România liberă, şi cu ea întreg neamul românesc, fost-a zălogită Germaniei industriale? Fost-a ucisă din punct de vedere economic, politic şi etnic de dragul marii industrii germane şi al...

The E.U. stitch up, originally uploaded by www.ruffrootcreative.com.

Europa: un eşec repetat pentru România

de Radu Golban



„Îndată ce un popor ţinut în jug îşi recapătă libertatea şi este recunoscut ca de sine stătător, iute aşa-numitul Concert European îi găseşte un principe, pe care-l cocoţă pe un tron nou, abia lustruit... Aşa imediat ce Belgia se separă de Olanda şi este recunoscută ca stat deosebit i se octroiază, ca dar de independenţă, un principe german... ." Polemica lui Gheorghe Panu de la sfârsitul secolului al 19-lea evidenţiază faptul că pentru suveranitatea şi autodeterminarea unei naţiuni s-a plătit mereu un preţ scump. Echivalentul în zilele noastre este nu doar libertatea recăpătată după căderea comunismului, dar şi un suveran impus de Berlin sau Bruxelles după o suspendare eşuată, părtaş în definiţia binelui naţional după aşteptările străinătăţii, care din adâncă supuşenie condamnă asocierea problemelor economice ale ţării cu sacrosancta Uniune Europeană.

Bugetul UE pentru anii 2014-2020 şi alocările pentru România sunt subiectele centrale din aceste zile. În ciuda unui grad de absorbţie extrem de limitat din fondurile disponibile, de aproape 10%, aşteptările Bucureştiului la suma alocată în următorul buget sunt mai mari decât la mărirea propriei capacităţi de absorbţie. Diferitele strategii de negociere şi jonglerii ale cifrelor însă ascund în mare parte o stare cronică a gradului şi modului de integrare a României în structurile europene, mai veche de un secol. Patru decenii de comunism au şters din memoria colectivă încercările şi consecinţele integrării României în diferitele modele de colaborare europeană de dinainte de 1947. Realitatea unei Românii dezindustrializate pe urma integrării în UE nu este un termen neglijabil care să fie exclus din ecuaţie, aceasta fiind o problemă recurentă a ţării dezbătută pe larg chiar şi de Eminescu pe urma semnării unor acorduri comerciale cu Austro-Ungaria şi alte state în 1876 care au transformat ţara într-o piaţă de desfacere şi care au blocat dezvoltarea unei industrii proprii. În susţinerea acestei idei a exprimat şi Mihail Kogălniceanu opinia majoritară din acea epocă: „Dacă noi aveam un tarif autonom, când bunii noştri vecini unguri ar fi zis că închid graniţele pentru vitele noastre, atunci am fi zis şi noi: închidem graniţele pentru făinile şi vinurile ungureşti“.

Tocmai de aceea opţiunea pentru Bruxelles nu este doar în limitele unor negocieri într-o bandă îngustă de la veto la supuşenie totală; România împărtăşeşte soarta altor state est-europene care prin apartenenţa la UE şi-au sacrificat întreaga industrie, şi-au exportat forţa de muncă calificată, şi-au deschis frontierele transformându-se în pieţe de desfacere şi care într-un timp relativ scurt au revenit la frământările economice de la sfâriştul secolului al XIX-lea. În 1893 s-a produs în urma presiunilor financiare interne şi externe, datorită faptului că jumătate din datoria publică a ţării era faţă de Germania, semnarea unei convenţii comerciale cu Berlinul.

Efectele convenţiei comerciale cu Austro-Ungaria şi cu Germania la cererea lui Bismarck au fost în privinţa distrugerii meşteşugului autohton şi a transformării ţării într-o piaţă de desfacere, similare cu efectele integrării României în UE. Acordurile vamale au stârnit un val de nemulţumire printre industriaşii români, care au protestat vehement, deoarece taxele vamale nu mai erau menite să protejeze dezvoltarea industriei autohtone. Marele economist român Constantin Băicoianu (1871-1945) a scos în evidenţă că „în 1885, când Europa lua drumul autonomiei, noi înclinam spre convenţionalism”. De acelaşi convenţionalism şi conformism au dat dovadă şi negocierile proaste ale României din cadrul aderării la UE, dar şi dorinţa de a fi printre membrii docili ai acestei uniuni.

În aceşti termeni poziţia ţării nu mai poate fi negociată doar în cifre şi procente, ci impune şi o discuţie mai largă pe preţul aderării şi sacrificiile necuantificate ale integrării ţării în UE. Astfel privind lucrurile, România nu este o ţară net beneficiară a sistemului, ci un net contribuabil care asigură printr-un consum bazat pe credite un excedent comercial şi locuri de muncă în centrul Europei.

