ABSTRACT: The combination of limited capacity to exercise control over essential commodities, the long-term trend of outsourcing, with the politicization of business relationships causes the entire pharmaceutical industrial sector to be internationally dependent, creating numerous potentials for systemic failure.
R%ead more at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-dependency-foreign-pharmaceutical-production-imposes-valdova
Showing posts with label Globalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Globalization. Show all posts
9/29/21
3/15/20
Globalization: Will The Coronavirus End Globalization? - by Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp
Narratives provide the storylines through which people make sense of the
world. Actors strategically deploy narratives to advance agendas,
telling stories about what or who is to blame and what should be done.
When it comes to the coronavirus, multiple narratives
are emerging. Instead of adopting a common frame to understand this
threat, actors are doubling down on their existing critiques of
globalization and neoliberalism, using the coronavirus to show how right
they were all along.
Instead of trying to advance a dominant narrative about what the pandemic means for globalization, we think it is time to start developing mental models to understand what the different perspectives are, how they can be integrated and what trade-offs this might involve. This approach permits us to provide a more three-dimensional understanding of the problem. We’ve identified at least seven major storylines that are competing for attention in explaining what the virus means for economic globalization.
For right-wing populists like President Donald Trump, the coronavirus vindicates concerns about the need to protect the country’s borders and to keep foreigners—and their diseases—out. The threat is portrayed as foreign, and the response is to build walls and stop flights. According to this narrative, globalization accelerates the threat. As Aurélia Beigneux, a politician from France’s right-wing National Rally, warns: “The free circulation of goods and people, immigration policies and weak controls at the borders obviously allow the exponential spread of this type of virus.” Hyperconnected global cities might be towering forces economically, but they are also entry ports for infection. Living in a “flyover states” is, for once, an enviable position.
For left-wing populists like U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the crisis has made it abundantly clear that the country needs free health care and paid sick leave for everyone, right now. They focus less on the foreign threat—how the virus arrived in the country—and more on domestic problems—how inequality in shared social and economic structures means that people are not properly treated, permitting the disease to spread. Lack of health care, high insurance premiums, and minimal sick-leave entitlements mean that it is harder to get people to self-isolate and get tested, which will hamper containment and increase fatalities. Perhaps universal healthcare is a national security issue.
o security actors who have long been worried about America’s overreliance on Chinese imports, the coronavirus reinforces concerns about the fact that over 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in U.S. medicines are produced abroad, mainly in China and India, including over 97% of antibiotics. According to this geoeconomic perspective, the pandemic demonstrates why America needs to be more self-reliant when it comes to making essential products like penicillin. The hit Australia has taken with respect to its top services exports—education and tourism—also raises concerns about concentrated dependence. When Chinese students comprise 70–80% of the international student body of some universities, making up over 20% of some university budgets, grounding planes from China has significant economic effects.
Capitalist reformers criticize the myopic focus of multinational corporations on bolstering shareholder value in a way that has led many to focus on short-term efficiencies over long-term economic resilience. The “just-in-time” approach to manufacturing, in which manufacturers do not keep a large inventories of materials but instead order them to arrive shortly in advance of assembly, is highly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. Automakers globally have had to stall production after supplies of components from China were disrupted. This crisis therefore proves the need to shorten supply chains and build in more redundancy into manufacturing processes to ensure greater resilience.
Political observers view the coronavirus as a perfect illustration of the advantages or flaws of authoritarianism or democracy—pick your poison. Those inclined to criticize Chinese authoritarianism point to that government’s early attempt to silence doctors who were raising the alarm about the virus. Others point to the advantage that the Communist Party enjoyed in dealing with the virus, when the government used lockdown orders and technological surveillance to rapidly contain the virus’s spread. Conversely, while some celebrate the West’s freedom of speech, others point to the dillydallying of Western democracies in effectively curtailing these risks—with Italy and now the United States being cases in point. The coronavirus will have longer term implications for debates about liberal versus authoritarian capitalism.
