England International Gary Lineker once said: “Football is a
simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end the
Germans always win.”
Politics in the European Union comes across to me as being a
similar “game”. The European Council,
made up of the heads of government of the 28 European Union member states,
meets at a venue in Brussels around every 3 months to define the EU's general political direction and priorities. It identifies issues of
concern and argues over what action should be taken.
The “game” is refereed by the European Council President and
lasts for two days. It concludes with
the Germans always winning the argument and telling the other 27 member states
what to do.
This from 23rd June 2014 by Peter Hitchens on his Daily Mail Blog is on a similar theme.
I actually don’t mind if Germany wants to dominate Europe or if
the countries making up the EU want to be marshalled by Germany. England might even be ruled more efficiently
if the Germans were organising things rather than the present British political
establishment which seems to be running our country for the benefit of the global financial elite*.
Be that as it may, as a “Little Englander” I would rather
see England as an independent country minding its own business outside both the
EU and UK. Let Germany and its
followers in Europe navigate their own future.
Charles De Gaulle was right over fifty years ago when he
said: “England is in effect insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her
markets, her exchanges, her supply lines to often the most diverse and distant
countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities and
only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very
original habits and traditions.” Those
words ring just as true today as they did in 1963.
Some Thoughts on German
Domination of the European Union
I admire many aspects of German society and think it is, on the whole
and in many particulars, a better-run country than Britain. Increasingly, I
wish that Britain had stayed out of the 1914 war, and that this had resulted in
a quick German victory over France in 1914, which would in turn have led to a
sustainable settlement between the Russian and German Empires in the east, and
the survival of both the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, whose collapse
has caused so much misery and continues to do so to this day.
What’s more, I have absolutely no objection to living next-door to a
German-dominated Europe, provided that Britain is not required to belong to such
an arrangement. And I have never been able to see why Britain should be so
required. A German-dominated Europe looks landward and to the east, would
always be balanced by Russia (and these days by China, whose influence in
Europe is growing very fast). A maritime Britain would need have no conflict
with such a continental system.
I agree with much of what he says especially with regard to a German-dominated Europe.
*London City Airport, a valuable piece of English infrastructure, has been sold to Canadian and Kuwaiti interests.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35666988
I agree with much of what he says especially with regard to a German-dominated Europe.
*London City Airport, a valuable piece of English infrastructure, has been sold to Canadian and Kuwaiti interests.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35666988