EU Notes home

Conceptualized, Invented, Designed, Developed, Debugged, Organized & Funded By The United States

The Internet, a typical product of US ingenuity, is today easily recognized by everyone as critical to the future of civilization's progress.

The Internet originated within the US Department of Defense. Its development from the 1960s through the 1980s was funded in great part by the Department of Defense. Development efforts from the end of the 1960s through the 1980s were performed by US private industry, university projects, and entrepreneurial interests.

Today private industry, public interests, and governmental bodies use the Internet to efficiently disseminate and retrieve information for unlimited functions. The Internet is known to "just be there" for everyone's and every organization's use. Thanks to US ingenuity, funding and fortitude, nearly any private individual, business, governmental entity, and private, public, educational organization can cost-effectively implement information systems to interface internally and globally.

Now that these facts are obvious to everyone everywhere, the greedy complainers are reaching out to take control. The United Nations, home to graft, corruption, ignorance, greed, and slovenly laziness is trying to grab control. It is using its name -- United Nations -- to promulgate its grab. Of course after decades of decay culminating in the Iraqi Oil For Food corruption and waste, it is unlikely civilized nations would permit control to be passed to the UN.

Another grab for control of the Internet is being made by the European Union. The EU recently began insisting that governments and the private sector should share responsibility for the Internet. There is little doubt that showdowns loom between the EU and the US on Internet governance.

In 1998, the US Commerce Department delegated control when it selected ICANN to oversee the Internet's master directories. Those directories tell Internet browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. ICANN is a US-based private organization that is controlled by an international board. The US Commerce Department retains ultimate veto power.

The EU and developing nations that are now concerned with US control of US-developed intellectual property are bound to make squealing noises. They will likely continue to try to grab what is not theirs and what they had only minimal roles in funding and developing. These developed and emerging nations should demonstrate their ingenuity and worthiness by inventing something of their own. Are there not any other great inventions and discoveries that they might make? Or does that require too much hard work, funding, and ingenuity?

Unsure Rock

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair led the debate during the first official 25 nation EU leadership meeting since France and the Netherlands voted against ratification of the regional constitution.

Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the EU Commission, warned that the organization is facing "permanent crisis and paralysis." The EU is similar to NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which inlcudes the US, Canada and Mexico. Significantly however, Europe's attempt at simplification and cost reductions involved in trade goes beyond trade per se. Europe's unification trade alliance also imposes a common currency, free movement across the borders of all EU nations, and harmonized tax structures.

EU leadership must identify if and how plans for one constitution might be implemented or abandoned. Optimistic plans for an EU constitution called for ratification by all members. That made sense since it was designed to provide a basis for a united Europe. Despite the 100% requirement, the 'no' vote by French and Dutch constituencies, and passage only by legislative bodies so far, Chirac is pushing for other countries to go ahead with their referendums.

Europe's Not Free

The European Union has warned the food industry that it has one year to stop advertising junk food to kids and to improve product labeling.

If the food industry fails to satisfy Markos Kyprianou, EU health and consumer affairs commissioner and his commissioners, it will face possible legislation.

Commissioner Kyprianou warned that immediate action is needed to quell Europe's obesity problem which is especially serious among the young. He believes that self-regulation may be the quickest effective method to resolve the problem. He said, "The signs from the industry are very encouraging, very positive. But if this doesn't produce satisfactory results, we will proceed to legislation."

Colors Show

The Paris prosecutor's office opened a preliminary inquiry to determine if the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen broke the law by describing WWII's Nazi occupation of France as "not especially inhumane."

The investigation will identify if Le Pen's comments made to the extreme right-wing magazine Rivarol, constituted "denial of crimes against humanity" or "apology for war crimes." Both are criminal offenses in France.

Le Pen, 76, founded the National Front party. He has said that "in France, at least, the German occupation was not especially inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses -- inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometers... If the Germans had carried out mass executions across the country as the received wisdom would have it, then there wouldn't have been any need for concentration camps for political deportees."