Globalists view the coronavirus as a global threat that shows the common plight of humanity and the need to work together. Viruses don’t discriminate; nor should we. Instead of hoarding medical masks through export controls, countries should work together to ensure that all states have sufficient medical supplies. This is a time for global action and for all people and countries to come together. Countries should encourage scientists from around the world to work together to find a vaccine, rather than resorting to “sicken-thy-neighbor” export bans on medical supplies. Here, the goal is global cooperation to enable the continued flow of people, goods and ideas.
Read more at: Will The Coronavirus End Globalization? - Barron's
Instead of trying to advance a dominant narrative about what the pandemic means for globalization, we think it is time to start developing mental models to understand what the different perspectives are, how they can be integrated and what trade-offs this might involve. This approach permits us to provide a more three-dimensional understanding of the problem. We’ve identified at least seven major storylines that are competing for attention in explaining what the virus means for economic globalization.
For right-wing populists like President Donald Trump, the coronavirus vindicates concerns about the need to protect the country’s borders and to keep foreigners—and their diseases—out. The threat is portrayed as foreign, and the response is to build walls and stop flights. According to this narrative, globalization accelerates the threat. As Aurélia Beigneux, a politician from France’s right-wing National Rally, warns: “The free circulation of goods and people, immigration policies and weak controls at the borders obviously allow the exponential spread of this type of virus.” Hyperconnected global cities might be towering forces economically, but they are also entry ports for infection. Living in a “flyover states” is, for once, an enviable position.
For left-wing populists like U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the crisis has made it abundantly clear that the country needs free health care and paid sick leave for everyone, right now. They focus less on the foreign threat—how the virus arrived in the country—and more on domestic problems—how inequality in shared social and economic structures means that people are not properly treated, permitting the disease to spread. Lack of health care, high insurance premiums, and minimal sick-leave entitlements mean that it is harder to get people to self-isolate and get tested, which will hamper containment and increase fatalities. Perhaps universal healthcare is a national security issue.
o security actors who have long been worried about America’s overreliance on Chinese imports, the coronavirus reinforces concerns about the fact that over 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in U.S. medicines are produced abroad, mainly in China and India, including over 97% of antibiotics. According to this geoeconomic perspective, the pandemic demonstrates why America needs to be more self-reliant when it comes to making essential products like penicillin. The hit Australia has taken with respect to its top services exports—education and tourism—also raises concerns about concentrated dependence. When Chinese students comprise 70–80% of the international student body of some universities, making up over 20% of some university budgets, grounding planes from China has significant economic effects.
Capitalist reformers criticize the myopic focus of multinational corporations on bolstering shareholder value in a way that has led many to focus on short-term efficiencies over long-term economic resilience. The “just-in-time” approach to manufacturing, in which manufacturers do not keep a large inventories of materials but instead order them to arrive shortly in advance of assembly, is highly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. Automakers globally have had to stall production after supplies of components from China were disrupted. This crisis therefore proves the need to shorten supply chains and build in more redundancy into manufacturing processes to ensure greater resilience.
Political observers view the coronavirus as a perfect illustration of the advantages or flaws of authoritarianism or democracy—pick your poison. Those inclined to criticize Chinese authoritarianism point to that government’s early attempt to silence doctors who were raising the alarm about the virus. Others point to the advantage that the Communist Party enjoyed in dealing with the virus, when the government used lockdown orders and technological surveillance to rapidly contain the virus’s spread. Conversely, while some celebrate the West’s freedom of speech, others point to the dillydallying of Western democracies in effectively curtailing these risks—with Italy and now the United States being cases in point. The coronavirus will have longer term implications for debates about liberal versus authoritarian capitalism.
Globalists view the coronavirus as a global threat that shows the common plight of humanity and the need to work together. Viruses don’t discriminate; nor should we. Instead of hoarding medical masks through export controls, countries should work together to ensure that all states have sufficient medical supplies. This is a time for global action and for all people and countries to come together. Countries should encourage scientists from around the world to work together to find a vaccine, rather than resorting to “sicken-thy-neighbor” export bans on medical supplies. Here, the goal is global cooperation to enable the continued flow of people, goods and ideas.
Read more at: Will The Coronavirus End Globalization? - Barron's
12/27/19
A Protestant View of Globalization (Part I) - The Globalist
What prevents many Christians from developing a theological perspective on today's globalized world?
