Hi Kerry,

Well, obligatory voting… at election day we are forced at gunpoint to move our ****s to the ballot boxes by BP (Belgian Police) and the Army…No, seriously: yes it IS obligatory (Belgium is one of the few remaining EU countries to have it that way) AND indeed you get fined for not showing up. Personally I don’t bother much as I like to cast my vote.

“With the socialist faction growing all of the time, what happens when there is a situation like Afghanistan or Iraq? Will we be able to count on Britain, Spain, Poland, and our other "allies"?”

As much as I deplore the fact that the EU’s left-wing political families are basically in charge, you have to remember that your staunchest allies in Iraq are mostly socialists too. PM Blair is Labor, PM Leszek Miller of Poland and the Polish President, Kwasniewski, are socialists. Miller is even a former communist. I might add just as well soon-to-be EU members Bulgaria, with an ex-communist, Georgi Parvanov, as President, and the Czech Republic, with Vladimir Spidla, a social democrat, for Prime Minister. It is remarkable to see how in Eastern Europe ex-communists and social democrats are dominating the political agendas. That most of them support the US in Iraq stems, I believe, from both a generally perceived realization that it was the US which were at the root of the Soviet Union’s demise and, hence, the downfall of the Iron Curtain, AND from less esoteric motives because they are angling for US support for their ailing economies (actually they want to have it both ways because they are eager to join the EU for the same reason).


What I want to illustrate with this is that being a leftist EU country not necessarily means not being able to “do the right thing” when it matters in cases like Afghanistan and Iraq. What worries me more with the left-leaning EU is that I doubt its ability to produce adequate answers to core “domestic” issues such as stopping the influx of (illegal) immigrants, counter the drain of not only labor-intensive industries but recently also of highly intellectual work to developing countries, the ageing of Europes population and hence the still heavier burden on the active people, in other words keeping the welfare state a doable thing etc. etc…


Because I want to be frank with that you know, the mere existence of the European Union is something I endorse VERY MUCH. And not only because I don’t have to swap Belgian francs for DMarks or French francs anymore if I want to visit my mother-in-law in Poland or visit Boulogne-sur-Mer in Frogistan. I believe the EU is a necessity for Europeans, creating a powerful politico-economic framework to counter the problems mentioned above, easing and facilitating economic activity from Dublin to Sofia and from Helsinki to Malta. And if that creates a large “Eurocracy” and if financial scandals emerge (and they do), well, I can live with it.


I think that in spite of an at first sight lukewarm EU interest among Europeans most feel comfortable we matter in today’s world because of the Union. The actual leadership realizes this more than anyone else. The UK’s, France's and Germany’s governments know all too well the days they could play first violin on the world scene by themselves are definitely over. You rightly suspect a country like France might want to use the EU as a vehicle to still do just that. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Just take a look here. To get a proposal passed, the Commission (the EU’s government) needs 255 votes (of the 342). In the 25 member Union France just has 29. The second column really deserves study you know. The recent Brussels summit was such a poor show because a.o. Germany insisted it should have more say than Poland or Spain as, after all, it has double the population of those countries (80 million as compared to roughly 40 million for both) while it has under the Nice agreement only 29 votes compared to Spains and Polands 27. Fair enough argument, but they should have fought for it at Nice and not now.