Le Pen received a higher than expected vote in the last French election for prime minister.

It's A Merkel

Germany's national election was passed over by the US media frantically inflicting fear upon Americans over hurricanes Rita, Katrina, various despicable criminal acts, and inflated political scandals.

Angela Merkel appears to have formed a coalition and is poised to become Germany's first female chancellor.

Angela Merkel's CDU party has won the battle to determine the next German chancellor in a close race with Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der and his SPD party.

Powerful changes hitting Germany impact its internal politics and socio-economic policies. These changes also impact the future of the struggling European Union. Germany is a major political and economic driving force of the EU.

Americans are kept in the dark as Europe evolves. The American popular media is -- as usual -- stymied and fixated by one story. Fortunately for Americans the current fixation is not upon a young blond women who has been kidnapped, a lost child, or an anti-American, guitar-strumming war protestor. Instead it is upon two nasty witches: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Growing Pains Growing

Problems of the first half-century appear as stumbles compared to the current dispute over the structure of an ambitious scheme to culminate in a United States of Europe. EU nations have overcome many tests before.

Previous problems pale today: The 1954 dispute over a defense alliance, de Gaulle's 1965 refusal to accept changed voting procedures, Denmark's 1992 refusal to give up its currency in favor of one, or Britain's threat to block EU progress when its beef was banned during a mad cow episode.

Today's test that the 25 member EU must successfully pass with a high mark involves more than beef, unilateral leadership, a specific trade dispute, or a stubborn imposition.

The appearance of an organization with an accepted common plan is wiped out. Rising popular opposition to Europe unification imparts fear into the minds and operational interactions of EU leaders. Their attacks upon other leaders following their inability to agree on a budget for 2007 through 2013, is superfluous and counter productive. They have added another test for their domestic and inter-EU leadership skills. That test will be graded by how well they can repair their inter-EU relationships. And, even if repair is effected, irreparable scars will remain. Damage has been done to the organization.

Today's test does not likely mark the beginning of the end of Europen unification, but there have been changes made to the arrangement of the 25 members' top-level alliances and lower level interrelationships and attitudes.

Prime Minister Blair will assume the 6-month, rotating EU presidency in July. He recently said he will use today's fractious situation to promote needed reforms. Blair appears poised to change direction and refuses to listen to other leaders' so-called "one view of what Europe is." Alluding to France's Chirac, he said, "Europe isn't owned by any of them; Europe is owned by all of us."

Quiet Blitzkrieg

Wiser, chastened, but again plotting, Germany is on the move again. In 1939, to accomplish his primary objective, Hitler temporarily allied with Russia. Today Schr�der & Fischer are allying with India and an unnamed African country to achieve their primary objective.

Today's blitzkrieg is orchestrated by politicians who have learned from past German mistakes -- the excesses demonstrated by their 1914 role in WWI and in the 1930s' igniting of WWII. Today's German politicians have no tanks, guns, or bombs. They do have a long-term takeover strategy.

Germany recently finished its two year-long rotation in the UN's Security Council and doesn't want to leave. It must under current UN rules. It is using the UN General Assembly's opening sessions to initiate its campaign for changes in the UN's organizational structure. Germany wants to reorganize the UN Security Council, add permanent seats, and place itself, India, Japan, and Brazil in those seats. Since a change of this magnitude requires 3/4 of all UN members to ratify it, Germany has patronizingly included some unnamed African country for one of the permanent seats on the new Security Council.

Germany's UN representative, Gunter Pleuger, has been pushing the new concept since the early 1990s. German Chancellor Schr�der is backing the move. The campaign for a permanent seat fits right in with Schr�der's long-range objective of accomplishing what he terms a "normalization" of German foreign policy. Schr�der's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, is in full support.

Maybe this time Deutschland Uber Alles!

Not Working

Germany's unemployment jumped in January, 2005, to the highest level since World War II. New rules added welfare recipients to the jobless register, clouding the outlook for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in elections this month.

