Europeon Union--World's next superpower?

EU consist of 27 countries with 458 million citizens, its current population dwarfs that of the United States and is third only to India and China. It is also the world's largest and most powerful economic bloc, with a bigger gross domestic product than America, China or Japan.

The next candidates to join The Europeon Union includes Turkey "75,863,600 population", Cortia"4,468,760 population", and Macedonia "2,056,894 population".

EU increasingly growing thier own military " EUROFORCE", economy and international polices. In 2009 EU will apoint the first full time "President of the European Council" or AKA "President of Europe".

Do you think EU enlargement could be a threat to the US? Do you think with so many powers out there, things maybe leading to WWIII?

 

They'll crush America economically before militarily. The emergence of another militarized superpower will reduce the power of the UN Security Council (a farce anyways) and will mean the US will no longer be able to police the world arbitrarily without global support.

Our greatest weakness right now is the size of our empire in Europe, Korea and in another 128 countries around the world. The dollar is at a 30 year low, economically, there is a big gap between the haves and have nots, and we're running budget deficits, financing our war operations with foreign debt.

One day (hopefully soon) people will wake up and realize that we've gone astray from the idea of the Republic. And we're setting our kids up for bankruptcy from the moment they enter this world. Look in the mirror and ask, if we bring 160,000+ troops back to America, will we be less safe? Or are we safer for having troops all around the world, to the tune of $1 trillion a year?

 

Why are people so paranoid that countries are out to kill the US?

The EU is not threatening, it should be taken as an entirely economic agreement.

 

Woah there. You're sending shivvers down my spine!
Fellow Britons - now is the time to ditch Europe!

 

Because throughout time, the numbers of the power and money hungry have outnumbered the true humanists. For every hero, there are a dozen villains.

EUROFORCE was mentioned.

 

This thread is interesting, maybe one day someone will stand up to USA's Police Business.

 

Good point there, you can already see signs that EU will no longer follow U.S. foreign polices. Many of the EU countries are against the war in Iraq. We all know mostly all pulled back but the UK. UK new prime minster Mr Gorden Brown is working a plan to pull back as many as 500 UK troops before Christmas. He is setting a plan to remove all the English troops from Iraq as soon as possible.

Not every time the U.S decide to go to war, the EU will jump right with them. I don't see this happening anymore.

 

Many EU countries are also against the idea of a 'Euroforce', a full time President of Europe and the new European Treaty. Just national governments are too gutless to ask their people for an opinion on the EU, because they know what the answer would be.

 

The EU is taking it to the next step, so yes some people may not like the new EU. Just like the U.S had some hard times in the past during the civil war. There will be always nationalist that are against such a union, but for the most part many Europeon like to see Europe the next superpower.

 

With increased centralized government power, the power of the individual is diminished.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am totally against the notion of Unions or global government. I think the EU is a bad thing, just as the proposed North American Union is a bad thing.

When you centralize power, further away from the people, you leave people apathetic, uninformed and relatively powerless to effect change by democracy.

The notion behind the American Republic was to give little power to the Federal Government, and more to state and local government. With many and smaller regions to influence, the people were rarely a couple steps away from creating change.

 

As long as US unilaterally go bomb countries around the world, mi thinks US cannot be a world leader. As far as more countries entering EU. Most of Turkey is in Asia. Also Turkey's human rights are really bad. They have no freedom of speech. Armenian journalist was killed in Turkey about year ago. German Christian missionaries were also killed for giving free Bibles. Turkey has a lot of really bad islamic extremists.
Turkey will give a lot of troubles to EU countries if accepted.
Other countries like Croatia and Macedonia should be accepted. EU will be one independent country.

 

Any country in the EU come from different heritage, culture and religious believes. I don't think turkey will be much of a problem to the EU. There are already many truks live and work in Europe without a problem.

Also Turkey will be great contributor to the total GPD of Europe. Turkey is one of the biggest booming economies in that part of the world, they are very modernized in many areas. No to mention their strategical geographical position connecting Asia and Europe, and the northern European border to the middle east.

 

Good wishes for Turks,
But human rights watch says that Turkey needs to do a lot.

"Freedom of Expression
More than 50 individuals were indicted for statements or speeches that questioned state policy on controversial topics such as religion, ethnicity, and the role of the army. The government failed to abolish laws that restrict speech.

In April an Adana court sentenced broadcaster Sabri Ejder Цziз to six months of imprisonment under article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code for “insulting parliament” by describing a decision to allow foreign troops on Turkish territory as a “terrorist act”. Цziз is at liberty pending appeal. In July the Supreme Court upheld a six-month prison sentence against Hrant Dink, editor of the newspaper Agos (Furrow), under article 301 for “insulting Turkishness” in an editorial concerning the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Anatolia. The sentence was suspended, but other speech-related charges against Dink are pending. In September British artist Michael Dickinson was imprisoned for two weeks and subsequently deported for publishing a collage showing Prime Minister Erdoğan as US President Bush’s poodle.

İpek Зalışlar, biographer of Latife Uşaklıgıl, first wife of Mustafa Kemal Atatьrk, founder of the Turkish republic, is on trial under the Law to Protect Atatьrk. In a newspaper interview, Зalışlar had related an anecdote, supposedly shameful, that Kemal had donned his wife’s hijab once in 1923 to escape an armed rival."

http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/turkey14845.htm

Good luck to turks. They have long road to democracy.

 

The EU government who were against the Iraq war had business deals with Saddam to protect.

 

Yes they had deals with Iraq, and they wanted diplomatic solutions instead using aggressive force. the U.S also had "business" with Iraq. They supported Iraq-Iran war from 1980-1988, and then they went in a war against Iraq in 1990

So yeah, Europeans don't just go to war and break major deals over night.

 

Trade and diplomacy are always better than war.

 

EU has very old population and has no future...

 

the EU is not an empire under one leadership, it is a collection of european countries, banding together for economical reasons but not because there is some sinister agenda to take over the world. most of the time members of the EU are at loggerheads over some new initiative or other, unable to agree on the simplest of things, so to mobilise every EU country against a superpower would be absolutely impossible.
who has been watching too many james bond films?

 

You are aware that the EU drafted it's own Constitution right? You also know that it passed despite some countries being against it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2950276.stm

It doesn't matter if this is innocent, well intended or not. Any compromise to sovereignty isn't ok with me.