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19-12-2005, 15:34 | #121 | ||||||
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The EU is NOT an empire, it can't expand indefinitely further and further, some final borders have to be set, and the sooner the better. Surveys in France and the Netherlands after the negative votes to the EU constitution have showed that people were concerned by the fact that the EU was expanding uncontrollably and nobody could tell them clearly *where* exactly the expansion would stop. This is a cause of great worries and people now want to know exactly where the EU will stop, they want clear external borders, it is now urgent for the EU to stop its expansion and consolidate the EU as it is now, a final list of future potential members can be defined but that is all, the time for growth is now over, it is time to set final Eastern and Southern borders so people will have a clear idea of the final shape of the EU. Quote:
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19-12-2005, 20:02 | #122 |
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There's no reason for Israel as a direct result of European history not to be - eventually - accepted into EU - though I'd imagine they wouldn't even want to join these days, seeing as though most European countries had serious reservations on the US "war on terror", which Israel (of course) supported.
Anyway... if you go by that totally ortodox and elitist mindset on who can be qualified as European and who can't then countries like Ukraine or Belarus? And how about Russia? Historically it's just as European as France is. And no matter what authority the parliament gets it'll never ever get full legislative power like national parliaments have. That's not what it was designed for. So imo there's no real threat of a Turkish political dominance. |
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freddie | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ multyman@hotmail.com ] Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. |
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19-12-2005, 22:00 | #123 | |
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This is a moo point for Russia anyway, we all know that Russia will never ask to join the EU, Russia still sees itself as a superpower and wants to be at the center of its own regional organization (the CIS) and not simply an additional member to another regional organization (the EU). Furthermore, let's not forget that the oldest EU members have to fund the development of new members which is quite a strain on their finances, and Russia is way too big for the EU, the amount of money required to fund Russia would be unbearable for the EU. So i think it is best for the CIS and the EU to develop separately. That being said, i think it will be possible at some point to create some kind of North hemisphere trade agreement between CIS, EU, and NAFTA, especially with the Arctic ocean becoming open to new trade routes because of the global warming. For me, in addition to Bulgaria and Romania that are already scheduled to become EU member states, only the remaining former Yugoslav countries and Albania should be allowed to join the EU. After that, admissions should be permanently closed, the EU will have in my opinion reached its maximum size, that would be 32 member states (possibly up to 35 since Iceland, Norway and Switzerland all have bilateral agreements with the EU that allow them to become members at any time) with a total population of about 0.5 billion. That's enough to have a flourishing internal market and a significant weight on an international level. And i don't see that as an elitist position, the EU is not the UN, it was never meant to include the whole world, it's a regional union. I just want the EU to only include countries that have enough in common to actually make it work, and i don't want the EU to become too big as it would only end up collapsing under its own weight. |
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20-12-2005, 02:35 | #124 |
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Enough in common? That's just the reason why any kind of European integration was pondered (even before WW2) in the first place: Euro countries, and even the core EU members never had enough in common to coexist in peace without centuries of bloody wars. If anything Europe was the direct consequence of these differences.
I know Russia itself would never venture into a political union with EU - I only gave it as an exampe too expose how bannal that stance on "closing the borders and throwing away the key" is. Though I wouldn't put it past Ukraine to apply for the membership in a few years - especially after the orange revolution. CIS can coexist paralel to the EU. And while we're on the subject of ex Yugoslav republics - Turkish invasion left a huge influence on Serbia and especially Bosnia - it literaly shaped the two countries and gave them a typical "eastern" mentality. It even gave Bosnia it's official religion. So by your criteria it should be far to estranged by now since such a foreign culture played an integral part in the development of the nation (even their genotype shows turkish influence). |
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freddie | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ multyman@hotmail.com ] Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. |
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21-12-2005, 22:48 | #125 | |||
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22-12-2005, 03:30 | #126 |
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Belarus would never join the EU at this point in time given that fact that Lukachenko (dictator) is in power an is isolating his country from EU countries.
