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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Monday for a growing European Union to agree on a series of changes that would help it overcome internal divisions and stand up to external rivals such as Russia and China. In a wide-ranging speech at Charles University in Prague, Scholz said the EU must make itself "fit" for future enlargement from 27 to 30 -- or even 36 -- nations by taking more decisions by majority vote, rather than requiring unanimity on all issues that has in the past allowed individual member states to veto key decisions. [...] "We have to remember that swearing allegiance to the principle of unanimity only works for as long as the pressure to act is low," Scholz said, arguing that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call for the EU to change the way it takes decisions. [...] The German leader also backed calls to reconsider the composition of the European Parliament, which currently has 751 deputies, to prevent it becoming "bloated" through future expansion. A similar reform of the way each member state is represented in the bloc's executive Commission could see commissioners share responsibility in certain areas, he said.
In a wide-ranging speech at Charles University in Prague, Scholz said the EU must make itself "fit" for future enlargement from 27 to 30 -- or even 36 -- nations by taking more decisions by majority vote, rather than requiring unanimity on all issues that has in the past allowed individual member states to veto key decisions. [...] "We have to remember that swearing allegiance to the principle of unanimity only works for as long as the pressure to act is low," Scholz said, arguing that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call for the EU to change the way it takes decisions. [...] The German leader also backed calls to reconsider the composition of the European Parliament, which currently has 751 deputies, to prevent it becoming "bloated" through future expansion. A similar reform of the way each member state is represented in the bloc's executive Commission could see commissioners share responsibility in certain areas, he said.
Mateusz MORAWIECKI. - Nous avons discuté du contexte géopolitique, de l'agression russe en Ukraine, de la manière de l'arrêter le plus vite possible et de forcer les troupes russes à se retirer. Mais nous avons aussi évoqué les effets indirects de la guerre, notamment la désorganisation du marché de l'énergie et l'inflation. Ce sont les défis d'aujourd'hui, nous devons y répondre et trouver des solutions. J'incite aussi Emmanuel Macron à suspendre le système ETS (système d'échange de droits d'émission de l'UE) pour quelque temps, afin de créer un espace de respiration pour les économies européennes. Comment rendre le système énergétique européen résilient et souverain, mais aussi comment mieux aider l'Ukraine à ne pas céder au chantage russe? Nous partageons tous deux l'idée qu'il faut...
At the time of the great enlargement of the EU with 10 new member states in 2004, the Polish-born Oxford [!] scholar Jan Zielonka suggested in his book Europe as Empire that the EU should leave the dream of a Westphalian super-state [wtaf] behind and instead adopt a neo-medieval [wtaf] paradigm.
"The European state is dead, long live the European empire!", he wrote. Shortly afterwards, the then president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso [?] launched the suggestion during a press conference that the EU was to become the first-ever "non-imperial empire" [wut].
Faced with the Russian aggression against his country, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba [?!] used an interview with the New York [Yella Cake] for elaborating his conviction that the EU should be seen as a 'liberal empire'.comments are cheap ... In the past, under the empires, Central Europe was ethnically diverse. Everyone lived together. But after the mass murders, ethnic cleansing and border changes of World War II, these countries are more ethnically homogeneous than Western European countries. And while they were under the communists, the moment they lost their colonies, Western European countries started European integration - France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands. They brought people from ["]the colonies["] to Europe, and later labor from Turkey or Morocco. It was never easy, but Western Europeans were used to ethnic diversity. < wipes tears > For Central Europeans, the product of decolonization after 1989 [?!], this was new and scary. Partly because of this, a European asylum and immigration policy has been impossible for years....Whatever the reason for the appeal of the concept of the EU as an empire may be, it contradicts both the idea and the construction of the Union. The vision of the founding fathers [wut] was to curb the absolute sovereignty of the bellicose European states rather than [?] to vest absolute sovereignty in a new[!] overarching European empire. ...
comments are cheap ... In the past, under the empires, Central Europe was ethnically diverse. Everyone lived together. But after the mass murders, ethnic cleansing and border changes of World War II, these countries are more ethnically homogeneous than Western European countries. And while they were under the communists, the moment they lost their colonies, Western European countries started European integration - France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands. They brought people from ["]the colonies["] to Europe, and later labor from Turkey or Morocco. It was never easy, but Western Europeans were used to ethnic diversity. < wipes tears > For Central Europeans, the product of decolonization after 1989 [?!], this was new and scary. Partly because of this, a European asylum and immigration policy has been impossible for years....
The vision of the founding fathers [wut] was to curb the absolute sovereignty of the bellicose European states rather than [?] to vest absolute sovereignty in a new[!] overarching European empire. ...
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