The new E.U.

The new E.U.
The previous months plenty articles in the newspapers and in the Internet mentioned that the German summit in the European Union had as its first aim to achieve an agreement about the European Constitution. However, as it is widely known some countries have objections about the constitution. So, everyone wondered whether there will be an agreement, and if yes, what kind of agreement?

Before two years France and Netherlands had a referendum in which they did not accept the so called European Constitution. After that every action about the constitution froze and many Europeans wondered what the future of the Union was.

This March, 2007, it was the anniversary of 50 years from the signature of the founding treaty the European Economic Community (E.E.C.). It was signed by six countries. Now the E.U. is constituted by 27 countries. Thus, it is reasonable that it is difficult for twenty seven countries to agree in things of primary importance, such as the rights of the civilians or the voting system. Under these circumstances the summit that took place in Germany placed as its primary target to sign a new treaty that will include as many articles as possible from the unsuccessful constitution.

However, when the leaders from the twenty seven countries discussed it last Thursday, the differences became an obstacle and some countries (especially Poland and Great Britain) did not seem to be willing to compromise. Finally, after many hours of hard negotiations they achieved an agreement. This agreement contains very little of what it was expected to.

On one hand there are those who claim that this agreement is so much below the standards of the E.U. and that opens the way in an E.U. of two groups, the one with those who want closer relations between the countries and the other with those who do not wish a real union. In addition, they hold that if every country is able to pass what it wants by threatening that otherwise it won’t sign a treaty (Poland), in the future there will be many countries that will do the same. But this is not a union and this leads to an independent future for every country, which is far away from what the people who supported the union had imagined. This is of primary importance because they give the right to third countries to intervene to this union, such as U.S. does nowadays, and affect it in matters that it shouldn’t. It is characteristic the problem of the NATO rockets in the east Europe has caused between the countries. Furthermore, it is, as they say, irrational that this treaty will not be applied until 2017, after 10 years when the most countries wanted it to be on force from 2009.

On, the other hand, there are some (few) that express the opinion that this treaty is the first one after the unsuccessful constitution. As a consequence, this is a positive step and includes some of the articles of the constitution and this is the first positive step. After all, an agreement is better than no agreement.

In my opinion, it is illogical a few countries (this time Great Britain and mostly Poland) influence so much the rest of the countries. Of course, as members of this union their opinion should be seriously taken under consideration, but affecting the rest twenty five countries and threatening of not signing the agreement is a very negative thing. Also, I do not know if this is a positive step for the future, however I can tell that the minorities of two or three countries will continue threatening whenever they believe that their interests are not fully protected from a treaty. However, as some say, a treaty is better than no treaty at all…