At the insistence of French President Jacques Chirac, the European Union will, effective today, change its name to the French Union (FU).

Chirac had caused consternation earlier in the week by scolding a number of the Eastern European fledgling democracies, Romania and Bulgaria prominent among them, for having declared their support for America. Chirac had suggested that the failure of these nations to "keep quiet" might "diminish their chances of joining Europe."

"I must clarify my prior statements," Chirac said earlier today. "I have been in part misinterpreted. In fact what I meant to say was this: L'Europe, c'est moi." Characterizing the Eastern Europeans as "a bunch of Asiatic Slavs and Gypsies," Chirac stressed that "Gallicization and only Gallicization will enable these brutish, primitive dystopias, perhaps within 200 or so years, to achieve a level of civilization on a par with that of France."

"If the tribal chieftains and vojvods of these silly little Bantustans want to know what the future of a united contnent holds for them," Chirac said, "I tell them this: F.U."

Chirac's speech was cut short when he had to leave to catch a plane to meet with an unidentified "comrade" in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The president of Romania said a couple of weeks ago that "when I have a fight with my wife I usually shout at my sons" and went on to suggest that if Chirac is angry at America he should stop taking it out on Eastern Europe.

Quote:

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" Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion"
---Anon

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Edit: turns out that's not an anonymous quote. It's been attributed to Norman Schwartzkopf.

I heard that in fact the EU's name is to be changed to the United Federation of Independent European States. Or United States for short.

It is not true that EU will change its name (it was only a proposal, but nobody is taking it seriously). As for Chirac, his comments were outrageous, he offended the candidate countries and plunged the EU into a political crisis.

The words "United States" translate to "Etates Unis" in French, don't they - which would be "EU" for short! This must keep Chirac awake at night! Perhaps that's why he wanted to change the name. Personally, I think at the moment France at least could wear the title "FU" quite well, muddying up the works with many countries the way they are at present.

Caesar Augustus couldn't do it. Charlemagne couldn't do it. Napoleon couldn't do it, and thank god Hitler couldn't either.
Given the tenor of Chirac's idiot posturing (and he did in fact make the statements quoted in the second paragraph of the top post) can one realistically think the EU will be able to?

When I wrote: 'it is not true that EU will change its name (it was only a proposal, but nobody is taking it seriously)', I didn't have in mind the proposal by Chirac, but another idea that was put forward during the Convention meeting in Brussels. But, as I said, it is not a serious one, the majority of the Member States will ever agree to the EU changing its name to "the United States of Europe" or something like that.

How funny to hear americans talking like this.

First of all, I'm amased you know Europe exists...
But yes, you must come to overhere to hear silly things from politicians, that's true. Luckily such thigns don't happen in the US

By the way, not only France was opposing to Warlord Bush, also Belgium (the capital of Brussels, you know) and Germany joined the party...

And are we more peaceminded? Hell no, we had other interests...

The main company from France is an oilcompany called TotalELF, and they just got some new oilcontracts from Iraque But hey, if you want to start a war because Sadam threw out the dollar as a currency for the oil and replaced it by the Euro, you also "a bit" hypocritical, aren't you?

Yes, Wimm, we Seppos are very, very worried about the Euro. The very concept of the EU has us shuddering in our boots. The recent show of great unanimity among the EU's member nations with regard to support of America has given us due cause to fear the European colossus.

We are especially concerned about the EU's powerful military potential. I believe, in fact that it was the Belgian foreign minister who said it best in December 2001 when he stated that the EU army "should simply declare itself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability." The "Rapid Reaction Force", from what I have heard, has apparently recently augmented its elite fighting force by 50%... some French guy joined up,and he has access to several long-range baguettes.

Yes, we ugly Americans do quite fear the Eurocolossus. Some of your countries actually spend slightly more than .00000001 of their GDP on defense. I think this shows these are peacable countries that are morally superior to the US, and has nothing to do with the fact these countries have relied for half a century and indeed still rely on the Great Satan to come in and fight their wars for them if the brown stuff hits the fan. I mean, look at the European contribution to Kosovo!!

Yes, Wimm, we are all atremble about the EU. Look what it's done! Italy no longer has worthless currency, and lots of bureaucrats have jobs. We know the EU will last if and when the Germans ever take the first step toward remilitarizing, as they have been known to do in the past, because the EU will tie them up in lots of nasty rules and regulations and that will make all the guns-and-butter stuff go away.

