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Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow
I read through this thread and I am left with one question: If the European Union did not exist would it be necessary to invent it?
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Yes, but the problem with your question is that the name of "European Union" conjures up a bad the worse nightmares.
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In other words, is there a need for an organization which encourages co-operation among Europeans? And if there is, what should it look like?
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As the world moves into blocs, the need for Europe to act as one in order to counter the power and the influence of other blocs is necessary.
The key to the construction of Europe is to take into account the very nature of Europe itself. By this I mean that alien models do not help. Not even as a reference. Europe is a much complex compound of countries/nations/regions, east-west and north-south ethno-cultural boundaries, etc.
If you leave out one of the elements in the equation, you would not be constructing Europe but destructing it. As it is the case with the European Union.
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum
prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem:
hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris,
et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.'
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
–Plato–
'Many people, I believe, wish for a society where faith, decency, pro-life convictions and national self-determination within Europe can flourish; and not be swallowed up in a dictatorial EU bureaucracy.'
–Gerry McGeough, Irish Nationalist and POW–