China Keen On Eu-style Bloc

[churchill]

BEIJING - CHINA said on Wednesday it was ready to discuss the concept of an EU-style East Asian community with other countries, ahead of a key regional summit in Thailand at the weekend.

'China is positive and open towards the establishment of an East Asian community and we are ready to discuss with relevant parties how to establish an East Asian community,' assistant foreign minister Hu Zhengyue told reporters.

'We believe that to establish an East Asian community is the future direction of promoting East Asian cooperation - it is the trend,' he said.

Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told Chinese President Hu Jintao last month that he intended to push a vision of an East Asian community to unify the region, possibly under a single currency.

The Chinese assistant foreign minister added the topic might be discussed at the upcoming Asean summit which will kick off in Thailand on Friday. This will be following by a meeting with leaders from partner nations Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, which will be attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Mr Chen and his counterparts from Japan and South Korea are also due to meet on the sidelines of the Thailand meeting to discuss a potential trilateral free trade agreement, said Mr Zhang Kening, an official in Chen's ministry. --

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNew...ory_444861.html

[nakachalet]

considering china's history in terms of human relations and trade embargo et cetera.... imho it will be decades before anything will materialize.... if at all

for all the s.e.a. countries to agree on one currency, be it a new currency or consortium of current bills.... is virtually humanly impossible....

unless of course, if every s.e.a. country agrees on using juans.... lol

well, perhaps i know too much, or perhaps on the other hands--not enough, of the oriental cultures to believe that all s.e.a. countries can present a unified front, even if for only one issue--such as one single currency for s.e.a....

i could almost see taiwan and hongkong going at it already, even before the conference begins.... lol

now throw in the emerging india, japan, NORTH KOREA, south korea.... etc

guess 'who is coming to dinner'..... lol

[hansnl]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China?

Just imagine that.

[Naam]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

[churchill]

Along the same lines

A Free Trade Area for world's one third population

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/...nt_12299038.htm

[david96]

The "spin" I think this is the word that is used by politicians and economists about China (PRC that is.)

We are told that this is the country that we must all depend on for our economic future, along with those other words "growth" "jobs" and "more jobs" they are so fond of using to inflate their egos and make themselves look so important. Australia is one such country that promotes this line.

But what of the real China? What about the Communist Party, the connections with business,

and their real agenda? China will look after China first and foremost.

Communists regard the end as justifing the means, Communists hate any form of democracy

Communists should never be trusted. They want control and that means control over the supply of mineral and food resources in the future.

And one PM in Australia is very fond of China, and that is understandable because of the beliefs of his political party.

Be warned. "Beware of the Yellow Peril" in other words the Chinese Government not the Chinese people. Also be very wary of your own government. As an Australian I have no trust in any of our so called "leaders."

You trade with your potential enemy at your own peril.

My opinion of most self styled "leaders" is that , to quote the words of LBJ in the mid 1960s

"they could not pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel." he was at the time

refering to the OAS in Latin America.

The Chinese have not forgotten 1842 -1910 period in history in their dealings with foreign powers.

Edited October 23, 2009 by david96

[Naam]

Be warned. "Beware of the Yellow Peril" in other words the Chinese Government not the Chinese people. Also be very wary of your own government. As an Australian I have no trust in any of our so called "leaders."

right you are! one has to be careful. whenever i plan to cross my property line i send my dogs for reconnaissance to look out for any "yellow peril" in the vicinity. only when they report back "no yellow peril seen or sniffed out Sir, give us the well earned treats!" i will leave my home.

[churchill]

Japan presses new East Asia bloc, US role uncertain

HUA HIN, Thailand, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Japan's prime minister backed a U.S. role for a proposed EU-style Asian community on Saturday, telling Southeast Asian leaders Japan's alliance with Washington was at the heart of its diplomacy.

Making a case for an East Asian Community at a summit of Asian leaders in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said there should be some involvement for the United States, at odds with Tokyo over troop deployments in Japan.

It was unclear, however, what form any U.S. involvement in the bloc would take.

"Japan places the U.S.-Japan alliance at the foundation of its diplomacy," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a meeting with Southeast Asian leaders, according to a Japanese government spokesman.

