European Student Think Tank

Ever since the begin­ning of the fin­an­cial crisis France and Ger­many have taken on the role of lead­ers for the EU. They decide what hap­pens and how it is done; they decide who stays in power and who has to be taken out. How­ever is this really the only way the EU can be gov­erned, or are there ways to prefend the dom­in­a­tion of two nation states within the EU?

The vic­tory of the rebel forces in Libya is often con­ceived as not only their vic­tory, but as a vic­tory of European dip­lomacy as well. Though this might be true for the rela­tions between Europe and the United States, it is doubt­ful whether it is the case for the rela­tions with the Arab world as well. The eco­nomic and polit­ical real­ity must lead to the con­clu­sion that the effects might not be as last­ing as one would hope.

With Khadafi’s would-be mas­sacre loom­ing in Benghazi, Europe has proven that it is still will­ing to take on a mes­si­anic role to fight for free­dom. The enthu­si­asm that David Cameron and Nic­olas Sarkozy have shown to pro­tect human life with all means neces­sary deserves the deep­est respect and stands in stark con­trast to Germany’s inex­cus­able cow­ardice. Libya deserves European mil­it­ary sup­port in escap­ing from the yoke of a mad­man that has oppressed its people for generations.

Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is dead. At least, accord­ing to many prom­in­ent EU-leaders. It’s a shame though, that they didn’t present a feas­ible altern­at­ive to the mul­ti­cul­tural soci­ety. Should we say our per­man­ent farewells to the mul­ti­cul­tural ideal, or should we instead try to reform it, giv­ing it a chance to sur­vive? I’ll try to answer that ques­tion below.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2011 the French Pres­id­ent vis­ited Tur­key and he stayed in Ank­ara for 300 minutes. Even though the offi­cial pur­pose of the visit was a work meet­ing to dis­cuss regional and inter­na­tional issues as G-20 mem­bers, the Turk­ish bid for EU acces­sion dom­in­ated the atmo­sphere. What does this “300-minutes” mean for Tur­key, France and the EU? The short time of the visit was long enough to cre­ate many implic­a­tions for all the sides around the table.

The sum­mit of the European Coun­cil in Brus­sels last week did not bring about any novel approaches relat­ing to the cre­ation of the internal energy mar­ket of the com­munity. How­ever, it saw Ger­many and France use the occa­sion to present their pro­posal for a “com­pet­it­ive­ness pact” for the EU. The pact sug­gests fuller har­mon­isa­tion of labour, tax and social policies and a con­sti­tu­tional curb on pub­lic bor­row­ing to enforce bal­anced budgets. Though rejec­ted by many mem­ber states, core ele­ments of the pro­posal are neces­sary and inev­it­able in the future. How­ever, it remains doubt­ful if they will help increase the Union’s competitiveness.