Dec 9, 2011: the first day of Europe's new life

Merkel and Sarkozy point the way... or poking fun at Cameron?

Today, 20 years after the Maastricht Treaty, the temptation may be to start a long rant on Britain's often successful attempts to block European integration, in general acting on behalf of its former colonies across the Atlantic. Thirty eight years of British Euro-skepticism and hostility have now been repaid with simple indifference. Britain was always the spanner in the European works, or as Der Spiegel puts it "the fly in the European soup"!

Anyway, let bygones be bygones and let us celebrate the first day of a new era: a two-speed Europe.

We are done with the hypocrisy, no more lowest common denominator agreements. The continent will march on forwards, and the island north of La Manche can continue swimming towards America... except that maybe Scotland may decide to join us later on.

History proved the Charles de Gaulle was right all the time: Britain should never have entered, having instead some kind of association agreement at the same level of Turkey. The unprepared US-led enlargement towards the East was also an error: although these nations are an absolutely essential part of Europe, the calendar was all wrong, i.e. deepening of the Union should have came before a formal enlargement. This has led us to a moment when only creative destruction will solve the problem, and Merkel and Sarkozy have earned their place in history. The debt crisis is Europe's blessing in disguise.

So we have a draft intergovernmental treaty, but that is only a first step. Europe now needs the instruments of representative democracy. Of course integrated economic policies, foriegn policy and defense are essential, but none are totally legitimate without the creation of European-wide political parties. Without truly European parties setting the agenda, we will always face the risk of crippling balkanization.

Having solved the problem of a Union eternaly blocked by the British, of course the intergovernmental agreement (the "compact") itself still has to run the gauntlet of approval in each signatory country. Furthermore, a 'fiscal union' may come in many forms, and the devil is in the detail. 'Fiscal union' at most will be an euphemism for common rules for budgetary discipline across the Eurozone, there will be no merger of tax structures and authorities.

Naturally the less naïve among us are also raising fundamental doubts on the sufficiency of the intergovernmental agreement as a tool to return public debt markets to normality, strong tools such as Eurobonds or the ability of the ECB to make large scale bond purchases or increase money supply remain off the agenda. Even simple budgetary discipline rules imposed from outside will only be effective if non-compliance will lead to powerful sanctions. Writing budget prudence into the constitution of each member country per se is not enough, if politicians have a talent is is fudging the rules. In case it was forgotten: rules for budgetary discipline across the EU are already in place. The Euro convergence criteria (aka Maastricht criteria) require that member states keep deficits below 3 per cent of GDP and ratio of gross government debt to GDP must not exceed 60% at the end of the preceding fiscal year.

Charles de Gaulle vindicated at last - Gallic revenge on the Brits

NATO: why should Europe finance America's folie?

Lord Ismay, first Secretary General of NATO, stated the mission of the organization without any ambiguity: “To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” To this, the post 9/11 history has de facto added "support any American acts of madness across the globe".

Is this something we should spend European tax payer Euros on? Either the original mission or the new extension?


America always calls the wars to be fought; then an acquiescent NATO, waits for orders from the Pentagon, rewritten in Brussels. European forces are a mere foreign legion serving in an American imperial army.

Robert Gates

All this is bad as it is, but last week, Robert Gates, in his final days as US defense secretary, accused in a resentful tone, the European partners in Nato of not pulling their own fair share of the weight. Mr Gates stated that America is unfairly burdened with providing funding for and the muscle behind NATO.


What does Europe need the US for? Bombing civilian targets in Belgrade? Invading sovereign states under false pretenses? Practice torture and extra-judicial killings? Transforming the Muslim world into a nest of fanatics?


Has Europe forgot where the US was when needed? The French learned a lesson from the Suez crisis, but apparently not the Brits! Why do we need an "ally" that finances and trains the terrorists that massacre our civilian populations, as they did in the Portuguese colony of Angola?


We cannot criticize Mr Gates, he thinks he is acting in the best interest of America... as he did when supporting the Taliban. However we must strongly whip our politicians for their silence and inaction.


Any cent spent supporting US military action across the world is a crime against all European citizens.


Or are we in the same pathetic situation of Japan, who still pays the US for its own occupation?


Not only must NATO be consigned to history, and replaced by a European army, but all American troops must be removed from European soil.

A European Army is needed

PS: list of European countries hosting US occupation forces:
Shame you government into making them leave!

• Denmark (Greenland)
• Germany (Including nuclear weapons)
• Greece (Including nuclear weapons)
• Italy (Including nuclear weapons)
• United Kingdom (Including nuclear weapons)
• Spain
• Norway
• Sweden
• Belgium
• Portugal (mostly Azores)
• Netherlands (Including nuclear weapons)
• France 
• Poland 
• Serbia (in occupied Kosovo Metochia province)

10 French soldiers killed in Afghanistan

EU flag with mourning black stripe

10 French soldiers were killed and 21 injured after Taliban guerrillas ambushed a patrol east of Kabul, in the Sarobi district.

This happened barely one day after president Sarkozy completed a tour of Afghanistan. Before this tragic events, opinion polls showed that less than 25% of the French supported France's role in the conflict, and yet even the French Communist Party favours the war!

Europe should be able to accept its casualties with pride, but for  its own wars and causes. Europe is accepting US orders in a war euohemistically called "Operation Enduring Freedom" that makes no sense and that is lost from the very first day!

Have politicians on both sides of the Atlantic forgoten the image of a castrated president Mohammad Najibullah hanging from a post in Kabu's Aryana Squarel? He was the Karzai of the Soviets...

Time is on the side of the Taliban, and even America's closest ally in the region, Pakistan, covertly supports them  through their Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The west need to cut its losses and leave Afghanistan immediately. Negotiate with Mullah Omar. What is the difference if the Taliban control the country now or in 5 years?

Once the Taliban are in power they must be talked to and traded with, otherwise we create a new Iran or North Korea.

After all the terrorists that plant bombs in the West are usually Saudi or Pakistani, not Afghans. The predominant ethnic group in the country and in the Taliban are the Pashtun, a proud Indo-European people that mostly wants to be left alone. The world will be better off living with the Taliban than fighting them, after all they are a lot less radical than our Saudi "allies".

Kabul 1992: president Najibullah and his brother executed by the Taliban