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Originally posted by UK Wizard
Europe is potentially one of the most powerful collections of nations currently in the world, the important word being 'potentially'.
Europe is divided both politically and socially, we can't have a 'one size fits all' plan, it would literally tear countries apart.
What we need is an alternative idea, a third way that combines both the separatist and integrationist ideals.
Each country wants certain things in the EU that other countries don't want, some may wish to be part of the common fisheries policy and some won't, it all depends on the country's national interests.
I have thought about the problems of the current format of the current European alliance and would like to share how I would solve it.
Firstly the EU would be ended, and several independent alliances would be set up:
EAC - European Aid Council
EFTA - European Free Trading Alliance
ESRU - European Scientific Research Union
EFA - European Fishing Alliance
etc....
Could you imagine if the billions we currently put into the EU were given instead, directly into projects such as alternative energy research. This way money would go straight to where it is needed to most, without needing to filtered down by the current EU hierarchy.
NOTE: There is no EDF (European Defence Force) in the examples of the possible independent alliances, a EDF would only conflict with NATO, which would cause tensions between non-European countries and European countries.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
It is also the biggest, most successful and enduring political union the world has ever seen.
Then there is the not so small matter of it's role in helping ensure peace throughout western europe.
We, as the EU, lie either first or second in any league table of any measure of quality of life, peace or stability.
Why on earth do you continually dismiss this and claim there is something wrong with it?
By all means look for improvement but to write it off in the manner you usually do and to always let go unrecognised the achievements of the EEC/EU seems simply nuts to me.
We have different views, yes. So what?
One minute people criticise the institution for, they think, being too uniform and trying to promote a 'one size fits all' and now you say it's too diverse?!
The point has always been to enjoy our diversity whilst sharing minimum standards across the community.....what's up with that?
- Er, no UK Wizard. The point is to stop looking at our narrow and selfish national interests and recognise that some have a trans-national dimension.
Fisheries being an excellent example. Fish are no respecters of borders.
- So we lose one bureaucracy and point of contact and substitute it with a swathe of others all independant to each other?!
This is pure tory-speak UK Wizard. They're always on about bureaucratic waste and 'red tape' that they imagine sucks up billions. It's a myth which is why the bureaucracy bill never drops when they get a go in charge.
When they talk about 'red tape' they mean they want a business environment with little or no regulation......fortunately most of the rest of Europe doesn't go in for that kind of lunacy.
Business is there to serve the people not the other way round.
The EU has clout at the WTO and in international trade generally. The USA doesn't like this and uses their political and business mates in the UK to maintain a background level of complaint against the EU......which in turn - after 15yrs of it - has become a pain in the a$$ distraction to the EU's business.
We could go on to the crazies that imagine all sorts of Biblical crud about it too but you get the idea, huh?
By the way....top forum, huh? No doubt I'll be seeing you here a fair bit, eh?
think a Union of Europe is needed. A United States Of Europe will prove to be good in the long run, I feel once we sort out all the corruption
You have voted UK Wizard for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.
Originally posted by UK Wizard
Funny I always thought it was the UN.
Please don't tell me you think the EU has stopped wars throughout Europe.
You keep expressing the EU as a single entity, where as it is a collection on separate nations. The reason why it has quality of life, peace or stability is because it is part of the modernised western world
I don't, i just think the EU hasn't brought about the change by itself.
I'm not that crazy , of course the EU has achieve thinks of worth, i simply don't like the way it is changing.
It's trying to be uniformed but the problem is that the EU has members that a too currently different to create policys that suit each country.
So we can't enjoy our diversity outside the EU then???
So why must we confine ourself to Europe, maybe its you who are EU selfish, why not have a more Global union???
What you mean fish leave and enter British waters without the proper papers
Yes, one over bloated bueaucracy for a few mini ones
Your idea of the Tories is in the past, even i agree that the Conservative Party was flawed then, but now...they have the ability to make a real difference.
even the CBI agrees with me:
Of course the US doesn't like the EU, but then again the EU doesn't like the US. Its all childish games on a international scale.
Michael Howard to Tony Blair during the Queen's Speech debate
If it took Winston Churchill five years to win the second world war, and if it took Clement Attlee six years to build the welfare state - surely seven and a half years is more than enough for you to get a grip on the problems that face Britain today
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
The UN is nothing like the EU.
It's the prime reason why it'll never happen again..
Why not just confine ourselves to the realistic and refrain from silly rhetorical flights of fancy, huh?
Because the independant auditors keep turning up figures of wasteage and fraud that compare very well with the figures for the individual nation states.
- No.
This is most definitely not a game.
It is real people and their families' lives
By the way your signature.......oh dear.
Originally posted by UK Wizard
It could be better though
How is it???
Why is it silly????? A global union could achieve far more than a European one
So we must have the wasteage and fraud of both our own country and that of the EU...interesting....
There childish because there is not point to them.
I'm not even going to bother answering as it has nothing to do with this thread. start another thread if you want to 'Tory Bash'.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
and how would that work?
We can already see there is a section of the US just itching to destroy it as it is and it has nothing like the legal status or 'place' of the EU with any member country within those countries.
I think this is a theory likely to remain just that.
On the other hand we have a functioning EU with a long track record of success.
Let's confine ourselves to what actually exists and is operating now, not daydreams of what might be way off in the future.
Whatever you think of the EU the world is coalescing around 3 or so major trading and political blocks. Maybe in the next century those blocks will start to come together.
Yeah but it's true though isn't it?
Originally posted by UK Wizard
Theres also a section in each country of the EU that wants to bring the EU down.
and failure...
Yets not, this is the point of this thread, Alternative European Alliance, which could a alliance in which Europe is but a faction of
I'm guessing you mean China, US and the EU?
I don't care if they messed up in the past, i'm looking to the present and the future. People still voted them in for those 19 year didn't they. If they were so terrible then whey in Gods name were they voted for!!!!
Start another thread if you want to Tory Bash, return to orginal thread purpose.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
....and even in the UK the anti-EU crowd are unwilling to stand on an honest 'let's leave the EU' platform because they know
- Would you care to elaborate on this "failure" you see?
Your entire signature is a Labour bash you repeat everytime you post!
Originally posted by UK Wizard
What about UKIP????
I can provide you with a link:
www.civitas.org.uk...
ok, i'm being a bit of a hipocrit, i'll change the signature then
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
That's not a list of the failures you see UK Wizard, that's a web site of anti-EU propaganda where a slanted and selective view of any and all things the EU does is trumpeted as the worst thing ever to happen in the history of man.
Don't change anything on my account, I was just pulling your leg.
Originally posted by shorty
If an alternative to the EU was set up how long before people like ourselves begin to make more alternitives?
Originally posted by Pelayo
�important word being 'potentially'� I am agree with you. Europe is something �potential� in many aspects. And this is the reason because it is now necessary to trust in the European Union and also to do sacrifices for the benefice of the European Union. In order to develop this �potential� as soon as possible and as much as possible.
instead of solving our problems by destroying and wasting our loved Europe.
The USA was a century ago a country with �potential� enough to be the main world superpower. I wonder what would happen if California didn�t use dollars and Louisiana had not accepted the Wahington government or Nebraska had only joined the AFA (american farms alliance ).
I don�t think that is a good idea. You are thinking about the dissection of the EU. The union makes the force. With the USA (almost 400 millions) in the far west and China (1200 millions) in the far east, Europe could not achieve the supremacy by such a division.
First of all, the petrol companies would never let the UK government inverting all this billions in alternative energy research.
The second point, is that the UK would not have such amount of billions to invert, if the EU does not exist.
I don�t care about the frictions with the NATO, since the NATO is the main symbol of the European dependency from the USA in the military aspect. The Euromilitary should be the priority for the European countries.
I think that in your thoughts there are a huge component of �Brit temperament�. I will explain�Is quite significant that Germany is the main contributor to the EU economy, but the German people is far more euro-enthusiastic than the Brit people. When I talk about �Brit temperament� I mean that GB is an island, you are there�you are in Europe but�you are not SO Europeans. This independence, this �keeping the distances� with the continental Europe has helped and saved the UK many times along its History, and I think that this idea is deeply incrusted inside the mind of many Brits.
the next war that the UK is going to fight, the guns and the warships are useless. This time the UK will not be saved by a bunch of RAF pilots.
The quasi-federal union with Portugal, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Netherlands, France, etc. is the only way to rise again as a superpower.
In my opinion, the UK is �loosing the train� in some important issues. Lets see what happens in the next decades.
Originally posted by UK Wizard
In its current state the EU is flawed and has no potential, why you ask? Because we haven't had a vote on membership in the UK for many years.
The EU thinks the only part of the world that truely matters is Europe, is doesn't care about the big picture.
Completely different, those were states with limited history, Europe is made up of countries with hundreds of years of pride and history.
But we don't have to be divided, the EU is not the rope that binds us, it is common sense and trust...not paper and politicians.
Thats corruption, which exists just as strongly in the EU as it does anywhere else,
Not as a individual country, but all the countries who are members of that certain alliance do.
Not true, NATO has safe guarded western europe against the war machine of the USSR. NATO is not run by the US...its is run by all members.
yes Britain is distrustful of those who aren't proven allies, the British people are unique, for better or for worse.
But it has kept us safe.
-Europe only thinks of itself as one entity, it forgets that Europe is not a country but a collection of nations.