Read more at :
https://www.theglobalist.com/a-protestant-view-of-globalization-part-i/
Read more at :
https://www.theglobalist.com/a-protestant-view-of-globalization-part-i/
7/6/18
Globalization: Backlash and the rise of populism
For the complete report click on the link:
https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-globalization-backlash-its-both-culture-and-the-economy-stupid
https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-globalization-backlash-its-both-culture-and-the-economy-stupid
11/17/16
Globalization: Trump: The Final Wake-Up Call - by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Udo Bullmann
Against this backdrop, we concur with Jürgen Habermas, who posits the supranational regulation of globalisation and its subjection to superior social and ecological goals for humankind as the single most important challenge progressives will be facing throughout coming years, and even decades. The revival of the striving for a genuine political union in Europe must be at the heart of this struggle.
We will, otherwise, become the powerless witnesses of a global tragedy although important breakthroughs seemed so close just a minute ago. Shortly after global consensus could be reached on the United Nations sustainable development goals and the recent Paris climate change accord, these great promises of a better world could be undermined and made unachievable by the triumph of the enemies of global progress.
This is why we have to generate a new vision about the type of globalisation we, as progressives, stand for and fight for, and clearly define where political divides and choices lie. In the spirit of Habermas’ call for a democratic polarisation, we need to drive home the fact that our ideals are more sustainable and essentially better than those defended by the liberal and conservative apologists of a globalisation that has turned against ordinary people.
Many policy areas are concerned, from international trade to the regulation of the financial sector, from macroeconomic policy to social protection and labour standards, from the promotion of peace to the defence of human rights and the right to a decent life for all human beings on a preserved and protected planet. This will also be about regaining the political initiative and redefining the terms of the public and political debate.
Our yardstick should always and rigorously be whether our policies bring a better life to ordinary and hard working people, to the most vulnerable, to minorities and, most importantly, to the younger generations, a majority of whom still believe in a different world than the one promoted by nationalistic and nostalgic rhetoric. They are ready to fight for such a better world, as post-election protests in the US have movingly shown.
Trump’s wake-up call must trigger the dawn of a new era of progressive political influence across the globe, not the end of our world. Let us seize this moment and live up to it. We still can.
Read more: Trump: The Final Wake-Up Call
We will, otherwise, become the powerless witnesses of a global tragedy although important breakthroughs seemed so close just a minute ago. Shortly after global consensus could be reached on the United Nations sustainable development goals and the recent Paris climate change accord, these great promises of a better world could be undermined and made unachievable by the triumph of the enemies of global progress.
This is why we have to generate a new vision about the type of globalisation we, as progressives, stand for and fight for, and clearly define where political divides and choices lie. In the spirit of Habermas’ call for a democratic polarisation, we need to drive home the fact that our ideals are more sustainable and essentially better than those defended by the liberal and conservative apologists of a globalisation that has turned against ordinary people.
Many policy areas are concerned, from international trade to the regulation of the financial sector, from macroeconomic policy to social protection and labour standards, from the promotion of peace to the defence of human rights and the right to a decent life for all human beings on a preserved and protected planet. This will also be about regaining the political initiative and redefining the terms of the public and political debate.
Our yardstick should always and rigorously be whether our policies bring a better life to ordinary and hard working people, to the most vulnerable, to minorities and, most importantly, to the younger generations, a majority of whom still believe in a different world than the one promoted by nationalistic and nostalgic rhetoric. They are ready to fight for such a better world, as post-election protests in the US have movingly shown.
Trump’s wake-up call must trigger the dawn of a new era of progressive political influence across the globe, not the end of our world. Let us seize this moment and live up to it. We still can.
Read more: Trump: The Final Wake-Up Call
6/13/16
The Global Economy: Globalization's Gluttony - by Anatol Zukerman
 |
| Corporate Power Rules Globally |
By the goblins of global gluttony.
While gullible workers of troubled world
Work in the sweat of their brows
Crass corporations grab the world’s wealth
And don’t even share it with its creators.
This pen-and-ink drawing captures the shifting mindset among American workers. For decades, they went along with the promises of their leading politicians that, despite all the harsh changes in the national economy, there would be a brighter tomorrow. But now, these voters are running out of hope.
