And of course who can forget Jaques Chirac’s comment that Eastern Europe should sit down and shut up? Silence would appear to be golden in the EU, if one is not French:
So, apparently, France plus Germany trump the sentiments from Britain plus Spain plus Portugal plus Italy plus Denmark, not to mention the candidate members Poland plus Hungary plus Czech Republic, not to mention the other five nations that were petitioning – according to Chirac. Not to mention the ten other Eastern European nations who signed another letter a few days later.
And of course there’s the French farm subsidies, which are destroying agricultural policy.
Will the EU survive? Should it? Or will the Axis of Weasels tear the continent apart?
I’d rather say Poland’s inflated national ego is proving a nightmare to the E.U.
Who the hell is Poland to demand things? It is hardly in the E.U. and wants to talk like the big dogs already.
Maybe Poland went to the school of French diplomacy, in which case, I should think it rather difficult of Paris to get torqued off at Warsaw. More power to the Poles. Nice to see someone else in Europe gumming up the whole works just to defend its national interests for a change. Vive la Polognie.
These threads were removed from the open forum precisely because they were related to politics. So, if you are being bored by mainstream conservative opinion on politics (it’s in all the newspapers, on all the tv stations, being argued and adopted as policy in the strongest nations on earth) then guess what? You might want to consider returning to the open forum to take the quiz about what your favorite pizza topping tells you about your political views, or what your favorite color tells you about your moral and ethical views, etc. etc. Knock yourself out, but let us have our discussions here. We are serious about them and our views our well thought out. It is somewhat condescending and demeaning to suggest that we have not spent a great deal of time and effort honing our views and arriving at our opinions, no?
These threads were removed from the open forum precisely because they were related to politics. So, if you are being bored by mainstream conservative opinion on politics (it’s in all the newspapers, on all the tv stations, being argued and adopted as policy in the strongest nations on earth) then guess what? You might want to consider returning to the open forum to take the quiz about what your favorite pizza topping tells you about your political views, or what your favorite color tells you about your moral and ethical views, etc. etc. Knock yourself out, but let us have our discussions here. We are serious about them and our views our well thought out. It is somewhat condescending and demeaning to suggest that we have not spent a great deal of time and effort honing our views and arriving at our opinions, no?[/quote]
Fred, are you having a bad hair day? I was being facetious.
It’s not my fault. The wind was blowing this morning and as I entered the building there was a bit of a wind tunnel and I didn’t use enough mousse and and and…
The E.U. was not build on nations “gumming up the whole works just to defend its national interests”. I am not defending France’s E.U. diplomacy here, which I agree is not very helpful at times.
However, I think Poland as a soon-to-be member of the E.U. could have had a better start by not insisting on Nizza, which was a lowpoint in European consensus finding.
In the end Poland will lose more this way, compared to giving in to the rest of the EU (Spain excepted) on the vote issue.
Nissa, Nizza or Nice is a treaty which was signed by all EU members and aspiring nations.
It is a treaty that is legally binding.
Poland is defending its rights under said treaty which Germany and France signed on to.
Why now should Poland give in because Germany and France have decided something better must be devised (for them at least)?
Germany and France (those law-abiding nations) have broken the budget deficit pact (which they also signed onto). Germany and France UNILATERALLY without consulting any European Union agency or their fellow EU members decided that the US action in Iraq was wrong and acted unilaterally to block it despite treaties governing how EU foreign policy is to be formulated. Both nations refused to aid a fellow NATO member during a military crisis (again unlawful under the NATO charter) so my question is why should such unlawful actions on the part of Germany and France be rewarded with Polish appeasement when Poland and Spain among others clearly have much to fear from granting more power to two members who never hesitate to break treaties at whim, to act unilaterally in their own interests and refuse to accommodate or include smaller nations?
Why is Poland being blamed for Germany and France’s inability to follow treaty obligations when “inconvenient” to their interests? Viva la Pologne! Vive l’Espagne!
It was not just Germany and France who thought that the Nizza treaty didn’t really cut it. It was basically anyone but the states who profited from it to the largest extend - Poland and Spain.
Actually Berlusconi offered Germany a raise in voting power in exchange for accepting Poland’s and Spain’s requests.
Schroeder refused, because it was a matter of principle for him (doesn’t happen very often, I know). If he had really considered Germany’s national interests only, he would have agreed at once.
I think I have lost all illusions about treaties and their power to force states to do things against their own interest since the Bush administration took office.
That is the irony. Bush has NOT in fact broken any treaties but Germany and France have repeatedly. Kyoto was not ratified by the US nor was the International Criminal Court. Bush decided NOT to sign onto them. Very big difference between refusing to sign and breaking a treaty that was signed. Furthermore, the US negotiated an exit from the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia so?
