Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Westerwelle's journey into fantasy world

The report presented by the so-called ‘Future of Europe’ reflexion group of eleven European foreign ministers, set up by Germany's Guido Westerwelle, hasn't gone down well in all quarters. The initiative was well-intentioned, for sure, but that's what you get when you suggest that Treaty changes should be decided by super-QMV, we suspect.

Der Spiegel quoted a European diplomat "scoffing" at the initiative:
"It is unimportant for the future of Europe, but very important for the future of Westerwelle."
Ouch. The recipe for this report has been largely concocted within domestic German politics with an added pinch of Polish foreign policy - and it's an odd exercise to spend valuable time on. Swedish Social Democrat MEP Marita Ulvskog - hardly anti-EU - described it best:
"I think it's regrettable that the EU spends so much time on something that by my standards are pure fantasies and so incredibly far from reality...there's no popular support [for this] whatsoever."
EU leaders have enough on their plates trying to match austerity with structural reforms and re-jigging the role of the ECB, without entering the realms of fantasy. Herr. Westerwelle might fancy himself as Narninian character but unfortunately we're living in the real world and not in a wardrobe.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous25/9/12 12:51 pm

    I think once again in history we've reached a point where "S’ils n’ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche." decribes the reality pretty well.

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  2. christina Speight25/9/12 1:10 pm

    You miss the crucial point about the whole sorry business. This is not POLICY it is to mobilise opinion about ultimate goals.

    If - as you do - pooh-pooh it as unrealistic you underestimate its danger. What IS going on which will lead to treaty changes in themselves are merely interim measures. This "fantasy - as you dismiss it - is merely building blocks for the future enslavement of Europe.

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  3. Rollo25/9/12 1:54 pm

    There is no popular support for any of it. Why shaould Westerwelle and his chums been singled out for crass fantasysing?

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  4. Anonymous26/9/12 5:43 pm

    Almost everything else starts as having a veto but this morphs into QMV.

    People should stop pretending that the EU is some kind of overgrown trading arrangement that has gone wrong. It is about megalomania, political union and ultimately the end of the nation state.

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