European Union And The New World Order -

European Union And The New World Order - I AM A EURO-SCEPTIC NO-MORE

By Simon Maslin
Mar. 18, 2005

Now I always used to be a little conservative in these things - always getting into arguments verging on the hysterical - and my reactions were hardly unusual in a country such as Britain, where knee-jerk politics are the norm. Lately, however, I've begun to see the light.

Is this another interminable rant against religion? Hell no. I'm talking about Europe.

You see, in this part of the world there has been a colossal revolution in international politics occuring in the last few decades. The ancient collection of perpetually feuding kingdoms, republics and assorted nationalities in Western Europe have been busy unifying their political machineries and financial institutions and creating a new order out of the eternal mess which led to so many wars in the past.

Many people (myself included) in the UK have viewed this process with varying degrees of skepticism, not least because it divests power away from our national authorites and creates a new mega-beaurocracy over our heads in a country which isn't anything to do with us (ie; Belgium). We look at the increasing influence the French have over our domestic agricultural and fiscal processes and remember Waterloo. We look at the German economy's increasing impact on our own and remember Dunkirk. In short, we get awfully twitchy and a tad xenophobic.

However, the more I actually travel in Europe and visit places like France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Austria, the more I am gradually coming around to this whole idea. Britain these days is a festering mess of non- functioning public transport, collapsing healthcare systems and America-obsessed uber- aggressive governmental foreign pollicies - things I just don't encounter on the continent, where everything is organised, tidy, efficient and actually works. Well, as long as I conveniently forget about Spain, Greece and Italy of course - but at least they have great scenery.

I'm still not a fan of the Schengen accord's removal of internal borders (which allows every lunatic who enters the EU at one end, to cross all its component countries without any contest from immigration officials) or the general overbaring beaurocracy; but the system is clearly working. The new Euro currency is thrashing the dollar in the international markets, international pan-European transportation systems are becoming more and more efficient (except in Britain, of course) and what we are starting to see is the emergence of the EU as a new world economic superpower. They're even getting their own united army put together. It's astonishing to see after so many bloody centuries of conflict and should be something of a lesson to a world where generally speaking, every poxy little bit of desert is currently trying to liberate itself from every other poxy bit of desert...

So it seems that Europe is providing one of the few genuinely interesting political case studies at present; in a world with the right-wing Christian world police of America and the barely twitching communist rhetoric of China as the only extant superpowers, it is encouraging to see that this bold experiment in co-operation is fast becoming a formidable unified power on the world stage.

I am Euro-skeptic no more.