And yes, you are right, the Saddam thing is all cynical geopolitics. We all know that the US' closest ally in the Middle East is a country overflowing with oil, don't we?

Coolupway, how dare you question the neutrality of wonderful, morally superior nations such as Germany, France and even (gasp!) Belgium!!!

Next you'll be saying that Belgium, one of the first nations in the world to contest Israel's right to put a Nazi war criminal on trial in the early sixties, has recently decided that they have the right to try the Israeli PM for crimes he didn't commit against non-Belgians twenty-one years ago!

And the fact that France, Belgium and Germany, the three nations most opposed to US actions against Iraq, are also the three nations that had the most anti-Semitic incidents in the world in 2002? That's probably just a coincidence!

Yes, snm, those notorious non-Belgians, who were so kind and benevolent to the Congolese during their brief bask in the colonialist sun, and who certainly had nothing to do with the murder of Patrice Lumumba. A non-Polish fellow not named Joseph Conrad did not write a novella about such non-atrocities in the non-Congo, and a certain Col.Kurtz in that non-bit of literature was certainly not based on any non-real-life non-Belgians. In fact, there's even a non-quiz on this very non-subejct on this very site!

And of course we cannot forget the marvelous French, with their ringing declaration of the rights of man, and their exalted liberte, egalite and fraternite, although these noble conecpts were of course of decided non-applicability to certain military officers of a not altogether Gallic stripe there in the late 19th century. You in particular, snm, should be grateful to the Gauloise-smokers, because if it wasn't for their persecution of M. Dreyfus, a journalist who was covering the story-- I believe his name was Herzl, if memory serves-- wouldn't have concluded that Europe was unfriendly territory for his coreligionists and thus begun to advance the idea of the very country you now inhabit! But of course, that was many years ago, and now France is very post-modern and past all that silly racialist stuff and anticlerical and secularist and they would be the VERY LAST country in the world to, say... put a writer on trial for the equivalent of blasphemy. Right??

Ah man, I do like a nice bedtimestory.

I'm soo sorry to offend the mighty americans, I'll start hitting myself right now, okay?

It never amazes me how shortsighted people can be (become). So now the amount of money spent (wasted?) on defense is the satndard of civilisation? Nice one. Always thought healtcare, education and sobby stuff like that was imortant. How can I be so ignorant?

But no, it must be nice to live in a country where there are more lawyers then teachers...

And hey, some of your comments even make sense, you know? But might I remind you america seems to be the only country that doesn't want anything to do with the international court of justice in Den Haag?
And of course I feel bad about the actions of Bin Laden, but the same person used to be one of america's heroes in the times he was fighting against Russia. A very courageous freedomfighter, indeed. Same for Mr Hoessein, by the way, when he was fighting against Iran...

So yes, Europe is not perfect, not by a long way. But I like it here. And I feel confident enough about its future.

Did you know we are not allowed to buy a gun inhere? Oh horror I have to check when the last shooting took place in a school, let's do that and go happily to sleep in ***gasp*** belgium

Wimm, the fact that this thread was started as a joke seems to have escaped you, but since you like nice bedtime stories, let me now make this thread even more unfunny (there are worse things in the world than lawyers and guns...)

Quote:

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EDITORIAL: The horror
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Feb. 14, 2003

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In 1989, Marc Dutroux, a 32-year-old electrician from the Belgian city of Charleroi, was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison for the rape and torture of five young girls. In 1992, and against the wishes of his family, Dutroux was paroled as part of a general early release for sex offenders arranged by then-justice minister Melchior Wathelet. Dutroux received a $2,700 per month government stipend on grounds he had suffered psychological damage in prison. Part of this money went to the purchase by Dutroux of six homes and several cars.

In 1993, young girls began disappearing from areas where Dutroux lived. That same year, an informant told police that Dutroux had offered him between $3,000 and $5,000 to kidnap young girls. The tip was ignored. Neighbors of Dutroux complained to police of strange noises coming from his houses; police replied that Dutroux could do what he liked in his homes. Police were also informed that Dutroux was building dungeons in his cellar; two searches of his house failed to uncover them.