The US did not break any international treaties by invading Iraq. Did the US have a nonagression treaty with Iraq? Had Iraq signed a peace treaty at the end of the First Gulf War? Yes. Was it meeting the conditions of that agreement? No. Therefore the US chose to enforce those treaty obligations. Did the US have the “right” to do so. Not necessarily. Really, the UN had the obligation there to decide, but as the primary force behind defeating Iraq in the First Gulf War, the US certainly had more right than any other nation to determine that the treaty obligations were being met. Yet, can the UN legally oppose the US action? Not necessarily either since any soveign nation has the right to defend itself and not resolution opposing the US action would have ever gotten through the security council.
I know that, of course… but apparently some people don’t know that…
Regarding the ABM treaty, the US didn’t even need to “negotiate” a termination of that treaty (but we did anyway). The ABM treaty had a clause (I think No. 12) that permitted either party thereto to terminate the treaty if conditions changed such that either party felt termination of the treaty was warranted.
You’re so right about the UNSC resolutions and the cease fire agreement with Iraq. The UN members sat around with their collective thumbs up their collective asses while Saddam remained in breach of the cease fire resolution and the 17 subsequent resolutions over a 12 year period.
And yet the US is regarded as the nation breaking treaties?
Did I say that the US broke treaties? I don’t think so.
What I did say is, that the Bush administration regards the US national interests much higher than common (global) interests, to an extend that is downright irresponsible.
Give a shit about Kyoto because it goes against own economic interests (fuck the possible future effects of global warming)? Hell yeah!
Get out of ABM (and soon start developing mini-nukes), thus potentially starting a new arms race? Any day!
Ignore WTO rules and set up steel tarifs? It’s good to America after all!
That’s what comes to my mind spontaneously.
International treaties are far less binding than a legal contract or anything, because we are dealing with sovereign nation states. Therefore much depends on the good-will of the signing countries to adhere to them. I don’t see much of that good-will in American foreign policy right now, but a lot of egoism instead.
Back to topic: Poland didn’t show much good-will in last weeks negotiations. It clung to some flawed treaty just to get more than it deserved (half as big as Germany, almost as many votes. and we are not even talking about economic weight).
Germany and France are no angels themselves and they indeed did throw their weight around at times (Maastricht for instance).
But this time the blame must be put on the selfishness of Spain and Poland.
And that makes Bush different from what other leaders in what way? If you are going to make such statements, be prepared to back them up when someone questions you regarding the same.
Duh. Kyoto is a shit agreement that would never work. Read about Kyoto before you blindly place your trust in it.
Horseshit. The US was absolutely within its rights to terminate the ABM treaty. That was a matter between the US and the former USSR (and subsequently Russia). You haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about.
I agree… the tariffs were bad. But they’ve been ended. Anyway, how in the fuck can you be so focused on Bush when every other nation on the planet also has some form of tariffs protecting their own interests? How is it that only Bush’s acts make you lose faith in international treaties?
That means that you put no thought into your post.
Again, I ask you how the US is any diffrent in this regard to any other nation?
In any event, Kyoto was a bad agreement and Bush was correct to reject it. The US was entitled to terminate the ABM treaty… there was no lack of good will in US foreign policy in terminating that treaty.
Oh, so the US is wrong to reject a flawed Kyoto agreement while at the same time Poland is wrong for adhering to a flawed treaty.
Can you explain the contradiction in your argument?
With power comes responsibility.
Nobody cares if Tuvalu acts selfishly or not, because it doesn’t make a difference. For the US the situation is different for obvious reasons.
Kyoto was meant as a start to talk about global warming, not the end-all treaty to cure the evils of the world. The same goes for the Nizza treaty.
The termination of the ABM treaty and the following development of anti-ballistic missle systems (and soon mini-nukes) is seen as a threat by many many states.
Anyway, your last post was not very constructive and I don’t have the time to get into a drawn-out in-depth discussion. So, I will retreat from this thread.
You may now go back to your dialouge with fred smith.
Oh no, another poster who gets his foreign policy ideas from comic books.
Horseshit. You stated that George Bush’s actions caused you to lose faith in international treaties. If all nations act in their best interest then there is no reason for you to single out Bush as reason for your epiphany.
Horseshit again. People have been talking about global warming for years, and Kyoto was supposed to deal effectively with the problem. Bush disagreed, explained why he disagreed, and has been talking about his ideas since. So what exactly is your problem?
The ABM treaty was a bilateral treaty between the US and USSR (Russia) only.
Like I said, if you are going to make silly statements, expect people to question the same. Run along now.
Go back to that latest squeal spiel and change Poland to France. Would anyone even have noticed? much less commented on the outrageous selfishness of one nation? I doubt it. Especially since it does happen each and every day but some nations are more equal than others I guess.
If you are going to make such statements, be prepared to back them up when someone questions you regarding the same.