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level, therefore countries such as the UK, France, Germany etc would cease to have an individual voice in organisations such as the UN. In addition, the EU would also control items such as trade agreement, defence and security centrally.

I guess the intention of all of this was to create a second "super-power" on the scale of the US. However, there are several significant problems to this in my view.

1) The cultural differences between the member states. There is no common thread in this respect.

2) Language barriers. How can you have a regional union of this nature when there are in excess of twenty different languages being spoken? I know that some would argue that this is what the UN is, but look at the arguments and problems that is caused in this organisation.

3) Sovereignty. Historically, countries like the UK and Germany are very jealous of their own sovereignty. The difficulty with a United Europe is that these, and other countries, would be constantly fighting for supremacy, which would influence its effectiveness globally. Can you see the UK wanting to be ruled by a German dominated EU or visa versa?

4) Baltic States. The recent admission to membership of the Baltic States creates similar problems to 3) above. Over the last two or three decades, these countries have fought to free themselves from the dominance of one state in a union, namely the USSR. Does the EU think that they are going to allow themselves to be dragged back into a similar position?

5) Rotation. At present, the EU is governed on a rotational basis by one of its member states. I am not sure whether the proposed constitution provides for this to continue, but it might. The difficulty with this is that you could end up with a situation where every six or twelve months, the emphasis on issues would see a change of position. For example, first you would get the French influence, next would come the Polish influence, then the UK and so on. This does not provide for stability.

In my view, whilst there is some merit to the EU, in terms of creating favourable trading and, in limited cases, legal conditions, to transform it into one Political, Legal, Global entity would a) be impossible to maintain and b) be inherently dangerous for the region and internationally.

Learn more about this author, Paul Lines.
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