The number of people not working in January rose by 227,000 to 4.71 million in seasonally adjusted terms, including 230,000 new jobless claimants as reported by the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency. The adjusted unemployment rate rose to 11.4%, a seven-year high, while the unadjusted jobless total passed 5 million for the first time since World War II.

Germany's rising unemployment contrasts with the US where the jobless rate dropped to 5.2% in January.

Hans-Juergen Hoffmann, managing director of Hamburg-based opinion-research company Psephos GmbH said, "The psychological significance of 5 million unemployed could be very damaging for the government... The rise in unemployment will make the campaign more difficult."

Chancellor Schroeder and his Social Democratic Party are campaigning to hold on to power in the February 20 state elections.

EUnuff

The European Economic Community was established as a trade zone in 1957. The word 'Economic' was removed from the name by the Maastricht treaty in 1992. That treaty effectively made the European Community the first of three pillars of the European Union, called the Community Pillar.

European Communities is the name covering the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). In 1967, they were merged under one institutional framework with the Merger Treaty. The EEC soon developed into the most important of the three communities. Later treaties ceded to it further areas of competence that extend beyond the purely economic.

The purpose of the EU (EEC) was the eventual economic union of its members. This was to lead to political union. The EU worked for the free movement of labor and capital, abolition of trusts and cartels, and development of joint and reciprocal policies on labor, social welfare, agriculture, transport, and foreign trade.

Among the first significant accomplishments of the EU (EEC) was the establishment in 1962 of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, tariffs on trade between member nations were removed for certain products.

On May 30, 2005, the French people -- by popular referendum -- rejected the EU Constitution. The ten countries that accepted the EU Constitution did so by parliamentary vote -- not by popular vote.

It appears that European politicians favor a politically unified Europe. It appears from polling data and the French people's popular vote that many European people of several nations do not favor the politically unified Europe that would be created by this constitution.

It may be that the people of Europe realize that major substantive benefits to them accrue via reduced tariffs and improved trade and travel conditions already in place. Perhaps the people of Europe value their national heritages and sovereignties. They may have little desire to live under a nationalized Europe... especially in our age of dissolving centuries-old nation-state structures.

Non Again

In a referendum that brought out 62% of the electorate, Dutch voters rejected the EU constitution. An exit poll by state-financed NOS television reported the constitution failed by a vote of 63% to 37%. The French vote was 55% "Non."

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende conceded defeat in the campaign to ratify the constitution. He said the government will respect the overwhelming "no" vote on the referendum.

Perspective

We are free in part due to their sacrifice.

World War I --- 2.3 million dead, 5 million injured from 1914-1917.

World War II --- Of the 405,399 Americans that were killed during World War II, there were 78,976 Missing in Action, MIA, many on European soil.

Distribution of the dead:

War
WWI
WWII

Military Dead
95%
33%

Civilian Dead
5%
67%

It can only be roughly estimated, but how many million European civilians and soldiers died in wars, ethnic cleansing operations, terrorism, and religious conflict... and how many non-Europeans? It can only be estimated how many princes and politicians gained fortunes and power, while their gullible peoples lost opportunities and sacrificed.

France's conservative leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is campaigning against French ratification of the EU constitution.

He believes acceptance of its principles in the May 29 referendum would not have been in France's national interests.

Le Pen spoke to the Associated Press before a meeting of his National Front party saying that the EU constitution attempts to create a superstate at the expense of nationalistic identities. He called upon other EU countries to reject the charter.

The EU constitution is meant to solidify the 25-nation EU nations into an organization that Le Pen labeled "an instrument of destruction of nations."

France's president, prime minister, government and main opposition party are urging voters to accept the EU document. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin argues that France's future lies within an economically, politically and socially unified Europe.

Five polls during March indicate the French lean toward rejection. The document needs unanimous approval by the EU's member states to be implemented. It has been approved by Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania and Hungary.