simplegenius

Did the expansion of the EU, specifically 2004 to present, strengthen or weaken the EU and how so? What do you guys think can be done to improve some of these weaknesses?

DarkWizard12

Stengthened it, dangerously strengthen it.

bub

why "dangerously"? We're your ally!

And the new countries (such as Poland) are even more pro-american than the older ones

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DarkWizard12

Allies one day are enemies the next. You Europeans can attest to that, can;t you? *looks at WW1, and every war before that*.

Thales

I don't see a strengthened EU as a threat to American interests - if anything, I'd see it as a positive.

What I would be more worried about is a further divided EU - if it continues expanding beyond the traditional Western European alliances, it risks potential fracture and a UN-like internal stagnation. I don't see the additions of either the Russian-allied Serbia or even Turkey as beneficial.

DarkWizard12

What I'm wondering is, can the EU last?

All countries in the EU have been at war with each other at least sometime before that. Thats why Europe has so many different countries to begin with and why they are all...well...don't like each other. They(countries) are all split by cultural lines, and some countries still fight though it mostly civil wars than wars against other countries.

bub

that is true

Slainte

I think you miss the whole point of the European project.

The EU at it's heart was a way to end war in Europe by making it economically and to a lesser degree socially unacceptable and unneccesary. It's done that for 50 years, why can't it do it for another 50 years? If anything the outlook for the next 50 years seems a lot brighter that the outlook in 1945 would have looked.

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We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon

new coup for you

What will we do when the EU commands all the powere of Croatia...

Surely the US will be smote by an angry EU, and peremenantly humbled.

Unless the EU ever stops being a bunch of dicks and allow Turkey to join, all the powerful countries are already signed up. Macedonia doesn't particularly bring anything to the table.

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And why does your tone suggest that you do not care about children?

bub

I don't see how democratic countries whose culture, religion and economic interrests are very close, could be at war with each other.


There has been a secession war in the USA and that does not mean that Alabama is going to invade N-Y tomorrow