The evidence is slowly mounting up and it’s pointing in one direction. The finger of suspicion is all but ready to twitch into the rigid instrument of damnable accusation. When even the most ardent and passionate supporters are starting to sniff the foul wind of failure, then you just know that the European Union is heading for the rocks.
Two articles today in the Wanker, the first by a Czech journalist Jana Ciglerova:
“We may still see the economic opportunities that we are told that Europe could bring to us. But we also now sense a fear of the unknown and even that, after barely a decade of freedom, we could be swapping one tyranny for another.”
The fruits of the lumbering Euro-cracy that has left the former Eastern Bloc countries on the periphery kicking their heels for far too long, thus giving them ample time to read through all the small print. For Brussels, the clock is ticking close to midnight now.
Also this rather more arid, technocratic item from somebody called Kirsty Hughes who is described as a writer and consultant on European Affairs’ so it is safe to assume that she knows a little of what she speaks. Evidently a passionate Europhile, even she cannot hide the cracks that are starting to appear in her head:
“The enlargement to be launched at Copenhagen is a historic achievement. But it is only the first step in meeting the European and global political challenges that the new Europe must address. If it fails, then this moment will be seen as a turning point that marked the start of the EU’s decline and not its new beginning.”
How different it all was even a year ago when everyone who was anyone was busy trumpeting the EU as the bright, shiny, exciting project for a better tomorrow with a future written in the stars and those who proffered even the mildest of criticisms were pilloried as xenophobic, reactionary losers.
Well, now the smug grins of satisfaction are on the other faces and the Wankers of the world are united in their creeping realisation that they bought a pup. It’s very nearly pitiful. Like fairy-tale children, the Europhiles are wandering in the deep, dark Graveyard of Grand Schemes, enveloped in the thick miasma of impending doom. Unable to deny its power to grip them or find a way out, they all hold hands and sully forth into the unknown, calling out plaintively for someone to come and rescue them and lead them home.
I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.
David,
If it is heading for the iceberg, it’s taking a damned long time to founder and the problem is Blair thinks he’s Leonardo Di Caprio.
The Continentals are making a huge effort to integrate through the Convention and, if we are not careful, we’ll be stuck in this monstrosity.
Good luck to the East Europeans if they can stay out but that still leaves the wankers in charge of us.
Philip
Whatever happens, we must take care to reverse the damage already done to Britain by the EU.
We are the true multiculturalists, and we need to cure ourselves of the parochial Little-Europe infection.
I don’t think that the integration is going to work out the way they intend it. The US is dead set to get Turkey admitted as a member and that is going to put an end to the whole idea of integration.
That said I’d still prefer it if no countries would join in addition to the current fifteen. The last thing we need is ten more countries to get extradited to without any chance for an appeal.
As far as that is concerned: If America has its way Turkey is going to become a member in ten years or so. Nobody can tell me that the country is going to be truly democratic at that point in time. Now, to be extradited to that place is really going to be fun; even if torture is by then officially outlawed it’s still going to be practiced widely.
The first sentence should have been
“I don’t think that the integration is going to work out the way they intend it to”.
Do you really think that Eastern Europeans are going to decline to join? One of those articles, as I recall, mentioned something about ‘educating the public.’ Who has declined so far (Norway?) I bet they join, & then regret it for years to come. Reading EU ‘policy papers’ and think tank junk has been an eye-opener for me. Fortunately, the EU has no plans for the US to join up!
ellie,
I said I’d prefer it if they stayed out, but there is no real hope for that of course.
I was doing a lot of traveling to the UK in 1990 and 1991 when preparation for the EU millenium really started becoming a major obsession for the business class. One amusing and disturbing thing that I will always remember was how fashionable it was to for Englishmen to say: “I don’t really consider my self a Brit, but a European.”
Two told me in separate conversations how much they hated the English!
I don’t know how sincere these people were – I suspect not very. I recall thinking how terribly unlikable and phony they seemed. It’s one thing to eschew blind chauvinism; another entirely to become an avowed enemy of your own culture. PARTICULARY in service of so depressing a cause as EU hegemony.
I gather things haven’t changed much.
Ed