Cameron and Europe

[????]

Would YOU lend Greece a few quid? They're on their way out, they've effectively defaulted already, the markets know it and I suspect the politicians do too.

Bild is by far Germanies best selling newspaper but it is read by those horrible plebs rather than the oh so knoeledgable elite you love so much.

The games up.

[????]

Anyway to cheer up you europhiles....

[????]

Huge - this isn't a gloat but

Greece debt to junk status

I do admire your utter Canute like conviction that the purity of the idea will somehow defy reality

[????]

PS this could well be the UK soon.. so no gloat

[silverfox]

EU 'to vet British Budget before Parliament'

"The European Union will vet the Chancellor's Budget before it is debated by MPs in the House of Commons or seen by the public, under plans agreed last night.

Mr Van Rompuy and the European Commission have tabled plans that will require all of Europe?s governments to discuss their budget plans with other EU finance ministers and officials before they presented to national parliaments..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/7809991/EU-to-vet-British-Budget-before-Parliament.html

Er...Hello...a good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon expletive springs to mind

[Brendan]

Personally I think it in the EUs best interest to cut ties with Britain completely. It?s not like these islands don?t already have form for being an outwardly aggressive, xenophobic liability. Why they would want them in the fold in the first place is anyone?s guess.

Although I suppose they tolerate France despite the same.

[????]

And of course let's not forget Germany's record on 'outward aggression and Xenophobia' whilst we're stereotyping

[Brendan]

True but at least most of them have the decency to feel bad about it.

But you know, zee Germans. Bastards to man ?ey?

[Moos]

Does every thread have to end up being about the world cup?

[Brendan]

I'm just waiting for the arguments against Europe to come in the form of a chorus of ?10 German Bombers?

[????]

*clears throat*

[Brendan]

My one of my biggest concerns with Europe is that if a truly politically/economically and even culturally unified Europe emerges instead of it preventing potential conflict it will cause more. Suddenly Europe may look at how powerful it is and decide to have a crack at China or America.

[????]

...well that's why you don't have to worry

[Brendan]

Well culturally the European people aren?t as different from one another as they like to think in fact a lot of them are practically identical apart from their languages and pretty soon we will all just be speaking American anyway. The rest is politics and economics. So given a generation or 2 it could happen.

[????]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ...the beginning of the end?

>

> Greece will go and then they'll look at the next

> Euro target Spain/Portugal?

...and I forgot Ireland in between

[Magpie]

Brenden - I don't think you need to worry too much, Europeans dislike each other far too much for there ever to be a truly unified US or China style Europe.

[Huguenot]

You may be underestimating the degree to which the US and Chinese don't like themselves ;-)

[Loz]

Especially China. China has a big, rather unreported, problem with terrorism from separatist regions.

[Huguenot]

People confuse the idea of 'nation' and 'state'.

A nation is a social and cultural construct, a state is an administrative region.

Quids thinks there can be no European agreement because it'll never be a 'nation'. I don't disagree with him that the totalitarian tendencies necessary to creating homogenous 'nations' are in the past for Western Europe.

However I fundamentally disagree that this stands in the way of creating a state. I'm also convinced that statehood is necessary in a world of dwindling resources to gain Europe a fair share in the face of Chinese, Indian and US imperial inclinations.

Most 'nations' were built by the arbitrary identification of 'state' borders, and the indoctrination of children through education into a unified concept of genetic nationality.

'Nations' are for mugs and the Balkans.

Despite popular myth, the UK has never really been a 'nation' in the 'one people' sense of the word. Every region has strong separatist ideals. The same applies to all of the european super-nations of Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

When Cameron, Merkel and others claim that multiculturalism has failed, they are merely protesting that the natural consequence of an educated society is a reduction in the need for blind tribalism that hangs 'nations' together.

They would do better to focus on the elements of statehood that would best serve their electorate, and stop trying to sustain antiquated medieval concepts beyond their natural life.

[mockney piers]

Bravo

[????]

and as a statement as about as practical and meaningful as 'cure all illness and eradicate global poverty' however 'nice' it sounds, worthy of a Miss World candidate Huge. Constantine said something sort of similar back in the 300s, Trotky 100 years ago etc etc

[mockney piers]

Not really. There's pretty practical food for thought if a European State is to compete in a multipolar world for markets and resources.

The most pro European (and least successful imperial power thinking about it) of the big European powers is Spain.

it's no coincidence that it has enjoyed the least success in subjagating local identities for a national project.

The most successful is France* and still has the biggest issues with racism, anti-semitism and thinking the A europeman superstate will actually be a greater France (speaking French of course).

But these are hurdles that need to be overcome if we are to compete/survive in the future, and maintaining a smaller sense of identity with a coexisting non-nationalistic sense of integration (call it multicultarism if you will, humanism might be a better description) seems to me a pretty good step forward in resolving some of these issues.

Plus who cares if someone else said something, are not even dull truisms worth repeating if they're useful? More useful than *yawn, that's like, so 300 AD* ;-P

*20th century Germany is a weird political aberration, 21st century Germany is a very different beast, err animal, err thingy

[Brendan]

And no doubt you would have been just as cynical about the idea of a unified England 1000 years ago, a unified India 200 years ago or a unified South Africa 100 years ago.

Granted they have all ended up as pretty shit places to live but the idea of disparate nations unifying under a centralised administration is demonstrably workable.

[katie1997]

MockneyP - you're lucky you weren't told to 'think for yourself' and that there 'is no wit in quotation' :P

[mockney piers]

Noo, I'm saying unification is workable, but it doesn't need to be achieved by subscribing to some bullshit ideal.

I'm pretty sure people can be pragmatic about pooling resources, about free movement of labour and removal of internal barriers whilst celebrating difference and without the need to subjugate a sense of identity to some wider goal.

Nationalism may have positive aspects in empire building, war fighting and industrial endeavour (which apart from the latter are of course bad things), but the negative aspects far outweigh the positive.