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Originally posted by Agamemnon@May 10 2005, 02:15 PM
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Boy Assad will be gone before the end of Bush’s presidency; Crown Prince Abdullah will be lucky to ride out even his faux reforms; but even the naysayers have begun to accept that the Middle East is going Bush’s way. The real foreign-policy challenges in the immediate future are the stagnant EU, poor doomed Russia and China’s incoherent market-communism. If you were betting on only one happy ending, I’d take China
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So... this guy thinks the EU is 'stagnant'? That's a strange comment; the EU is the most dynamic and experimental of the world's transnational organizations. The level of integration it is pursuing (along a steady course) is unprecedented. The EU's diplomatic power has been increasing handily over the last decade. It is also 'coherent' enough to have representatives involved in all the major world issues, including Iran, Iraq, Africa, Fmr Yugoslavia, etc.
What is the basis of the 'richest' states at the top of his rant? Per capita? How many rich states under a million people are there? Monaco? Lichtenstein?
What's so great about this guy that makes him a 'gem'?
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The EU is the result of a French and German invasion of its neighbours without firing a shot.
The "stability and growth pact" is a load of shinguard. France and Germany set the 3% deficit to GDP target and warned of consequences to those states that could not meet the threshold, but when their own economies breached the target within 2 years enacting the target, they were quick to change laws to allow some mulligans.
The inability of Euro countries to implement meaningfull structural change to ridiculous subsidies to farmers is sickening. Euros love to wax poetic when it comes to African aid but these subsidized ag products render African agriculture unable to compete.
France's answer to the competitive advantage enjoyed by the UK is to tell the UK to enforce laws to cap the maximum work week at 35 hours!
Germany is facing deflation. They have had GDP growth over 2% ONCE in the last 10 years.
I love spending time in Europe but they have their problems too.
Oh ya......600 French doctor's are on strike and have gone to the UK.
French docs in camber sands