Dar ce putem învăţa din istorie? România revine în final după eşecul politicii liber-schimbiste, similară cu cea a integrării în UE la o politică protecţionistă care după câţiva ani de aplicare a adus la o creştere a industriei româneşti fără precedent. Pentru economia României, perioada 1876-1916 a fost una de creştere economică, în care s-au pus bazele unei industrii naţionale competitive, ale cărei culmi vor fi reprezentate de anul 1938.

Nu în veto ar consta aşadar o replică a României, cât într-o poziţie totuşi demnă de a ne rezerva dreptul de a explica mai pe larg cetăţenilor ceea ce înseamnă integrarea europeană. Nici o sancţiune nu poate fi mai nemiloasă pentru neosovieticii de la Bruxelles decât demascarea unei iluzii. Ne întoarcem la manualele de istorie pentru o ultimă dată şi citim o altă paralelă istorică halucinantă a realităţii vazute de Justus în revista „Facla” (III, pp. 633-634) din 1912 cu zilele noastre: „România liberă, şi cu ea întreg neamul românesc, fost-a zălogită Germaniei industriale? Fost-a ucisă din punct de vedere economic, politic şi etnic de dragul marii industrii germane şi al Triplei Aliante?”.

La această întrebare Justus preciza cu exact un secol în urmă că nu poate să răspundă decât „trădătorul intereselor vitale ale neamului nostru”. Astăzi ne încadrăm şi politic pe aceeaşi traiectorie nefastă care, după cuvintele lui Gheorghe Panu cu referire la rolul sefului statului, acesta „domneşte, şi nu guvernează. Cu mult umor arată cum, la noi, întreg mecanismul constituţional complicat era stabilit… într-un singur scop: de a menţine şi a da viaţă unei instituţii încurcătoare, a cărei necesitate nimeni nu o simte…” - astăzi o preşedinţie loială Bruxelles-ului.


Radu Golban


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United States of Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United States of Europe (sometimes abbreviated U.S.E. or USE) is a name given to several similar hypothetical scenarios of the unification of Europe, as a single nation and a single federation of states, similar to the United States of America, both as projected by writers of speculative fiction and science fiction, and by political scientists, politicians, geographers, historians, and futurologists.

History
Main article: Pre-1945 ideas on European unity

Various versions of the concept have developed over the centuries, many of which are mutually incompatible (inclusion or exclusion of the United Kingdom; secular or religious union, etc.).

Such proposals include those from King George of Podebrady of Bohemia in 1464; the Duc de Sully of France in the seventeenth century; and the plan of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, for the establishment of an "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates."

George Washington wrote to the Marquis de La Fayette: "One day, on the model of the United States of America, a United States of Europe will come into being." [3]
[edit] 19th century

Felix Markham notes how during a conversation on St. Helena, Napoleon remarked, "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility."[1]

United States of Europe was also the name of the concept presented by Wojciech Jastrzębowski in "About eternal peace between the nations", published May 31, 1831.

The project consisted of 77 articles. The envisioned United States of Europe was to be an international organisation rather than a superstate.

Giuseppe Mazzini was an early advocate of a "United States of Europe", and regarded European unification as a logical continuation of the Unification of Italy.

The term 'United States of Europe' (États-Unis d’Europe) was used by Victor Hugo, including during a speech at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849.

Hugo favoured the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood...

A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas." Victor Hugo planted a tree in the grounds of his residence on the Island of Guernsey he was noted in saying that when this tree matured the United States of Europe would have come into being.

This tree to this day is still growing happily in the gardens of Maison de Hauteville, St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Victor Hugo's residence during his exile from France.

The Italian philosopher Carlo Cattaneo wrote 'The ocean is rough and whirling, and the currents go to two possible endings: the autocrat, or the United States of Europe'. In 1867 Giuseppe Garibaldi, and John Stuart Mill joined Victor Hugo at a congress of the League for Peace and Freedom in Geneva.

Here the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin stated "That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe".

The French National Assembly, also called for a United States of Europe on March 1, 1871. Trotsky raised the slogan "For a Soviet United States of Europe" as early as 1923. "The United States of Europe" was also the title of two books published in 1931: by French politician Edouard Herriot and by British civil servant Arthur Salter.

