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Politics : Dutch Central Bank Sale Announcement Imminent? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (23170)	6/1/2005 12:25:19 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 80971

Gus > Chirac brilliantly foresaw that only a popular referendum would do the trick.... But it's not clear what the trick was?! According to what you said, both a Yes vote and a No vote would be bad. >>A "Yes" vote to the EU constitution by French senators and deputies would have amounted to a sellout of French diplomacy. However, a "NO" by the French political class would have been even more disastrous! That was France's real conundrum: to keep the semblance of French politicians earnestly committed to Europe and, at the same time, to preserve France's geopolitical independence. << I thought this was a good article because, at a personal level, it addresses the question of cost and benefit -- who gains and who loses. It also addresses the question of liberty, whatever that is? techcentralstation.com >>The only way to resolve the potential tension between the right of free movement and the rights to social services is to allow each member state to restrict access to social services, not on nationality, but on such personal characteristics as the number of years of work in that state and the absence of a felony conviction. Unless member states are allowed to impose such requirements for access to social services, the EU would become a massive harmonized welfare state, relegating the member states to only such roles as maintaining law and order and safeguarding internal security. The Europeans have every reason to be concerned about a government in Brussels, the powers of which are not clearly defined. Consequently, a demonstrably imperfect Europe of national states, as it is at present, may be a better protection of European liberty than approving the proposed Constitution in the hope for a more perfect European Union.<<