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The Dawning Of New Europe

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
The Dawning Of A New Europe

Strongly Agree/Disagree/Don't care?

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    the way i see it

    All this b.s about France and Germany being punished/ostracized/wrists slapped etc for failing to agree with Britain and the U.S is ridiculous. Why should they? They are independant states.

    I may not necessarily agree with the policies of another democratic state but it's that countries perogative and surely down to their voters to decide.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The article doesn't really say anything about punishing/wrist slapping France/Germany etc?

    Its about the formation of a european constitution etc?

    Did you read the article? :P
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A European constitution is simply a stepping stone towards a federal Europe.

    I think the idea of a European free trade zone is a good one. It would be pleasing to trade freely with Russia and Turkey.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    France and Germany have made themselves look shabby and unreliable

    I agree with that and that was before the devistating revelations in the London Times and Telegraph regarding France giving allied information to Iraq from just after 9/11 on.

    I'm not on the site to change minds. But regarding my country, America, I have to view things the way I do in school. You know when someone's your friend and when they aren't. France is out for France...which is o.k. to a point. For me, giving information to people who could destroy my country...the best as I can view France is as a country that isn't killing Americans itself...but will help others do it if it means more business.

    France will never recover from this in my lifetime...

    If I could vote I'd vote for any candidate who had plans to get France out of our private conversations regarding national defense. In terms of competing in the world, whatever.

    I do not see how the UK could join France in any sharing of its government because the guy picked up in London this past January came from Iraq. The Al Qaeda group that had been operating in Northern Iraq. And now that we know, from papers discovered by the Brits, that Saddam's people met with Bin Laden himself in 1998 and France was providing intelligence to Iraq...well, it's not my country but I hope the UK is smarter than that.

    For us, Bush won't even stay at a hotel in France for the G8 summit. He's staying in a Swiss hotel and driving across the border.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So what if France was helping the Iraqis? Do you want to nuke them PNJ?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    At the moment though i dont trust the French and i dont trust America because to be honest both of them are as bad as each other. Both bitch when something doesnt go they way and both follow they own selfish interests.

    France politics does not smell of roses nor does America christ almighty have you seen your president he cheated to become President. Floridia was rigged to high heaven and guess who was the governor it was good all Dubya's brother Jeb.

    How can America bring democracy to Iraqi when you dont have it in America?

    France yeah they can be arses look at the foot and mouth and with BSC
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Simbelyne
    So what if France was helping the Iraqis?

    :confused:

    So it's actually okay to trade with vicious regimes?

    Does this mean that you won't citicise the US for doing so then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Is this the Giscard d’Estaing plan which he wrote "himself" and which has upset large parts of Europe because they have had little or no input?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Its about the formation of a european constitution etc?

    You have to consider who you're trading your ability to make decision to. So France's conduct during the whole Iraqi War thing has to be weighed against economic benefits.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    "The question has to be asked, ‘Why does the UK have to pay the costs of the CAP and suffer the indignities of the CFP in order to be associated with a group of nations which are both economically unsuccessful and will take a diminishing share of its exports over the next few decades?’ "

    I'm sorry, but that is just too damn funny. Shall we take a look at which European countries have the highest GDP per capita, and which have the highest standard of living? Do you really think the UK is economically successful? When it comes to economics, the writer of this piece needs to have the back of his head smacked repeatedly with a clue-by-four.

    I do however agree with him that the CAP in particular is a ludicrous mechanism used to funnel British taxpayers' money to (primarily) French farmers.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    On this issue there was an interesting article by columnist Tony Parsons in today's Daily Mirror on how the Americans will never forgive France:
    No merci in US for thankless French Apr 28 2003


    I DON'T think the British have it in them to truly hate the French.

    Despite our jocular outpourings of hop-off-you-Frogs banter, despite being frequently messed around by their surly air traffic controllers, despite having often seen their bullying unions intimidate British lorry drivers and burn British products, and despite having fought numerous wars against them, I think the British quite like the French.

    Maybe "like" is putting it too highly. But the British admire a certain je ne sais quoi about French life.

    If a Brit is in any part of France from Paris to Provence, he or she is likely to think - ah, this is the way life should be lived.

    It's not the food. It's not the sun sinking over the Med. It's not the more-wine-my-dear sophistication, or the Brigitte Bardot/Sacha Distel sexiness. It's not the art, the architecture or the sound of that beautiful language. It is all of these things.

    But it is different for Americans.

    America has always distrusted France. Americans have found the French arrogant - which is a lot like George Best disapproving of someone because of their drinking habits.

    After the war with Iraq, that distrust has curdled into something much more vehement. In America today, there is a genuine hatred of France and the French, and it means that the Western alliance will never be the same again.

