The Great Game

This is just a short note to remind everyone that the fastest growing empire on Earth, the European Union, is still growing.

I am reminded of an old quote by Massimo d'Azeglio, onee of Italy's founders,
"We have made Italy now we make Italians." I suspect the quote could be reworked to fit all of Europe.

I can think of four historical parallels to the current European project, none of which are close to perfect: the Canadian Confederation, the American Union, the German Unification, and the Italian Unification. All of these events had numerous smaller political entities joining together to make a new larger nation (by force or peacefully). The obtacles face by these earlier unifications are similar to the obstacles faced by the Union. Both Canada and Italy were multilingual unions. English and french in Canada; the different Italian dialects in Italy. Canada's confederation was peaceful and voluntary like that of the EU. Still the difficulty of trying to get so many political entities to work together is a major challenge, that will take an enormou amount of political will. Yet, it appears the will is there, the politicians have discovered the europe is stronger together then they are apart, the question is can they make it work.

Jax

The decision will pave the way for the signing of an accession treaty later this month.

Both countries are set to join the EU in 2007.

But their memberships could be delayed by one year if they fail to make key reforms, such as curbing corruption and reorganising farming. (More)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/13/2005 07:19:00 a.m.