Opinions In The European Union example essay topic

360 words
The act of joining a group implies the abandonment of at least a little amount of individuality. Some argue that the European Union, an ever-expanding membership of nations, might sacrifice some of the culture or sovereignty by becoming part of an organization so much larger than itself. This is not the case in the EU. The very idea itself that member countries might be losing some of their individuality is absurd.

Firstly, the supposed political and economic union has essentially become one only of the latter. Economic union, although challenging to meet the guidelines established by the European Central Bank, was and is a matter of manipulating figures to reach desired goals declared for all aspiring members. Economic union, furthermore, encompasses no more than the sharing of a common currency even that having individual country's designs minted on the coins. Arguably no devastating loss of culture has occurred there. So then let's consider political union. This, as was expected, has been considerably harder.

Considering that countries still have their own foreign policy no compromises for that of consensus group opinion has been made. How do we know? The current distinct divide in opinions in the European Union regarding supporting the United States and the war on Iraq! On so significant an issue, within the EU we see Britain is off to fight the war, Italy smiles and nods his head, France says smugly that they have yet further evidence of how arrogant we are and the Netherlands are saying "War? What war?" Realistically however, the countries will most likely never be able to have a common political stance unless a straight- forward matter arises on which they could all easily agree otherwise every country will determine an issue based upon individual national interest. But when countries differ so much within the group - i.e. what do Portugal, Germany and Estonia have in common? - it is unreasonable to expect that strong political union should be sought and rapidly attained.

So EU skeptics rest assured - no great loss of members' cultural identity has occurred.