Emperor William II of Germany

During the World War II victories of Nazi Germany in 1940, William II stated that: "The hand of God is creating a new world & working miracles.... We are becoming the United States of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent."[2]

Winston Churchill

The term "United States of Europe" was used by Winston Churchill in a famous speech[3] which he delivered in 1946 at the University of Zürich. Churchill seems to have been deliberately vague about the status of Britain in such a Union, mentioning also its relationship with its Empire and the United States.[4]

Churchill had, however, written in the American journal The Saturday Evening Post on 15 February 1930 that a European union might be possible between continental states, but it could not involve Britain:

We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonality. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not compromised. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.[5]

Churchill's was a more cautious approach ("unionist position") to European integration than was the continental approach that was known the "federalist" position.[6]

The federalists advocated full integration with a constitution, while the Unionist United Europe Movement advocated a consultative body, and the federalists prevailed at the Congress of Europe.[7]

The primary acomplishment of the Congress of Europe was the European Court of Human Rights, which predates the European Union.[8]

Geography

Debate on European unity is often vague as to the boundaries of 'Europe'.

The word 'Europe' is widely used as a synonym for the European Union, although much of the European continent is still not in the EU. Frequently, commentators exclude Russia, a partially European country, from their ideals of inclusion.

Indeed, whilst many in the EU are currently happy for the culturally European but geographically Asian country of Cyprus to be an EU member state, there is much debate about Turkey's application for EU membership.

Many have also debated the location of a possible capital city of a united Europe As the seat of most EU institutions, the city of Brussels is the current de facto "capital" of the EU.

For some, Brussels is not acceptable as capital of a future unitary or federal state, comprising Europe as a whole. Some have suggested building a new capital, on a separate territory, comparable to the District of Columbia.

Most other large cities in the EU have, at some time, been proposed as a possible capital city (including London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid).
Prospects for closer union

The member states of the European Union do have many common policies within the European Union (EU) and on behalf of the EU that are sometimes suggestive of a single state. It has a common civil service (the European Commission), a single High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, a common European Security and Defence Policy, a supreme court (European Court of Justice — but only in matters of European Union law), a peacekeeping force (Eurofor), and an intergovernmental research organisation (the EIROforum with members like CERN). The euro is often referred to as the "single European currency", which has been officially adopted by fifteen EU countries while seven other member countries of the European Union have linked their currencies to the euro in ERM II. In addition a number of European territories outside the EU have adopted the euro unofficially.

The EU, however, does not have a single government, a single foreign policy set by that government, or a single taxation system contributing to a single exchequer. It does not have a constitution.

Several pan-European institutions exist separate from the EU. The European Space Agency counts almost all the EU member nations in its membership, but it is independent of the EU and its membership includes nations that are not EU members, notably Switzerland and Norway.

The European Court of Human Rights (not to be confused with the European Court of Justice) is also independent of the Union.

It is an element of the Council of Europe which, like ESA, counts EU members and non members alike in its membership.

At present, the European Union is a free association of sovereign states designed to further their shared aims.

Other than the vague aim of "ever closer union" in the Solemn Declaration on European Union, the Union (meaning its member governments) has no current policy to create either a federation or a confederation.

However, in the past, Jean Monnet, a person associated with the EU and its predecessor the European Economic Community did make such proposals. A wide range of other terms are in use, to describe the possible future political structure of Europe as a whole, and/or the EU.

Some of them, such as United Europe, are used often, and in such varied contexts, but they have no definite constitutional status.

In the United States of America, the concept enters serious discussions of whether a unified Europe is feasible and what impact increased European unity would have on the United States of America's relative political and economic power.

Glyn Morgan, a Harvard University associate professor of government and social studies, uses it unapologetically in the title of his book

The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration. While Morgan's text focuses on the security implications of a unified Europe, a number of other recent texts focus on the economic implications of such an entity.

Important recent texts here include T. R Reid's The United States of Europe and Jeremy Rifkin's The European Dream. Neither the National Review nor the Chronicle of Higher Education doubt the appropriateness of the term in their reviews.[9][10]
[edit] Opposition

The European Union does not include every nation in Europe and there is no consensus among the existing national governments towards becoming even a Confederation.

There is also significant internal opposition to the concept in many member states.

The term "United States of Europe", as a direct comparison with the United States of America, would imply that the existing nations of Europe would be reduced to a status equivalent to that of a U.S. state, losing their national sovereignty in the process and becoming constituent parts of a European federation.

Just as the United States of America has evolved from a confederation (under the 1777 Articles of Confederation) into a federation, the term "the United States of Europe" might also be used to describe a potential confederation of independent states.

Those who oppose and criticize forming a federation or confederation of European states may be termed Eurosceptics; however it should be noted that opposition to the creation of a European federation does not equate with opposition to the European Union or the process of European integration.

Guy Verhofstadt

Following the negative referendums about the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands, the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt released in November 2005 his book, written in Dutch, Verenigde Staten van Europa ("United States of Europe") in which he claims - based on the results of a Eurobarometer questionnaire - that the average European citizen wants more Europe.

