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European Unity? |
The United States has a partnership with Europe, but it can no longer
think of NATO as the mechanism by which it is related to Europe, George
Friedman told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.
George
Friedman the author of this report is an American political scientist
and author. A former chief intelligence officer, he is the founder of Stratfor and was its financial overseer and CEO. He recently sold his shares in Stratfor and started Geopolitical Futures, a new global analysis company.
Firstly, the US looks at Europe in the much broader context of
Eurasia. So now we have a crisis that stretches from the Pacific to the
Atlantic. The Chinese are in crisis, Russia is in crisis, the Middle
East is in terrific crisis, and now Europe is in crisis as well. So we
are looking at a situation where an area with a population of 5 billion
is transforming in ways we cannot anticipate.
An American looks at this not just as Europe, but as a range of
problems in general. There are many American views of Europe, but my
view is that the EU has failed, but there is no clear alternative. And
we see the failure in the immigration issue, which we do not regard as a
major issue because it is less than 0.5% of population shift, but
Europe cannot make a decision on how to handle it.
This is not an unmanageable problem. You can decide not to let anyone
in, and then you take measures to prevent that, or you decide to
integrate them and you do certain things to make that happen. It is
Europe’s inability to make a decision that is, from the American point
of view, the most problematic.
It is problematic because the United States has a partnership with
Europe. As important as the EU, and very much missing from this
conversation, is NATO: the stresses that exist between the countries in
the European Union also become present in NATO.
So for example, we have
one relationship with the French, one relationship with the British, a
very different relationship with the Germans and a completely different
relationship with the Poles. We can no longer think of NATO as the
mechanism by which we are related to Europe.
This is not a catastrophic situation for the United States, but it poses
challenges to us in the Middle East, and it poses challenges with
Russia, and we are looking at the Europeans as increasingly unreliable
and increasingly unpredictable.
Note EU-Digest: a
most interesting and revealing report, exposing the weaknesses of the
EU, including: lack of loyalty among partners, disarray among member
states in the decision making process, need for a strong central
leadership, ineffectiveness of NATO, and need for our own EU army. As
the saying goes :"We, the EU, better fish or cut bait".
Hope you are taking note ? - EU Citizens, EU Presidency, EU Commission, EU Parliament, and foremost all you 28
self-centered EU member states governments. Don't destroy this
fantastic project of democracy we call the EU, which has brought us more
than 60 years of Democracy, Peace and Prosperity. We the people will
hold you responsible. We can't turn the clock back. Time for action is
now !
For the complete report click here: George Friedman: The EU is increasingly unreliable and unpredictable | EurActiv