    Americans feel that, only a generation ago, they set France free. This is true, of course - there are 75,000 American men and boys buried in European graves, and they are never given the respect they deserve. The French were also set free by the Russians destroying the German Sixth Army in the ruins of Stalingrad, and by the British, who faced down Nazism alone.

    But the British and the Russians were fighting for their national survival. The liberation of France was a happy by-product of that battle. To Americans, who never had German bombs dropping on their cities, or German troops swaggering through their streets, the liberation of France looks more like a hugely costly act of charity. And are les bastards grateful? Non, monsieur.

    "Why should we expect the French to help us get Saddam out of Iraq?" asked one American. "They didn't even help us to get Hitler out of France."

    In America there is a massively popular website called Francestinks. com. As you would expect, it contains plenty of French jokes - "the only way the French were going in was if we told them we'd discovered truffles in Iraq" - but the overall tone is deadly serious.

    AMERICANS died for a country that is ungrateful, decadent and yellow to the core.

    "Going to war without the French is like going hunting without your accordion," says one commentator. "How many Frenchman does it take to defend Paris?" asks another. "Nobody knows - it's never been tried." Then there's the one about the ad for the French rifle - "never used, dropped only once."

    The French joke industry only advertises how profound the anger is against the French in the USA. When George Bush says of Jacques Chirac, "I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," he is basically stating that he hopes Chirac falls under a carriage on the Paris Metro.

    It goes to show how the world has changed since 9/11, a day that resulted in Afghanistan having the crap bombed out of it. But it was our allies in Saudi Arabia who provided the suicide squad for September 11.

    Just as France, by consistently blocking action against Saddam, unquestionably propped up one of the vilest regimes on the planet.

    In the world today, it is not our enemies that we fear and loathe.

    It is our friends.
    Source www.mirror.co.uk
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Man Of Kent
    :confused:

    So it's actually okay to trade with vicious regimes?

    Does this mean that you won't citicise the US for doing so then?

    Sorry... I was a leetle bit drunk and carefree...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Darth Fred
    "The question has to be asked, ‘Why does the UK have to pay the costs of the CAP and suffer the indignities of the CFP in order to be associated with a group of nations which are both economically unsuccessful and will take a diminishing share of its exports over the next few decades?’ "

    I'm sorry, but that is just too damn funny. Shall we take a look at which European countries have the highest GDP per capita, and which have the highest standard of living? Do you really think the UK is economically successful? When it comes to economics, the writer of this piece needs to have the back of his head smacked repeatedly with a clue-by-four.
    At the start of the 21st century its economy is the fourth largest in the world and the second largest in the EU, and its living standards are similar to or a shade higher than the EU average.

    Alright the French GDP is very similar to ours and if they hadn't joined the Euro and devalued their currency it would probably be even closer/greater
    But perhaps the most pressing reason for the UK to reassess the economic case for European involvement stems from the sharp change in its neighbours’ performance. In the 1950s and 1960s output growth in most European countries was two or three times as fast as in the UK. But in the 1990s British growth was slightly higher, while Europe as a whole was outpaced by newly industrialising Asian countries, including China. Over the next 50 years the European share of world trade and output will shrink. Germany and Italy in particular are threatened by a poor demographic outlook, with rising numbers of elderly dependants and a declining population of working age. But all European nations (including the UK) face similar problems to some degree and have recorded mediocre productivity growth in recent years
    Britain should react in two ways. First, it should advocate a new Efta to include all the existing members of the EU and Efta, plus Russia and Turkey. The UK would belong to this new and much expanded Efta which would have no ambitions to be anything more than a customs union. Second, it should make clear to other members of the EU that free trade and economic interaction are the purposes of its involvement with them, and that it is not interested in political union. Britain therefore proposes to renegotiate the existing treaties, and to withdraw as soon as practicable from the CAP and the CFP, and from the financing of the Structural Funds

    All the benefits none of the drawbacks?

    You are correct the CAP is a joke.
    I study Economics and there is no need to tell me how crap this country is. About the only thing we are good at is services and especially financial services. (For example London is by far and away the largest FOREX market)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by DB56K
    the largest FOREX market

    Surely the largest FOUR-X market would be Australia? :confused:











    Sorry, bad pun.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What I wouldn't give to see British tanks "liberating" Paris for a second time :)

    I think I pretty much agree with both articles....nuff said.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There was an article on CNN World from the US CNN site about France. It is going to go above the 3% debt limit of the EU. And Tony Blair was yelling at France regarding a meeting between France, Germany and Belguim. The meeting was about having the EU have its own defense....supplied by France equipment of course. Blair basically said that NATO better not be being undermined. The headquarters of this new military force would be in NATO.

    On the positive side, it would contain a lot of things to combat this age of terrorism. Like a rapid deploy troop to handle incidents like what happened in the Moscow theater. But my impression was that NATO was going to be remade into that kind of force.
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