Ireland: Don’t turn Europeans into minnows
The latest economic statistics from the International Monetary Fund show that European financial and economic dominance is losing ground to China, Russia, India and the United States. A quick glance at the graph, below, should remind us that the individual European Union Member States—even the ‘big four’ like Germany, Britain, France and Italy—are already beginning to look small in comparison to China and the United States. In 2013, the disparity will be even larger. By 2050, according to Goldman Sachs, the gap will be truly vast: China’s annual economic yield may be comparable to that of the European Union and the United States combined.Graph showing the global powers’ Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity) in Euros (€)
* Figures originally converted from International United States Dollars (US$).
If anything should convince all Europeans of the need for further and speedy integration in the areas of foreign, security and defence policy, it is the prospect that, within twenty years, the inhabitants of our continent will count for progressively little in the wider world. Economic power is clearly moving toward the Orient, and this will have a considerable impact on the global financial system, as well as international politics, perhaps including the domestic and social cohesion within the Member States of the European Union too. As the Venusberg Group points out, the European Union must become the ‘strategic hub’ and the ‘one stop shop’ for all Europeans, so that we can realise our commercial, economic, industrial and geopolitical objectives. This becomes even more pressing if global warming and climate change leads to the kind of havoc projected by many strategists, and should we see the re-emergence of international volatility and intense competition between the key world powers as American hegemony comes under mounting challenge.
The people of the Republic of Ireland—one of the European Union’s greatest success stories, and heavily reliant on world trade and foreign direct investment—have here a great weight on their shoulders to ensure that they ratify the Treaty of Lisbon in their upcoming referendum. After all, many of the articles within that treaty, from the integrated High Representative, the External Action Service, and the Solidarity Clause, can only come into operation once all Member States in the European Union have ratified the treaty. Should the treaty be rejected, it would spell disaster for our future prosperity, and send a message to our competitors that we are unable to get our act together. Irish rejection will make European decline all but inevitable, and endanger the security of future generations of Europeans. Surely it is not hyperbole to state that never has so much counted on so few?
4 comments:
China is no direct competitor for the EU instead on the international level (WTO, World Bank and in lesser extent the UN) and there the EU already speaks with one voice.
If you are talking about China, I don't really see the problem of keeping the current approach: coördinate foreign policy
Russia on the contrary is a different story...
I reckon the reason we should NOT stay in Europe is simple. They comprise some of the most corrupt politicians on the planet (and, nowadays, that's saying a lot!).
Perhaps we will listen to you when the EU gets its accounts audited and signed off? But I think that will not be for a long time, if ever.
now that the Treaty has been rejected by Ireland, I am trolling blogs to vent my frustration, so let me just repost here what I have already written in the comment thread of afoe:
I feel that it is rather inappropriate to ignore the voices of the 26 countries which decided to form a Union based on the Lisbon treaty only because Ireland voted ‘No’.
Rejecting the treaty is obviously their right. However the EU should try to move forward and implement the treaty, anyway. This also means that Ireland would have to leave the Union. However I think a new status for Ireland can be found, as a part of a free trade zone with Europe, which would allow the country to keep its full sovereignty over things like its foreign and defense policy, but wouldn’t stop the rest of the EU.
The reaction of the so called big states of the EU to the Irish vote should surprise no-one. The unstated racism (an Irish No does not equal a French No), the 'rapist's strategy' of the big countries(no means yes), all signal one thing. The EU is in denial about the real world and as such can never compete with China or the US. Europe is not nor will it ever be a state, federal or otherwise. Every move in that direction will stoke nationalism and eventually terrorism.
As an Irishman who handles international and EU affairs for an Irish NGO which is a member of 4European NGOs composed of the EU/ EEA member states, I can say that the greatest fantasy alive today is that the EU 27 are friendly co-operative allies. The members of the 4 EU NGOs are cynical, brutal, and distrustful of each other and spend most of their time undermining each other. Placing any faith in the EU is a vain policy and the Chinese, Indians, and Americans know this; suppressing democracy in the EU builds a brittle, undependable polity which will disintegrate at the first crisis.
The greatest threat to European prosperity and safety is the Federalist EU and the Lisbon Treaty. Instead of building an innovative, dynamic, club of democracies, which shares projects on a case by case basis, the EU has aped the failed, Colbertist, statist, French, model. It is already losing ground to China because it spends more time undermining personal freedom than ensuring that EU productivity is higher than China's or India's.
As Montecuccoli stated the man with the longest purse wins the war. China understands that power grows from the barrel of a gun but is sustained by other means. Those means are money, money, and money.
The EU is more interested in spending than creating wealth and as such commands little or no respect from the US or China. The EU states can't deliver their people and so dare not consult them. What better way to make their impotence plain.
The Irish have given the EU a chance to redfine itself as a common market which could be the market place of the world and the centre for world innovation and politics.
The Northern Ireland Peace Process was built on the thorough and continuous re-negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement until a settlement was reached. Eventually everyone talked to everyone else.
The EU will have to re-negotiate the Lisbon Treaty, so the quicker they stop throwing shapes and get on with it the better.
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