EUROPEAN UNION: Method for expelling members

I asked: "Is there a mechanism for expelling member states from the EU? Would it be used? Two or three EU countries will fail to meet EU financial criteria. What will be done?" Christopher Jones replies: "That is the $64,000 dollar question. The EU has no real mechanism to deal with any crisis. (When the Austrian far right joined their government, there was a huff but after awhile all was forgotten.) Just one member state can block a decision approved by the rest of its members, with no way forward. That is why Giscard d'Estaing was chosen in the first place to head a constitutional convent for Europe, and I find the proposals so far, very mild. Yesterday it was reported that the commission President Romano Prodi has his own proposal that looks like a complete whitewash designed with one thing in mind: to keep Romano Prodi as commission President.

If a coup or putsch looks today remote what looms is the future stability of the Euro. Here again anyone who dares question the viability of the European currency has smashed into a sacrosanct taboo. Anybody who was against the introduction of the Euro (remember those cooked books in Italy and who cooked them?) was branded a neo-fascist or worse -- Neanderthal. "We want to be a global player," was the cry. At the time, some commentators pointed out ( like Frankfurt's Prof. Hankel ) that there hasn't been a currency union between sovereign states that has ever endured. (Rob Gaudet mentioned that democracy needs healthy debate -- well Prof. Hankel was never again invited to any televised discussion.)

Europe has no common government, finance minister and taxation. There is no common language, eating habits, judicial system, health care, pension plan, religion and immigration policy. Europeans cannot even agree to reform the common agricultural policy or to tow a tanker in distress into harbor not to mention to require that tankers in Euro-waters have double hulls. How can we ever expect to improve the decision making process with even more, poorer nations like Poland and Slovakia or with a state like Turkey with an Islamicist majority?"

European unity through Brussels' burocracy is not a turkey, its a dodo.

Ronald Hilton - 12/9/02