Dan Hannan: If S America won't federate, neither will EU

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Here, British Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan points out that the countries of South America are far more linguistically, culturally and otherwise historically (consider Spanish colonial input in South America) quite similar to each other (they even have an institution that is very similar to the EU in Mercosur), yet they show no interest in merging to form one political union. However, these countries stubbornly refuse to merge with each other, proudly keeping their own identities.

His point is that the countries of the EU are far, far more culturally, linguistically and historically diverse than the countries of South America, and if the South Americans won't join a federation (despite their obvious ties) then it looks even less likely that Europe will do that considering the massive fault lines that we have:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1rA-V6suK0[/youtube]

the Lion will lied down beside the Lamb a lot soon then the Frog (the French) will lied down beside the Hun (the Germans).

ruveyn

The EU is a Franco-German partnership, ruveyn.

I guess. Will the Swiss lie down with the Poles or the Dutch with the Italians?

ruveyn

The Swiss won't lie down with anyone, ever. A quick look at the Swiss political landscape will show you that.

AUNS forever.

Dont have a dog in the fight either way- whether europe should unite or not.

But I would use a different tack.

South America is far vaster than all of europe. Brazil by ittself is twice the size of the entire non-Russian part of Europe. Europe has a better infrastructure to weld it together, and civilization in South America tends to cling to the opposite shorelines with the interior taken up with the Amazon jungle or the wastelands of the Andes. Much harder to govern as one big unit than is Europe. So i dont think that South America and Europe are comparable.

However CENTRAL America is smaller than Mexico

And little CENTRAL America DID try to form a United States of Central America in 1821 with Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa RIca, Honderus, and El Salvador ( but not Belize which was then a British colony, and not Panama which was then part of Columbia) banding together to form a union much like our original 13 states of the USA. But that only lasted 20 years before it fell apart.

So if I were an anti EU member of the UK parlaiment I would point to Central America, rather than to South America, to make my case!

Hannan is an anti-EU member of the EU parliament.

That said, what you've said there is very interesting (and prescient), but is there a modern attempt to federalise Central America?

Good question. The dream of unification never quite died. The Wiki article alluded to 'later attempts in the 19th and 20th centuries to reunite" but didnt elaborate.

There appears to be enough desire in other EU member state's governments for closer union with the EU. Anti EU parties on the mainland don't achieve enough electoral success to indicate that leaving the EU is the top priority for voters. Anti EU protests on the mainland are mainly against current EU economic policy rather than the EU's existence.

I doubt British political opinion carries much weight in these matters. Others nation's representatives must have noticed our inter administration general attitude to the idea of a closer Europe. I can see this happening more in the future http://euobserver.com/political/114563. I get the impression the majority of the UK electorate would be fine with this. However the 3 main political parties most likely won't out of a desire to influence EU policy.

This is worth reading. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20717943

Damn the people, you mean,.



But less people vote for anti-EU parties than are anti-EU themselves. That has long been the case.



True enough.

I do find it quite interesting how none of the rich non-EU countries have any desire to join the EU, though. If the EU was such a good deal for them, they would have done that.



I don't actually care about what the EU thinks about us. I just want to be out of it. Organise a free trade deal, maintain very friendly relations with our friends in Europe, and leave those countries that still want to be in it to do just that.

There's no reason to even look beyond Europe's borders, 30 years from now will Belgium still be one country? Will the UK still be one country? Spain? Italy?

the huns of antiquity came from north western mongolia with possible ties to the xiung nu(not sure if i spelled that right).the modern hungarian comes from finland and northern russia.there are no ties between the german and the huns.germans came from Iran via the Ukraine and headed west and crossed the danube long before the huns arrived on the danube in the 3rd century

That is a paradox- that europe seems to be flying apart,and coming together at the same time. Ironically the two trends may aid and abett each other. Instead of having middle size countries like France and th UK, you might have one large united states of europe subdivied into small ethnic provinces that would have more autonomy than they have now because they would function like american states. The Breton would have more autonomy from the EU than they now have from Paris ( ditto the basques with Madrid, the Welsh and Scots with London, etc). Or thats one theory. Big brother, and all the little brothers, might gang up on and eliminate the middle sized brothers- so to speak!