He thinks a federal Europe should be created between those states that wish to have a federal Europe (as a form of enhanced cooperation).

In other words, a core federal Europe would exist within the current EU. He also states that these core states should federalise the following five policy areas: a European social-economic policy, technology cooperation, a common justice and security policy, a common diplomacy and a European army. [4] [5]

The short book is a summing up of the condition the EU 'idea' consequent to the 'No votes' on the European constitution, in referendums held in 2005 in France and the Netherlands. In this book the author enunciates his case forcefully for a stronger federal approach to the economic and political challenges the EU member states will face in the future.

Verhofstadt's book was awarded the first Europe Book Prize, which is organised by the association Esprit d'Europe and supported by former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors.

The prize money was 20,000 Euro. The prize was declared at the European Parliament in Brussels on 05 December 2007.

Swedish crime fiction writer Henning Mankell was the president of the jury of European journalists for choosing the first awardee. Mankell said, "The jury was sensitive to the political courage showed by the current prime minister of Belgium.

In a Europe which has a lot of self doubt, which has a lot of questions about its own future, he offers a clear proposal for the future and gives reasons to believe in European construction."

While receiving the reward Verhofstadt said, "When I wrote this book, I in fact meant it as a provocation against all those who didn't want the European Constitution. Fortunately, in the end a solution was found with the treaty, that was approved." [11]

Predictions

Future superpower

The United States of Europe is widely hypotheticised, fictionalised, or depicted as a superpower as powerful as, or even more powerful than, the United States of America.[who?] Some people such as T.R. Reid, Andrew Reding, and Mark Leonard, among others, believe that the power of the hypothetical United States of Europe will rival that of the United States of America in the 21st century.

Leonard cites seven factors: Europe's large population, Europe's large economy, Europe's low inflation rates, Europe's favourable climate, Europe's central location in the world, the unpopularity and perceived failure of American foreign policy in recent years, and certain European countries' highly developed social organization or quality of life (when measured in terms such as hours worked per week and income distribution)[12]

Some experts claim that Europe has developed a sphere of influence called the Eurosphere

Franz Josef Strauß

Herbert W. Armstrong of the Radio Church of God (later renamed Worldwide Church of God), had prophesied the coming of a United States of Europe before the close of WWIII, and he later went so far as to name the German conservative politician Franz Josef Strauß as its future dictator.

(Strauß had written a book titled The Grand Design, in which he set forth his views of the future of Europe).[13] Strauß seemed to play along with this portrayal, by becoming a guest of Armstrong in 1971 in his home and at his Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, California where he even agreed to appear on The World Tomorrow television programme.

According to a document written by Armstrong in 1983, he became lasting friends with Strauß, but he could not understand why Strauß had returned the friendship.
[edit] Fiction

Carole Carlson, identified in print as C. C. Carlson, is a professional writer and ghostwriter "coauthoring" many books in print. In 1970, when scandals began to rock the Worldwide Church of God, she teamed up with Hal Lindsey to write a religious best seller called The Late, Great Planet Earth.

This book, which sold millions of copies in the 1970s, was made into a movie starring Orson Welles. It followed much of the same prophetic storyline concerning the rise of a powerful state in Europe, as previously told by Herbert Armstrong.

Incompetence, a dystopian novel by Red Dwarf creator Rob Grant, is a murder mystery political thriller set in a federated Europe of the near-future, where stupidity is a constitutionally protected right.

In the fictional universe of Eric Flint's best selling alternate history 1632 series, a United States of Europe is formed out of the Confederation of Principalities of Europe, which was composed of several German political units of the 1630s.[14]

Andrew Roberts's book The Aachen Memorandum details a United States of Europe formed from a fraudulent referendum entitled the Aachen Referendum.

In the expansion pack Euro Force of the computer game Battlefield 2, the European faction is portrayed as a single army. In the computer game Battlefield 2142, Europe is portrayed as one of the three great superpowers on Earth.

Although most of Europe is frozen it still appears to be very powerful and controls the Union of African States.

It loses control of most of Europe in the initial PAC invasion. In the Expansion Northern Strike the EU recaptures all of Europe.

In the computer game Shattered Union, set in a future civil war in America, the European Union is portrayed as a peacekeeping force.

The 'United States of Europe' figures as the goal of secret cabals in various conspiracy theories, see Priory of Sion - the cabals apparently preferring to borrow their constitutional structures from the USA.

References to a United States of Europe, or a similar European Alliance, have also existed in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.[15] Star Trek also mentions a loose confederation of European nations called the European Hegemony.

In the "Spy High" series of books for young adults, written by A.J. Butcher and set around the 2060s, a united Europe exists in the form of 'Europa'.

# en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe