Saturday, January 06, 2007
Why the European Union works, sort of
Why the European Union works, sort of
While the newsmedia are totally occupied with the turnover of the US legislature to the Democrats, very little is heard of a couple of significant events in the other large Western democracy, the European Union, a federation of 25 (now 27) countries and 455 (now 490) million citizens, who vote every five years to elect the European Parliament of 732 members, that meets for a week of plenary sessions once a month, mostly, in Strasbourg sometimes in Brussels. It just recently added two new poverty-stricken countries to its roster, Rumania and Bulgaria, with some provisions to limit their economic loss exposure . Also, very wisely it decided not to waste effort in developing Querlo, an Internet search machine and portal, to compete with Google and Yahoo.
The subject of world organizations is of direct interest to East Midtown. We are the home of United Nations, and share a responsibility for its future. Not all of us view it as beneficial. For instance , I have heard from a member of CB6, the organization that has some direct responsibilities over the UN’s physical plant, how much it costs NYC taxpayers, in terms of prime properties removed from the tax bill,and in additional police services, expenses that the federal government does not compensate. That on top of the more common complaints about reckless parking, and the useless if not anti-American actions of the institution on the whole.
We can all agree that international cooperation has become an absolute necessity, since the bloodbath of WWII, and the technological advances that have created the interdependencies, and the mutual destruction capacities of the nuclear age.. This has been particularly recognized in Europe, the continent of internecine enemities since the beginnings of history, with the post-WWII progressions from European Coal and Steel Cpmmunity (ECSC), to the European Economic Community (EEC), expanding to the European Union (EU, 27 nations) and a common currency (Euro, 16 nations.) Concurrently, beneficial free trade associations have also sprung up elsewhere - NAFTA, EFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur - , local alliances - African Union, Arab League. There are also the more nasty ones, military alliances based on conquest (Communist Internationale, Warsaw Pact, fortunately now imploded) and defense (NATO, SEATO), as well as on economic dominance (OPEC) .The really nasty groups, based on radical religious ideologies, nationalism and local economics, in the Middle East aqnd Africa, have somewhat bogged down in internecine warfare, enough to give the world some breathing space to step back, talk and decide on common actions – your typical slo-mo UN modality..
In this world EU stands out as an accomplishment, in the cradle of conflicts and wars. It covers practically all of Europe – easier to identify the exclusions than the participants, these being candidate countries Croatia, FYR of Macedonia and Turkey, and other, Switzerland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Russioan Federation. It really started with six nations, in 1950 – UK, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands, - expanding until 2004, when ten mostly ex-USSR contries were admitted en masse. The official beginnings date back to the Maastricht Convention of 1992.
The pillars of EU are the Parliament, as described above, and the Council of European Union (aka Council of Ministers, 27 members.), not to be confused with the European Council, meeting three times a year, its 27 members composed of the presidents and prime ministers of constituent countries enhanced by the president of European Commission , a politically independent group of the 27 with a huge staff, who propose policy. The legislature can be called bi- or tri-cameral, the presidency rotates..The common political principles involve foreign and economic policy, police, border control and immigration. There is a considerable surrender of political independence of constituent untries, and EU can almost be considered a federation, although members may exclude themselves from parts of the EU regulation – thus UK on Euro , France and Denmark on thr constitution. The voting in the CoE is qualified majority voting, with France , Germany, Italy and UK casting 29 votes, tapering down to Poland and Spain at 27, Netherlands at 13 and finally Malta at 3. The Maastricht Strategy for membership involves acceptance of the Euro , price stability, budget deficit under 3% of GDP, national debt not in excess of 60% of GDP. The economic side of EU is overseen by the European Central Bank, the legal authority is the European Court of Justice.
The process of establishing EU was truly gradual, with the “Constitution” of EU set through the Convention on the Future of Europe, Dec 2001 to July 2003, by 105 national leaders and savants.
As to problems, there’s internal EU Turkey knocking at the door, with baggage. But. EU is coping, offering a a time span to cure.