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22-12-2005, 06:52 | #127 | ||||
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I also think that Ukraine would be too much of a burden for the EU. The first former communist country to join the EU was East Germany when it reunited with West Germany, 15 years later Germany still hasn't recovered from the cost of the reunification, and East Germany had less then 20 million people! The EU just admitted 8 new former communist countries, and 2 more in 2 years, from the East German experience, we can tell that it's going to take decades for the EU to assimilate those new members and bring them up to EU standards, adding to that a former soviet republic like Ukraine with a large population and a totally crippled economic infrastructure would be unbearable. Quote:
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I've already said that i am willing to go very far in terms of transfers of sovereignty, i support the idea of France transferring its permanent seat at the UN Security Council to the EU, i also support the idea of France transferring its nuclear capabilities to a future EU defense ministry so the EU as a whole would become a nuclear power. But of course, i'm not willing to do that with just *any* members within the EU. Anyway, my main point is that the recent eastern expansion of the EU has caused great concerns among western populations, in another post i used the expression "uncontrollable expansion", this is something that i've heard a lot for the last couple of years. Until then, the EU had only grown by small steps, 1 to 3 countries at a time, no more, and with the eastern block, people had a good idea of the maximum shape the EU could take. But with the collapse of communist regimes, everything has changed, and it's not 3, but 10 more countries that have joined during the last enlargement, and we already know that 2 more will follow shortly, and we are already talking of Turkey, Ukraine, even Russia sometimes. From 15 member states, we went to 25 in one step, and people have been told that it could reach 35 or even 40 in the near future! The populations of the oldest members have become extremely worried, they no longer know how many countries will join, they don't know how far the EU is going to expand, and most importantly, they don't know where it's going to stop. This is something i've heard a lot as well, people now want to know exactly what countries the EU will include in its final form, they want to know where will be the final external borders, they want to hear that the current expansion is a final phase and that once it's completed the EU won't get any new members ever. To me, those concerns that didn't exist before mean that the EU has somehow reached its critical mass, the maximum size that populations are willing to accept, anything beyond that won't be accepted by people and it will only cause rejection and instability within the EU itself. In France the topic of the "uncontrollable expansion" has become so acute, that under public pressure, the government had to go as far as to add a new article to the French constitution, an article that states that from now on, any new candidate to EU membership will have to be approved by referendum, and so if the referendum is negative, France will veto the candidacy of that particular country thus blocking its admission since unanimity is required for a new candidate to be approved. Those concerns have to be taken into account, enlargement won't be possible if the populations of the oldest members don't support it. |
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23-12-2005, 14:27 | #128 | ||||||||
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23-12-2005, 15:13 | #129 | ||
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Not meaning to disturb your exciting politics discussion, boys , but just to mention something.
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23-12-2005, 22:50 | #130 | |||||||
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24-01-2006, 01:54 | #131 | ||
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It is now clear that the EU constitution (unchanged) will be submitted to a new vote in France after the next presidential and parliamentary elections (2007), this time though, it will be submitted to the parliament to ensure its adoption, not to the population. There isn't even a need to find a justification for the change of method, in France it's the president alone who decide if a vote will go through the parliament or a referendum, and each president takes different decision, so the justification will simply be that the new president has taken a different decision from the previous one. And the fact that both the president and the parliament will have been freshly elected will allow them to say that they obviously have the legitimacy to adopt the EU constitution in the name of the people since they've just won the elections! However, in exchange for this future parliamentary adoption of the EU constitution, politicians had to give something to the population, some kind of control over what worries people a lot: the expansion of the EU. And this is where the new law of having referendums for each new member get into play. With that law, politicians will be able to say to the population: "Yes, the parliament is adopting the EU constitution, which is good for the country, but the people will now have control over the expansion of the EU and will be able to veto any new member they don't approve of". That's the deal. Quote:
They rejected the EU constitution because they think it is too liberal, too close of the ultra capitalistic US model, those people indeed want a deeper EU, they support the idea of a highly centralized EU, they want an EU president directly elected by the people, they want a central government, they want centralized public administrations. For example they are opposed to the privatization of electricity companies and to have an open EU market where all electricity companies from all EU members can compete, they see that as the US ultra capitalistic way of doing things and they don't want that for Europe. What they want is to create at the EU level what was done at the national level of many European countries, they want the nationalization of all electricity companies in the EU and their merging in a huge EU public company which would have a monopoly within the EU, same thing for railroads or the post office, they want an EU railroad company and an EU post office. Basically, they want to keep the same level of quality in social and public services that most European countries currently have, and they don't want those national public services to compete with each other in a big capitalistic EU market, they want those national public services to merge in order to create EU public services. They want a social Europe, not a capitalistic jungle like in the US or China for that matter. So even though those people on the left have voted no to the EU constitution, it's only because they see it as capitalistic, they want a socialist constitution, they are indeed in favor of a much more deeply integrated EU with highly centralized administrations. And this is why they are also opposed to a further expansion of the EU, because they consider that the priority is to strengthen the EU with its current members, they see the expansion as a way for big private companies to expand their market and to exploit workers in the poorest new members by paying them 10 times less than what they pay in older members (but still selling their products at the same price which means huge profits for a few and poverty for millions), putting workers in older members out of jobs or blackmailing them into accepting lower salaries. |
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19-05-2006, 15:42 | #132 |
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Slovenia to join Euro zone in January 2007.
Slovenia is going to adopt the Euro next January. Congratulations to Slovene people for being the first former communist country to reach EU economic levels and monetary standards. |
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19-05-2006, 20:31 | #133 |
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Thanks!
It's gonna be a bitch to get used to those big-value Euro coins... if you drop a coin worth 1 or 2 Slovene Tolars you aren't really bothered to go back and look for it, or even arch your back and pick it up if it's right in front of you. Now I'm presuming we're gonna see many people on the floor looking for their lost 5 Euro coins (1 Euro= approx. 240 Slovene Tolars). So the Euro will literaly bring us to our knees by default. Estonia was scheduled to adopt the Euro as well, but they pulled out at the last moment. I was kind of surprised since their economic growth is blistering. They could have easily adopted it without any major shake-ups. |
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freddie | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ multyman@hotmail.com ] Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. |
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19-05-2006, 20:34 | #134 | |
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Bravo Slovenia.. and we cant even get IN yet wonder how those things happen
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19-05-2006, 20:40 | #135 | ||
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freddie | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ multyman@hotmail.com ] Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. |
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20-05-2006, 17:36 | #136 | ||
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Oh well, joining the Euro zone is a yearly process, they can refile next year. Quote:
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20-05-2006, 18:23 | #137 |
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They just postponed it for later i think. There will be more countries joining in 2008 ( correction ), Lithuania, Cyprus among others.
Well, i haven't seen the 5 euro coin either. Maybe soon, though. |
Last edited by spyretto; 20-05-2006 at 18:36. |
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21-05-2006, 17:13 | #138 |
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Heh.. EU. Funny thing this. The Norwegian populations have said no twice, and I have split feelings... I'm thinking no only because I'm afraid of changes and the fact that our economy will possibly be weakened by the membership.
But I'm thinking yes as I'm a big supporter of the European Union and having a big powerful union competable with USA, China, Russia and so on. European countries are small, but together we do posess a great deal of might and influence. Allthough I really would favor a Scandinavian Union I guess EU is a good second choice. Hehehe. I've tried to read through some of issues that has been brought up in the discussion (I know it's an old one tho), and I agree with haku pretty much over the whole line. However, I hope Switzerland will never join EU and stay out of any european issues as far as possible. I admire Switzerland for its democracy and independance. Hehe. Complicated to explain, but it's just my thought of the dream country really I'm not ruling out the fact that I'll move to switzerland sometimes if I get the choice. Hehe. Hmm... but Norway won't join EU any time soon tho. The Red-green government had to make some agreements to make it possible to rule together, and the little green shitty party got their say in that - no EU-membership. (I dislike the red parties as well tho. Hahaha. Half-socialistic shitty parties.) Anyways, I hope we're able to rebuild a great blue bastion to the election in 2009. They have talked about a voting over a EU-membership sometimes in 2010 or the first following years. I think today that I will vote yes. |
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23-05-2006, 21:38 | #139 | ||
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However, Estonia has decided to postpone its euro zone entry until January 2008. The reason: high inflation. Quote:
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17-06-2006, 09:23 | #140 | |
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Dudağımda yarım kalan söylenmemiş son sözümdür... Baki olsa da ayrılık, Aşk her daim ölümsüzdür... Varsın eller gönül yarası kapanır sansın, Kabuğun altında sevgili sen kanayansın... |
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