As the biggest American corporations liberally shed jobs at home and have effectively abandoned America for cheap labor and tax havens abroad, working-class voters feel at the receiving end of the stick.
The fact that these companies at the same time have American government in their claws does not make working-class voters feel better. Social benefits, meager to begin with, have been further reduced. Yet, another, fairer social compact is possible, as corporations in Europe demonstrate.
Not so in the United States, where corporations are not only determined to ignore the will of American people in order to expand their power and increase their profits, but get away with it due to bought-off politicians.
It is a painful irony that the latter claim to protect the “public” interest. It only leads to more bitterness that nearly all major American politicians – including the current crop of candidates for President of the United States – have made critical statements about corporations many times over many years. But it was just words, never followed up with deeds.
This globalization for the rich continues. If it isn’t more inclusive, it will fail.
Read more: Globalization's Gluttony - by Anatol Zukerman
2/28/15
Global Economy: Globalisation And Technology Drive Insecurity - by Paul Sweeney
People are insecure. Young people worry
about getting a decent job, finding a secure home and having to pay off
the vast debts run up in the decade of uber-liberal economic policies of
European governments to 2007.
Elderly people worry about their security in old age, access to decent health care, about their children getting jobs or being forced to emigrate.
Read more: How Globalisation And Technology Drive Insecurity
Elderly people worry about their security in old age, access to decent health care, about their children getting jobs or being forced to emigrate.
A recent Eurofound study concluded that
14% of jobs in Europe are high-paid good jobs; 37% are well-balanced
good jobs; 29% are poorly balanced jobs; and 20% are poor quality jobs.
Thus almost half of all those at work are not in good jobs.
Yet we have never had such high incomes
or wealth. This is in spite of the six years of the Great Recession.
Total national income is substantially higher than what it was a
generation ago. Yet only a generation ago too, jobs and pensions were
more secure, homes were easier to find and health care was not such a
big worry.
What has led to today’s insecurity? The
big drivers of insecurity are globalisation and technology. They have
shifted low skilled jobs and now even middle income jobs offshore,
created intense competition, change and uncertainty. They give great
power to large corporations, while undermining the power of states and
of organised labour. Crucially, they have also changed the nature of
politics.
Globalisation and technology have been
key drivers in the three-decade-long (a generation) decline in the share
of national income of workers and the self-employed and its
corresponding shift to wealthy people and corporations A few countries
like Ireland witnessed the boom of catching up with the rest of Europe
for 20 years, when overall earnings rose so the seismic shift in income
was not so evident, but thanks to the Great Recession, it now is.
Both globalisation and technology have
reduced labour’s bargaining power through offshoring, through sectoral
shifts in employment from manufacturing to services, from large units to
smaller ones and to autonomous, self-employed working. It has
facilitated the massive decline in corporate governance – in the way
firms are run and what their objectives are. It boosted the pay of the
elite to extraordinary levels that have nothing to do with performance.
Both have also facilitated financialisation – where finance rules the
real economy.
Globalisation has also reduced financial
disclosure, blurring our knowledge of the real ownership and control of
business. It has led to the privatisation of swathes of public
services, and these privatised public services are increasingly run by
big, non-competing oligopolies. It has facilitated increased tax evasion
and tax avoidance on unprecedented scales by the wealthy and by large
companies. The Luxleaks and HSBC exposures are only the tip of this
iceberg of tax cheating on an industrial scale in some countries.
Read more: How Globalisation And Technology Drive Insecurity
4/21/13
Globalization :IMF and World Bank walk an economic tightrope
The director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, is not content with global economic developments. There are different speeds at which individual regions are moving towards recovery.
Developing and emerging nations have seen their economies expanding, while the United States has posted only moderate growth. Europe and Japan are lagging behind.
"Such an uneven, three-speed recovery is not healthy," Lagarde said. "We need a global economy that's growing at full speed." Lagarde added growth had to be solid, sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Her vision may sound nice, but present-day realities are different. That's why Lagarde made many different recommendations. Addressing the rapidly growing developing and emerging countries, she warned against excessive financial operations and urged a strengthening of regulatory bodies.