While the newsmedia are totally occupied with the turnover of the US legislature to the Democrats, very little is heard of a couple of significant events in the other large Western democracy, the European Union, a federation of 25 (now 27) countries and 455 (now 490) million citizens, who vote every five years to elect the European Parliament of 732 members, that meets for a week of plenary sessions once a month, mostly, in Strasbourg sometimes in Brussels. It just recently added two new poverty-stricken countries to its roster, Rumania and Bulgaria, with some provisions to limit their economic loss exposure . Also, very wisely it decided not to waste effort in developing Querlo, an Internet search machine and portal, to compete with Google and Yahoo.
The subject of world organizations is of direct interest to East Midtown. We are the home of United Nations, and share a responsibility for its future. Not all of us view it as beneficial. For instance , I have heard from a member of CB6, the organization that has some direct responsibilities over the UN’s physical plant, how much it costs NYC taxpayers, in terms of prime properties removed from the tax bill,and in additional police services, expenses that the federal government does not compensate. That on top of the more common complaints about reckless parking, and the useless if not anti-American actions of the institution on the whole.
We can all agree that international cooperation has become an absolute necessity, since the bloodbath of WWII, and the technological advances that have created the interdependencies, and the mutual destruction capacities of the nuclear age.. This has been particularly recognized in Europe, the continent of internecine enemities since the beginnings of history, with the post-WWII progressions from European Coal and Steel Cpmmunity (ECSC), to the European Economic Community (EEC), expanding to the European Union (EU, 27 nations) and a common currency (Euro, 16 nations.) Concurrently, beneficial free trade associations have also sprung up elsewhere - NAFTA, EFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur - , local alliances - African Union, Arab League. There are also the more nasty ones, military alliances based on conquest (Communist Internationale, Warsaw Pact, fortunately now imploded) and defense (NATO, SEATO), as well as on economic dominance (OPEC) .The really nasty groups, based on radical religious ideologies, nationalism and local economics, in the Middle East aqnd Africa, have somewhat bogged down in internecine warfare, enough to give the world some breathing space to step back, talk and decide on common actions – your typical slo-mo UN modality..
In this world EU stands out as an accomplishment, in the cradle of conflicts and wars. It covers practically all of Europe – easier to identify the exclusions than the participants, these being candidate countries Croatia, FYR of Macedonia and Turkey, and other, Switzerland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Russioan Federation. It really started with six nations, in 1950 – UK, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands, - expanding until 2004, when ten mostly ex-USSR contries were admitted en masse. The official beginnings date back to the Maastricht Convention of 1992.
The pillars of EU are the Parliament, as described above, and the Council of European Union (aka Council of Ministers, 27 members.), not to be confused with the European Council, meeting three times a year, its 27 members composed of the presidents and prime ministers of constituent countries enhanced by the president of European Commission , a politically independent group of the 27 with a huge staff, who propose policy. The legislature can be called bi- or tri-cameral, the presidency rotates..The common political principles involve foreign and economic policy, police, border control and immigration. There is a considerable surrender of political independence of constituent untries, and EU can almost be considered a federation, although members may exclude themselves from parts of the EU regulation – thus UK on Euro , France and Denmark on thr constitution. The voting in the CoE is qualified majority voting, with France , Germany, Italy and UK casting 29 votes, tapering down to Poland and Spain at 27, Netherlands at 13 and finally Malta at 3. The Maastricht Strategy for membership involves acceptance of the Euro , price stability, budget deficit under 3% of GDP, national debt not in excess of 60% of GDP. The economic side of EU is overseen by the European Central Bank, the legal authority is the European Court of Justice.
The process of establishing EU was truly gradual, with the “Constitution” of EU set through the Convention on the Future of Europe, Dec 2001 to July 2003, by 105 national leaders and savants.
As to problems, there’s internal EU Turkey knocking at the door, with baggage. But. EU is coping, offering a a time span to cure.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:56 AM 
