EU. UN. good ideas?

[dark_secrester]

Is the EU or the UN a good idea?

If we look back in time, to post WWI, We find a lot of information on the League of Nations (one of the 14 points set forward by President Woodrow Wilson as part of the Treaty of Versailles). The league fell apart for many reasons, the fact that it could not enforce any real decisions and worked on the basis that members would follow the rules and regulations set forth. Neither Japan nor Italy (Manchurian crisis and Abysinnian takeover) listened to the league, and the members didn't actually enforce the rules (such as break off of trade to other members who broke the rules). Another reason is that different countries had different views of situations and what was to be done. Countries argued until many left just before WWII and the league collapsed soon after.

If you think about it, the EU is on the same grounds. We keep expanding the EU and adding more and more states and countries. The common goal is for the world to be under common international treaties and laws and have the same currencies. Well, that is the goal for western Europe anyway.
The EU holds certain regulations that the rest of the Union must follow. Same for the U.N.

As you can see, N.Korea has much going on with the nuclear crisis, and that mainly affects Russia, S.Korea, Japan and China. Extreme muslims (note I said extremists - I am aware that Islam is supposed to be a peaceful race) bombing the USA and UK, the Iraq problems where the rest of the EU doesn't agree with the UK and USA, etc etc.

All of the problems could cause arguments in both the EU and the UN, and this could cause breakdown between trade and communications. Many countries depend on trade and would go into economic depression without it. The UK is an example. Trade coming from the USA into the rest of Europe usually comes via the UK (not always physically, but over UK markets etc) and so money comes into UK. If the USA fell out with all of Europe, the UK could collapse into Economic depression, and so could the rest of Europe and the USA. The main of the money in the UK comes in some way from Trade and exporting etc.

Plus the nuclear issues going on are big problems. If countries fell out, and WW3 started, we could all be in deep trouble.

Before WWI, everyone was in everyone else's pockets and trading and being morally correct etc - no official governing bodies. When they fell out, WWI started
Before WWII, League of Nations - everyone again in everyone else's pockets. When everyone fell out, WWII started.
Now - UN and EU - already problems can be seen between members. It seems that WWIII could happen soon and this time it would be terrible.

It seems that inter nation ties and alliances cause world wars.

Please, post your comments and ideas. Feel free to contest my views.

Joe

[Maciamo]

The EU and the UN are completely different concepts.

The United Nations is merely a supranational organisation. The EU is a de facto country, with its own citizenship, passports, visa regulations, flag, anthem, government, parliament, currency, central bank, etc.

The UN or the former League of Nations had none of these (well, yes a flag, and that's it).

The UK is an example. Trade coming from the USA into the rest of Europe usually comes via the UK (not always physically, but over UK markets etc) and so money comes into UK. If the USA fell out with all of Europe, the UK could collapse into Economic depression, and so could the rest of Europe and the USA. The main of the money in the UK comes in some way from Trade and exporting etc.

Trade within the EU is much more important than between the EU and USA.

The USA represents only 24% of European good exports and 14% of good imports. Over half of the trade in Europe is done within the EU. (Sources)

I don't know where you got the idea that "trade coming from the USA into the rest of Europe usually comes via the UK". This is just not true. The UK might be the biggest European importer of American goods, but in 2005, out of the €162 billion of goods imported from the USA into the EU, only €34 billion were imported via the UK (21% of the total). Proportionally the Netherlands imports 3x more (€22 billion for a population 4x smaller).

What is more, the EU economy is bigger than the American one, and the EU exports more to the US (€251 billion in 2005) than it imports (€162 billion in 2005). Greece, Cyprus, Spain, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are the only European countries that import more from the US than they export to the US.

The EU economy also proved more stable to international upheavals than the US economy, as the plunging US$ since the Iraq war has demonstrated.

[Duo]

Sounds like just a little of that British Euro-skepticism tryin to broken down with made up rational ideas. Comparing the EU and the UN is not wise as the two are not comparable and are totally different entities.