In early 1995, Dutroux's mother wrote prosecutors that her son had been keeping young girls in his homes. Her letter went ignored. That July, Dutroux was interviewed by police in his home. Asked about the construction in his basement, Dutroux claimed it was for a new drainage system. They believed him. In August, police again searched Dutroux's basement, but failed to find anything suspicious, despite the fact that two young girls were imprisoned there at the time. In December, Dutroux's house was searched for a fourth time. Noises were heard from below; Dutroux explained they were the voices of his children.

In August 1996, investigative magistrate Jean Marc Connerotte led a raid on Dutroux's home, where he found alive Laetitia Delhez, 12, and Sabine Dardenne, 14. Arrested alongside Dutroux were his wife, a grade school teacher, and three other accomplices. A fourth accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, was found dead in one of Dutroux's gardens. Dutroux confessed to sedating Weinstein with barbiturates, then burying him alive. Police later uncovered the bodies of eight-year-olds Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, who had died of starvation after nine months of captivity, and of teenagers An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks, whom Dutroux had repeatedly raped.

In September, Connerotte attended a fund-raiser in Delhez and Dardenne's honor, sponsored by an advocacy group for parents of missing children. The following month, the Belgian High Court found that his presence there constituted a conflict of interest and dismissed him from the case. A new magistrate, Jean-Claude Van Espen was appointed to the case.

In December, La Derniere Heure reported that a Detroux accomplice named Michel Nihoul had organized orgies at a Belgian chateau. At the orgy, it reported, were senior Belgian judges, lawyers, and politicians, as well as a commissioner of the European Union. It later emerged that Nihoul and Van Espen had a prior relationship, forcing the magistrate to resign.

In 1997, a Belgian parliamentary enquiry found that "it was difficult not to conclude" that Dutroux "may have been protected" by police. In 1998, Dutroux escaped prison by snatching a gun from a courthouse but was rearrested a few hours later. In 1999, Hubert Massa, the chief prosecutor of Liege, with overall responsibility for the Dutroux case, committed suicide. No note was found: Massa was known by colleagues for being "as solid as a rock." In 2001, Dutroux filed a legal complaint alleging violations of his human rights: the light in his cell, he claimed, was switched on every night at seven and a half minute intervals.
In the seven years since Dutroux's arrest, he has not been brought to trial, in plain violation of the writ of habeus corpus. Belgium has announced he will be tried this year, or possibly next.

Little headway was ever made in uncovering the ring of child pornographers to which he was connected.

This, then, is the country that now intends to move ahead with the trial of Ariel Sharon. It does so through a Belgian law that gives it the right to try anyone for crimes against humanity, whatever nationality the defendant may be, wherever those crimes took place and wherever the defendant may reside. Our advice to Belgium: Deal with your own monsters first. There's obviously no shortage of them.

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ouch

got me there...

Pardon me, I must have been mistaken. NATO was not (and is not) to any degree paid for and manned by the US. You are right, Wimm, this bit of non-spending, which was not in any way for the protection of European countries that faced a direct threat from the Soviets, was financed, indeed is financed, almost entirely by... Portugal!! That's it!! It was on the tip of my tongue all along.

And of course the wonderful welfare states that some of the Northern European countries have been able to put together enitrely without the help of the Americans have come to pass solely because of the inherent goodness of these sovereignties, and not, as that silly Robert Kagan has written in "Of Paradise and Power", because these countries have cynically let the Americans do the spending for them:

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Clearly European voters were not willing to make such a revolutionary shift in priorities. Not only were they unwilling to pay to project force beyond Europe, but after the Cold War they would not pay for sufficient force to conduct even minor military operations on their own continent without American help. Nor did it seem to matter whether Europoean publics were being asked to spend money to strengthen NATO or an independent European foreign and defense policy. Their answer was the same. Rather than viewing the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to expand Europe's strategic purview, Europeans took it as an opportunity to cash in a sizable peace dividend... Despite talk of establishing Europe as a global superpower, therefore, average European defense budgets gradually fell below 2 percent of GDP, and, throughout the 1990's, European military capabilities steadily fell behind those of the United States.

