Is the EU a Good Thing? Research Paper

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In 2012, the European Union (EU) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in "the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe" for more than half a century (The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012). Lauded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for its commitment to reconciling Germany and France in the post-war period, the EU joined such notable persons as Barack Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Ironically, however, Obama has gone on to be criticized as one of the worst violators of human rights in 21st century and as a worse war criminal than G.W. Bush. The same critics aim similar remarks at the EU. The documentary film EUphoria takes a critical look at the EU and its "peace" efforts and shows how as in the case of the American President, one swallow does not a summer make. This paper will discuss the history of the EU and show how its profile as a proponent for peace is often a screen for more dubious economic forms of terrorism, as seen in countries like Ukraine and Greece, which have virtually been raided by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"But just what is the European Union exactly?" asks Critical Productions' (2014) EUphoria, and "How did it come about? How does it function today? Is it living up to Nobel Peace Prize wining policies?" These questions begin the documentary film, setting up the framework of investigation into the union of nations -- not all of which currently appear very happy to be part of that union (Durden 2015). EUphoria states that the EU is a "project without a blueprint," but is that really the case? There are 28 member nations in the EU, all part of a system of governmental and economic institutions, such as the Council of the EU, the European Council, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the ECB, the Court of Auditors, and the European Parliament. If anything, it appears the EU has enough blueprints to outlast bureaucracy itself. So why does EUphoria state that it has none? Perhaps the answer is in what the EU decides to state publicly in typical newspeak political spin, and what it actually intends to do privately, through its "Institutions" aka Troika aka central banking cartels. Indeed, EUphoria begins by posing the question of the EU to analysts -- all of whom agree that "the European Union began from good motives" because it was a hypothetical way to avoid future world war. However, the motives of the powers that be in the post-war years have been questioned by many scholars and researchers, and thus it is necessary to examine the history of the EU (Stone, Kuznick 2012).

As Bagnai, Granville and Soy (2015) state, the post-war document that served as the stepping stone to the EU was the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the first line of which urges "an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe." This essential wording is pivotal for understanding what the EU is today: not so much a union of individual nations but rather an individual kingdom, with separate states, subject to the policies of professional bureaucrats and bankers. Such can be seen in the IMF's position towards Greece: As Bagnai, Granville and Soy (2015) show, the IMF "knew that Greece's debt was not sustainable, but decided to go ahead with the [bailout] 'because of the fear that spillovers from Greece would threaten the euro area and the global economy'." Two points are worth noting in that admission: first, that the EU serves itself, not its individual member nations; second, that the EU is part of a much larger, wider scheme -- the "global economy" -- which is, of course, run by the same cartel of bankers that operates within the EU. The "global" scheme has, in fact, been likened to a Ponzi scheme (Novak 2014), which depends upon all the pieces remaining in tact: if one goes bust, the whole scheme collapses. This explains the never-ending "kick-the-can-down-the-road" bailouts of Greece: the money "given" to Greece does not really go to Greece but rather to pay the interest on loans made by the EU "Institutions" (Spiegel, Hope 2015). Greece is a debt colony -- a money-funneling apparatus (Varoufakis 2015).

From the beginning the EU was an economic vehicle for centralization -- not the peaceful solution to Europe's problems that modern pundits appear to make it seem. It grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community of 1951 and the European Economic Community of 1958. Its purpose was to oversee a single marketplace where control of European finances could be overseen by a privileged few.

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It was never about easing boundary disputes, spreading democracy, or promoting freedom. As Schimmelfennig (2003) states, in the EU, "tariff barriers and other legal boundaries are used to exclude states from the benefits of free trade and other economic freedoms" (p. 22). The EU is nothing more than Fascism expanded throughout all Europe: it is the merger of government and business. To support this scheme, "territorial reorganization" became necessary -- an event fostered by the outcome of WW2, in which the Allied Powers were able to divvy up the spoils and set about restructuring the European marketplace and instituting new financial burdens and lending organizations (Brenner 1999: 431). Various treaties, such as the Masstricht Treaty in 1993 and the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, have been used to solidify the power and organizational structure of the EU. But even these treaties had to be muscled through in nations like Ireland, which initially reviled the Treaty of Lisbon, before doing a sudden and peculiar about-face the following year.

From the beginning, the EU was a central banker's dream come true: oversight of the lending and borrowing of debt-ridden communities to be exploited via a Ponzi scheme set-up with no accountability to anyone whatsoever except the votes of the democratic peoples of Europe. Never mind that Aristotle regarded democracy as the absolute worst form of government because of its high probability of corruption: modern societies have been state-educated to believe that their "system" of government is the best, that "democracy" is the highest form of government, and indeed that "democracy" is what the possess. The fact is, and this is what the EU shows, there is not much oversight granted to voters when they only choices they are given are between rotting apple A and rotting apple B. It is the men with the money who make the decisions in a democracy. As Peterson (1995) has shown, the EU's directives are determined long before voters show up at the polls.

Nonetheless, the EU gives the appearance of being a normal body of government, listing its values in Article I-2 of its constitution: "The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights" (Elgstrom, Smith 2006:69). These values sound good and are accepted as good by all modern, liberal societies, but as Hughes (2009) shows, these values are only upheld when it is convenient for the EU or when it stands to gain something from them: Hughes cites the very different approaches of the EU to internal conflict in Ireland and Kosovo, and how these incidents raise the question of the EU's real motives. Indeed, one year after being awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, Feldstein (2013) noted that the award was given "at a time when acrimony among the European Union's members" was at an all-time high (p. 434). The root of this acrimony, as Feldstein states, is -- what else? -- fiscal responsibility: Germany's role in bailing out bankrupt countries and what the savior nation expects to get in return. That drama has now been playing out for years, with the latest turn being the newly elected Greek government threatening to default on loans and possibly leave the EU altogether. Not only would the ECB and the IMF have to take measures to recoup their losses, but the exit could possibly set the stage for further exits, particularly from Spain or Italy -- leaving the Union to collapse under its own weight.

How did this happen? It was a long process that began with College of Europe and the European Coal and Steel Community, led by men like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman. Several other Communities were formed such as the Economic Community and the Atomic Energy Community -- but essentially the idea was the same: federation -- the taking of power away from autonomous bodies and consolidating it in a central body. It is a nice word for takeover. When France desired to place restrictions on the power of the Communities, the Merger Treaty was put into effect in 1967 and the European Communities were officially named. More joined in the 1970s, including UK, Ireland, Denmark. By the end of the decade the European Parliament had been….....

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