She advised poorer nations to invest more in infrastructure, health and education with the help of the international community. Lagarde called on the United States to get its finances organized in a more orderly and well-communicated fashion.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim also faced challenging situation as he prepared for the spring conference with the IMF in Washington. His institution aims to end extreme poverty in the world by 2030 and finance development projects for this purpose. At the same time, growth the programs generate should be environmentally friendly.
Read more: IMF and World Bank walk an economic tightrope | Globalization | DW.DE | 19.04.2013
Developing and emerging nations have seen their economies expanding, while the United States has posted only moderate growth. Europe and Japan are lagging behind.
"Such an uneven, three-speed recovery is not healthy," Lagarde said. "We need a global economy that's growing at full speed." Lagarde added growth had to be solid, sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Her vision may sound nice, but present-day realities are different. That's why Lagarde made many different recommendations. Addressing the rapidly growing developing and emerging countries, she warned against excessive financial operations and urged a strengthening of regulatory bodies.
She advised poorer nations to invest more in infrastructure, health and education with the help of the international community. Lagarde called on the United States to get its finances organized in a more orderly and well-communicated fashion.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim also faced challenging situation as he prepared for the spring conference with the IMF in Washington. His institution aims to end extreme poverty in the world by 2030 and finance development projects for this purpose. At the same time, growth the programs generate should be environmentally friendly.
Read more: IMF and World Bank walk an economic tightrope | Globalization | DW.DE | 19.04.2013
1/1/09
The Nation: Redoing Globalization - by Sherle R. Schwenninger
For the complete report from the Nation click on this link
Redoing Globalization - by Sherle R. Schwenninger
The great financial bubble of the Clinton-Bush years has ended in tears--in home foreclosures, bank failures and what promises to be the most severe global economic recession since the Great Depression. As President-elect Obama puts together his economic recovery program, he needs to understand that the economic crisis is the result not just of unscrupulous mortgage lenders and unregulated investment bankers on Wall Street but of the globalization of finance and trade that key members of his economic team set in motion when they were in the Clinton administration. The uncomfortable truth is that the current system of global commerce and transnational finance is inherently prone to crisis and is incompatible with Obama's goal of rebuilding the American middle class. Any sustainable recovery on the domestic front, therefore, will depend on his success in getting other countries to agree to fundamental changes in that global system.
Globalization is not necessarily bad if properly regulated among similar economies. But the globalization of the Clinton-Bush era not only lacked safeguards for labor but rested on two mutually reinforcing, flawed models of growth: debt-financed consumption in the United States and other Anglo-Saxon economies and over saving and under consumption in the production-oriented export economies of Asia. Not surprisingly, the global integration of these radically different economies produced an unhealthy pattern of growth characterized by asset bubbles and large global trade imbalances, with the United States running large deficits and China and Japan running large surpluses.
12/13/08
Press TV - Anti-Globalization - Greek unrest spreading in Europe
For the complete report from Press TV click on this link
Greek unrest spreading in Europe
Six days of unrest in Greece is now spreading over to other European countries raising concerns that there is more violence to come. One of the main worries appears to be that the clashes could be a trigger for opponents of globalization, disaffected youth and others who are irate at the continent's economic turmoil and rising unemployment, AP reported. Because of the unrest in Athens, demonstrators in Spain, Denmark and Italy smashed shop windows, threw bottles at police and attacked banks and over in France, cars were set on fire on Thursday outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux, where protesters scribbled graffiti about a looming 'insurrection'. The internet played a role in the protests with Greek website protesters updating each other on the locations of clashes and confirming that there had been sympathy protests in nearly 20 countries with more demonstrations planned for Friday in Italy, France and Germany.
11/13/08
Globalization Is Good for Europe - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
"Globalization Is Good for Europe
By Peter Mandelson
Europe is nervously watching the dramatic changes under way in the world economy. The suspicion is: If it is good for the Chinese, then it is bad for us. But protectionism is not the answer, argues the former EU Trade Commissioner."
More:Opinion: Globalization Is Good for Europe - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
By Peter Mandelson
Europe is nervously watching the dramatic changes under way in the world economy. The suspicion is: If it is good for the Chinese, then it is bad for us. But protectionism is not the answer, argues the former EU Trade Commissioner."