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And yes, I have no problem with the idea of living in a nation in which lawyers outnumber teachers. The lawyers I know tend to be brighter than the teachers of my generation. The lawyers tend to work harder, too, because every day most of them face the very free market from which the teacher has been shielded. Teaching has become bureaucratized and substantially dumbed down, and I say this as the son of two teachers who decry these undeniable circumstances far more than I ever could or do. Have Europeans actually come to view entrepreneurial spirit as somehow declasse? I would hate to think that the EU is passingly popular solely because deep down, Europeans just want untaxing desk jobs and 4-week vacations.

Actually that's one of the reasons that most European powers, or possibly former powers, don't want the war in Iraq- they're not entirely mad about the idea of revealing that as far as advanced military technologies go, they're almost two decades behind the US! (And more than a decade behind Israel)
Interestingly enough, the only European country even trying to play catch-up is France! Now what could pacifist, peace-loving, non-aggressive France be doing that for? Could it have anything to do with the reasons for Chirac's current visit to Algeria? I hear he was received rather warmly in the former French colony, partly because of his support for Saddam.

I think the above debate as to whether the US or Europe is better is operating on too high a level. I would much rather see it degenerate into a petty intercontinental trading of insults.

So here we go. Europe is better than America because we didn't make "The Beverly Hilbillies".

Answer that Uncle Sam.

I'm a hybrid anyway, but I have to mention that Islingtonian, you'll notice the theme of the Beverley Hillbillies? Black Gold?
Even then! You've got it on the dot! The quest for oil even then...America's plot began with Jed Clampett?
Or was it Jethro? Could they have foreseen the Bush boys?

Touche, Islingtonian. We had the awful Jim Aubrey, the CBS network president who gave us that and many other single-digit IQ sitcoms. At least when you got saddled with King Charles I, your country had the good sense to do the necessary with him. No Cromwell around now to enable us to take care of the Aubreys when we need them to. But, from a more basic standpoint, is England-- an island, I should note-- in fact OF the continent any more? Tony B. is sounding like more of an "Atlanticist" and less of a "European" every day now, and while a few Labourites may not be too happy about it he still seems to have much of old Blighty behind him. I expect that any day he may leave his family behind to run off with JeLo or perhaps Jennifer Aniston.

Tut tut Coolupway. As usual, you've made a well constructed and sensible critique of my pro-European stance. I thought I made it quite clear that I wanted a childish slanging match. Go on - say something about warm beer and sausage.

Anyway, to answer your point, Britain's plan is not to become the US's 51st state. Instead, we plan for the US to revert to being a British colony, as in the 18th century, before all this trouble started. We can't hope to accomplish this by force, but in one of his multiple visits, Tony Blair intends to slip something into the US constitution, without Bush noticing. It won't be legal, but as I understand it neither is your current administration. Good plan, eh?

Some people might even claim that any plan to make Britain the 51st state is futile, since there already is a 51st state...

...and that would be Canada. 52 sounds like a nice, round number though...

Personally I'd prefer to buy my groceries with dollars than euros,but that's another issue.

Now that I see that all the "baddies" in Belgium are Walloons or francophones:Dutroux; his wife Michèle Martin; Michel Nihoul; Melchior Wathelet ; Michel Lelièvre ; Bernard Weinstein( not even a Belgian but a Frenchman of Czech origin).. and taking into account that our Foreign Minister Michel( well-known buddy of President Arafat ; even their beards are somewhat similar) is a francophone too ..
I begin to understand that some of my Flemish brethren and sisters want a " Republic" of their own.
Only I don't think I want to exchange my local Flemish newspapers for the newspaper quoted by snm.
Seems as if "truth" is once again one of the first casualties
in pre-war.The way some newspapers feed their readers with "background information" about the countries involved in this for-or-against-going-to-war(-now) debate, is beneath all levels of veracity.
To set the record straight: the HORROR article is definitely not a very fair rendering of the Dutroux-case nor a very fair report on Belgium.
Just setting a few details right:
1. There is no such a thing as a "writ of habeas corpus" in the Belgian constitution. This British Act was written into the American constitution, and though the Belgian constitution was to a large extent inspired by the American,
we did not copy every single item. Habeas corpus has nothing to do with the final trial of Dutroux not having taken place yet. It is exactly because so many false rumours were spread that the rights of the defence AND of the civil parties had to be cautiously respected. Hope there is nothing wrong with that.
2. The Dutroux case was not transferred from Judge Connerotte
to Judge Jean-Claude Van Espen but to Judge Jacques Langlois
3. Judge Langlois has not found any proof of a network of pedophiles and until now nobody else has been able to provide him with anything that is substantial enough to prove the opposite.
4. Judge Bourlet has a slightly different view of the situation but has had to admit that he has no hard proofs either and cannot say for sure that there was a network and/or that Michel Nihoul did anything more than ringing up Michel Dutroux rather frequently at the time of one of the crimes.
5. The judge in charge of the Dutroux investigation in Liège was NOT Hubert Massa but Anne Thily.
6. What a paper such as "La Dernière Heure" reports, can be put on same level of reliability as what the " Sun" and " The
News of the World" or the German "Bild-Zeitung" fill their pages with. And that's far beneath the level of this Academy of Quizmakers and Quizplayers.
As to the background reasons why this article was written:
1. The "genocide"-law which has been invoked by Palestinian opponents of Ariel Sharon was never invented as a tool to hit
Israël or Israël's PM. It was in the wake of the Pinochet affair that our often over-enthusiastic Foreign Minister felt
he needed to make a clear profile for himself on the world stage, which made him push for that type of law.Probably a little unwisely.
Anyway most Belgian politicians were very embarassed by the turn things were taking and right now they have already been making efforts to make the law less utopian and less easy to manipulate for political purposes.

