In a comments thread further down, my e-pal, Ortega, provided me with a link to a YouTube film of a seminar at an American university (Harvard, I think) given by a distinguished French professor of politics on the subject of the EU. It is, I think, a little out of date on small details, and also, whilst the Professor's English is excellent, his accent is not! Even so, I persevered to the end and it was worth it. You may watch it here but bear in mind it lasts well over an hour: http://youtu.be/ERRJyd5doXc
I'm not sure I learned anything new but it was good to hear my own suspicions confirmed by a man who obviously had studied the history of the EU from its inception. He ran through the obvious - well, obvious to anyone who is not a European fanatic - that the whole set-up is riven with internal contradictions as a continent made up of proud individual nations attempts, in a ludicrously short spell of time, to become one nation. In his (paraphrased) words, the result is an EU 'constitution' that is both too strong and too weak. Since its very beginning, the men driving this construction upwards and onwards have been blinded by their own vision and only now is reality, already huge and growing more ominous by the day it seems, exerting pressures undreamt of by these dreamers!
An indication of their blind faith is the constant repetition of their mantra that the European Union has brought peace to Europe. Nonsense! It was the Russian and American armies with a little (comparitively) help from Britain that brought peace to Europe. The nation-states that existed in 1945 were far too wrecked and ravaged to contemplate war with anyone and ever since the first moves were made to form the EU these nations have chosen material comfort over standing armies which is why today we can barely manage to drop a few bombs on Libya or Mali! Today, under the pressure of financial (not military) events it is more clear than ever before that the fundamental fault at the centre of this construction has not be solved, that is, the balance between central European authority and the individual power of the nation states. The emotional heart of this 'union', of course, was the engagement followed by the marriage between France and Germany. Alas, like all marriages Time has wrought his changes. A defeated, humiliated and shameful Germany was embraced by victorious La France and all past sins forgiven; but today, it is Germany that is all-powerful and an enfeebled France, about to be made even more anaemic by a strong dose of socialism, has no more power over Germany than good manners dictate. As the good Professor put it, with a likely split between north and south Europe, the only decision France has to take is which side to join!
Like the Central Committee of the old Soviet Union with their mad idea of unifying countless different peoples in different countries with different histories, one must not make the mistake of thinking the pseudo-'religiosity' of the fanatics who dream a similar dream of a United States of Europe will give up easily. In the last few days they agreed to steal money from citizens by means of edict. How long before they back up their monstrous demands with tanks?