More:Opinion: Globalization Is Good for Europe - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
10/1/08
The Associated Press: US 'casino' mentality blamed for planet's meltdown - but should it?
For the complete report from The Associated Press click on this link
US 'casino' mentality blamed for planet's meltdown - "but should it?"
Astounded by the U.S. government's failure to resolve the financial crisis threatening the foundations of the global free market, fingers of blame are pointing at America from around the planet. Latin American leaders say the U.S. must quickly fix the financial crisis it created before the rest of the world's hard-won economic gains are lost.In Europe, where some blame a phenomenon of "casino capitalism" that has become deeply engrained from New York to London to Moscow, there is more of a sense of shared responsibility.
But Europeans also blame the U.S. government for letting things get out of hand. Amid harsh criticism is a growing consensus that stricter financial regulation is needed to prevent unfettered capitalism from destroying economies around the globe."They spent the last three decades saying we needed to do our chores. They didn't," a grim-faced Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday. Even staunch U.S. allies like Colombian President Alvaro Uribe blasted the world's most powerful country for egging on uncontrolled financial speculation that he compared to a wild horse with no reins. "The whole world has financed the United States, and I believe that they have a reciprocal debt with the planet," he said.
6/18/08
OpedNews: Reverse Henry-Fordism - by Ernest Partridge
For the complete report from opednews click on this link
Reverse Henry-Fordism-"There are no sellers without buyers"- by Ernest Partridge
That's the first law of practical economics. Everyone knows this to be true, whether or not one has ever taken a course in Economics. Everyone except, apparently, a few Ph.D economists who seem to forget this rule when they are hired by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, etc., from which they migrate, back and forth, between offices in Republican/conservative administrations and these right-wing think tanks.
For these worthies, the "first law" is replaced by the dogmas of deregulation, "trickle-down" and market fundamentalism: impoverish the masses, throw money at the rich who will then invest it, and then "the invisible hand" of the unregulated free market will bring forth a cornucopia of goods and services. Never mind that there will be few if any buyers for these consumer goodies. Henry Ford saw the fallacy of such a policy when he raised the wages of his workers. His competitors in the auto industry were aghast. "Why did you do that?," they asked. Ford is said to have replied, "If I don't pay them more, who will buy my cars?"
3/25/08
Washington Post: 'The Second World' - Empires and Influence in the New Global Order' - by Parag Khanna
For the complete report from the washingtonpost.com click on this link
'The Second World' - Empires and Influence in the New Global Order' - by Parag Khanna
Khanna's study is noteworthy, primarily for his analysis of 'the second world': some 100 transitional countries, such as Brazil, Ukraine, and Iran, that do not qualify either as rich advanced industrial states or as least developed nations. By Khanna's account, 'the race to win the second world is on.'"
The decline in US influence is something structural, that is, it has more to do with globalization and the rise of other powers such as China and the coalescence of the EU and others than it does with the Bush administration/war in Iraq, which certainly has accelerated things though. And indeed, strong-arming even allies to support a war that was not in their interest will have the kind of micro-repercussions that will hurt the US diplomatic stature in the long run, I have no doubt about that."
1/25/08
NYT: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony - by PARAG KHANNA
For the complete report from the New York Times click on this link
Waving Goodbye to Hegemony - by PARAG KHANNA
Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history happens is to look just a bit ahead.
In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch. It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?
10/12/07
DTT-Net: EU and the challenges of globalization - by Jose Manuel Barroso
For the complete report from DTT-NET.COM click on this link
EU and the challenges of globalization - by Jose Manuel Barroso
"Europe’s unique strength is its capacity to combine unity with diversity.
I think it is important to stress that. Why? Because there is still a perception, particularly in the UK, that Jean Monnet's gradualist approach to European integration – effectively 'neofunctionalism', for anyone taking notes! – is inexorably leading towards a centralised superstate.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's look more closely at what Jean Monnet actually said. Reflecting on his ideas to pool coal and steel resources – the raw materials of war – that launched the integration process, he said: ‘Europe will not be conjured up in a stroke, nor by an overall design. It will be attained by concrete achievements generating an active community of interest."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)