The Germans need anouther Bismark not the joke they have now in power. Also Germany has been a puppet of the UK and USA for the past near 70 years. The Germans are going to par little better then their American counterpart.
Anyway Germany has had 60 years to prepare...and what have they done..on the scale of the problem facing the world not much! I expect Germany to have problems feeding their own people in the years ahead.
All these alternatives are too late and unscalable for the populations. Think of it like this..You may have solar panels on your house, but your'll likely starve to death watching TV or listening to the radio.
Germany is going to be near dependent on the North Sea and Russia for 30-35% of its energy by 2012 and 70% of its energy "coal, uranium,oil, gas" is imported.
I'm a historian...their was a REASON why Many Germans in the 1700-1920s immigrated to the New World..Mainly hungar...This was a time when Germany had 1/2 the population and near all ethnic German.
Today the nation has countless Turk, Muslims, former Communist block peoples and double the population it had in the 1880s.
The nation is a total byproduct of cheap energy.
We are entering an age of scarcity, depletion, expensive energy..and we are in extreme overshoot.
I can't stress enough.. Scale...Thats the main problem..
Joined: Jan 18, 2008 Posts: 70 Location: The Netherlands
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Quote:
Belgium and the Netherlands
Will be one of the first to pull out of the EU..causing a currency crisis of the Euro
The Netherlands is one of the greatest supporters of the EU. Out of all country's in Europe, the Netherlands would be the last one to pull out of it. For Belgium it is not different.
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The Nuke route
I dont see conventional war. I see a low scale nuclear exchange "about 200-300 bombs world wide going off. I also see this happening next decade. And I think many of the Western European countries will witness a "Threads " like senerio.
And who is going to bomb the EU? The EU is surely not going to use nukes against itself....i bet my life on that.
To add to it (for the ultra-doomers); Nukes are the easy way out. It's for cowards. It's a relative painless dead compared to what could happen. One day you wish we used 'em.
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Anyway Germany has had 60 years to prepare...and what have they done..on the scale of the problem facing the world not much!
Prepare for what? Nobody is preparing for peak oil except a few individuals.
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We are entering an age of scarcity, depletion, expensive energy..and we are in extreme overshoot.
I can't stress enough.. Scale...Thats the main problem..
Yep! We all know (except for a few) that we can't solve this. That's why Europe has to work together in order to stay relative healthy compared to other country's/areas in the world. We're all going to suffer, but some people will suffer a little bit more then others. _________________ "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." ~ Albert Einstein
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 2:34 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
kakkerlak wrote:
IF Europe becomes more united then you can expect to see one of the strongest militarys in the world. Really! Don't underestimate Europe's ability to wage war. If necesarry Europe can raise an army before you can say army.
Could you imagine masses of spoiled, pacifistic, liberally minded young Finns, Dutch, Germans or French taking up arms? Currently dominant social values and ideals would have to be completely reversed first. (Well I guess PO will help...) And against what country? Invading Algeria after they threaten to cut off NG supplies to Europe, for example?
There will be bloodshed in Europe too, but it probably won't be regulated by conventional state-run warfare. It's going to be one group with specific interests against another group, an ethnic majority against an ethnic minority etc.
And I'm still highly skeptical of the viability of a political union that is supposed to work in the best interests of the Portuguese, the Germans, the Poles, the Greek etc. during a dire energy crisis, diverging national aspirations and emerging chauvinism. An explained refutation of this argument would be most welcome.
It has been quite a while since the world knew no global imperial powers, only regional powers confined by geographical boundaries. It would be interesting to see such a situation afresh. China and Russia could outlast the US and Europe, in matters of political and military power, but even they can hardly become globally dominant players in an energy-poor world.
(Unless the Illuminati NWO conspiracy people are right... so far this Europe Discussion subforum hasn't seen much of them, but they already seem to dominate the Open Discussion.) _________________ "A devastating error is to set up a political system based on [individual] desire... the best dictatorship would be one where the government prevents any economical growth."
"Only scarcity and effort make life worth living."
-Pentti Linkola
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:04 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Grim - too many inequalities in sustainability between nations/regions, and particularly between urban and rural. I think these pressures will lead to growth of regional political bases eg basque, breton, welsh etc.
Having said that EU has helped these smaller regions in many ways. Maybe there's a plan? :!
Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 321 Location: Holland, United Kingdom (of the seven Netherlands)
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
I'm Dutch as well. Most Dutch are very sceptical about the EU. We hate what politicians try to make of it. It should not be political. Stay out of foreign policies and stuff like that. We Dutch just want free trade. We don't want to pay politicians to make policies in Brussels. We have enough of those in the Hague. I wouldn't mind if we stepped out of the EU and joined the EFTA instead.
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