2. There is a clear majority in Belgium of people who do not see that a war is the only means to get Saddam under control.
Whether they are right or wrong in this optimistic evaluation, nobody can prove without trying it.
It's very much a vicious circle.
My estimation is that some "nations" would like an intervention of the U.S.A. in Iraq because they feel sure it's going to help their cause.
Others may feel it will do more harm than good.
But I see in those "different evaluations of the effects
of a war" no reason to go to war with each other.
And there is no reason why a discussion of the respective
points of view should be a slanging match. "Propaganda" is so cheap.
Wouldn't it be the wisest if EU and USA kept their names as they are, and spent their energy on trying to understand each other a little better, using REAL arguments?
I am very sure that among the "pacifists" that take to the streets to demonstrate there are many who have little thought of the point of view of U.S.A., Israël, etc. and in my opinion those have no reason to vociferate against President Bush.
But is it so hard to imagine that among the demonstrators there are also quite a few who genuinely try to understand the American, and also the Israeli point of view, and who nonetheless fear that a war against Iraq will do more harm to U.S.A. and Israël than it will do good.
They may have it all wrong. But there must be a better way
than suggesting those countries are "anti-semitic".
Would really want to hear where in Belgium there were "anti-semitic" actions ? In what towns ? When exactly?
Who committed those actions?
All the anti-semitic actions I heard of were perpetrated ...
against the other semites, ..the Arabs.
But of course there may have been isolated events that did not make the press,..and if there were, I am quite willing to hear the concrete facts..but not such sweeping statements as..'the most anti-semitic acts in the world in 2002'. That's just a bit too vague and shows a very remarkable resemblance to taking a wild shot at the truth.

First of all, when are people going to stop taking this thread so bloody seriously?

Flem-ish, I wasn't attacking Belgium with that editorial, I was attacking Belgium's so-called neutrality. To tell the truth I don't know what newspaper the editorial came from, but that's hardly relevant- the whole point of the editorial is made in the last paragraph, which doesn't even mention Dutroux (when my arguments are dependent on the facts I rely on far more reliable sources, believe me). In any case, the corrections you point out don't change the general tone of the story one bit, and are completely and utterly irrelevant regarding the neutrality issue.
You yourself admit that the decision to make the law was "a little unwise". No one is claiming that the law was invented "as a tool to hit Israel or Israel's PM" over the head, but the Palestinians have certainly turned it into such a tool, and the most recent decision by the Belgian high-court certainly hasn't done anything to rectify the situation. Is it any wonder we're upset? Especially considering that Belgium was one of the main contesters of Israel's right to bring Adolph Eichmann to justice.

By the way, I never said that France, Belgium and Germany are anti-Semitic, I simply pointed out that these three countries had the most anti-Semitic incidents in 2002. If you wish to verify these figures you are welcome to contact one of the many organizations that collect data on this subject, including the Anti Defamation League, the "Sochnut", and the Israeli foreign ministry.