Fuse 25 countries that have conflicting backgrounds, incompatible goals, and a ridiculous amount of language barriers and you have a mess called the European Union. The EU is one of the worst ideas in the history of diplomacy. Organizations like the North Atlantic Trade Organization and the United Nations work as a union of sovereign countries, but the EU is a confusing collection of codependent nations and overbearing world powers. As precious as it is that Europe wants to unite and work together, it's really like getting Red Sox and Yankees fans to agree on what color to paint the stadium seats at Wrigley Field. Under the trivial decisions, there's bitterness that no one talks about.
In a New York Times article, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder attacked the European Union for "Germany's unfairly high contributions to a wasteful European Union budget." What a familiar concept: a giant organization made up of money-grubbing bureaucrats that's supposed to function as a governing body. Those evil Americans and their McDonaldization.
Henry Kissinger once said, "If I want to talk to Europe, who do I phone?" Europe formed the EU so the countries could act as one, but there's no leader. Nobody has any authority. There are panels and boards and ministers that debate back and forth over every proposal. It's like having five executive branches...that speak different languages. What a great foundation for a lawmaking body.
The EU also does a great job isolating European nations by telling the rest of the international arena which countries are good enough to be part of their "elite group" and which are too poor. The process of accepting countries into the EU is nothing but an international popularity contest.
Don't get me wrong, Europe is a great place for culture, wine and skiing, but the creation of the EU was a low point in Europe's "good idea" trend. Between a European parliament and an official currency that isn't even accepted by all EU countries, it's like a big generic federal system that completely lacks fundamental organization. Forget the Middle East, let's just take over Europe and tell them how to run their government. I'm sure our good friend Chirac would just love that.
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