"I would like to firmly promote regional cooperation in East Asia with a long-term vision of forming an East Asian Community," Hatoyama said. Several Southeast Asian leaders expressed support for the bloc, but none spoke of a U.S. role, the spokesman said.

The talks are part of a three-day leaders' summit which got off to a rancorous start on Friday, marred by a diplomatic spat between Thailand and neighbour Cambodia, a budding trade feud over rice import tariffs and a few no-shows in the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). [iD:nSP456939]

Southeast Asian leaders met as a group on Saturday with counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea, a day after launching a much-criticised human rights commission as part of their own plans to build their own community by 2015.

The setting gives Asia's economic titans, China and Japan, a chance to jockey for influence in Southeast Asia, a region of 570 million people with a combined $1.1 trillion economy that is quickly pulling out of a global recession.

Japan's newly minted government sees its influence bound to an East Asian Community, an idea for a new regional trading bloc inspired by the European Union and including India, Australia and New Zealand, along with China, South Korea and ASEAN countries.

continued ....http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP511871

-- Reuters 24/10/09

[churchill]

and from the BBC

Asian leaders eye EU-style bloc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8323742.stm

-- BBC 24/10/09

[Heng]

That would be lovely.

[Publicus]

The East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere revisited, this time by a new dynasty in China called the Communist Party of China, the People's Republic of China.

Japan, the UK of the East (at least as seen by Washington) will take the lead role in assuring the presence of the US in this sphere, and is supported by a number other countries of the region who won't have anything to do with the PRC such as Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia etc. All but a few elites in East Asian countries know they need the US to continue to counterweight the authoritarian, shamelessly censoring and prison filled slow and burearcratic PRC.

No one should kid himself, the people of the PRC are as dangerous as their leaders as the population constitutes a nation of sheep who blindly follow their new dynasty of leaders as the population of sheeple followed previous dynasties. The Chinese sheeple follow the present dynasty because, unlike the previous dynasties of emperors, the present CPC dynasty simply promises to make all Chines rich. Besides, the present dynasty wears business suits instead of imperial gowns (modernism!).

The CPC is absolutely and adamantly opposed to democracy of any sort. The party line which the Chinese sheeple accept is that the PRC can only dissolve under democracy (Tibet, XinJiang Ughers etc etc). Indeed, the relatively rich province of Guangdong, which Beijing bleeds dry in taxes, has increasing sentiment to separate to gain economic independence and to initiate a Taiwan style democracy.

The CPC's overreach is huge, and foolhearty. North Korea and Singapore in the same union as the PRC, Japan and Vietnam? These disorganized and greedy countries of the region will talk but never sign the dotted line.

[animatic]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

And we know who the Big Dog on that Bloc will be too.

[Ricardo]

The CPC's overreach is huge, and foolhearty. North Korea and Singapore in the same union as the PRC, Japan and Vietnam? These disorganized and greedy countries of the region will talk but never sign the dotted line.

But just think of the all-expenses-paid shopping-trips, with first-class air-travel & 5-star-hotels, not to mention 'study-trips' to Europe, which this particular idea might generate, for those civil-servants & politicians involved in the project ?

All Aboard the Gravy-Train !

[churchill]

East vs West ?

Asian leaders seek to reduce Western trade ties

Asia-Pacific leaders called on Sunday for regional-wide free trade and other measures to reduce dependence on the United States and big Western markets as Asia leads the way out of the global economic downturn.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama urged Asian leaders to keep up fiscal and monetary stimulus measures even as their economies show mounting signs of recovery, saying there was "no room for complacency" and that the job market was still "dire".

"At the moment the global economy is showing signs of recovery, mainly in Asia," Hatoyama told the closed-door East Asia Summit of 16 Asia-Pacific leaders in the Thai town of Hua Hin, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama.

At the meetings, held under tight security, Hatoyama found tentative support from his Asian counterparts for a proposed regional community inspired by the European Union that would account for nearly a quarter of global economic output.

"I think my long-term vision of forming an East Asia Community was largely welcomed by participants," Hatoyama told reporters. The bloc, however, would take more than 10 years to create and may include some sort of regional currency.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, host of the meetings, said Asia clearly needed a new growth model leaning less on big Western trading partners and more on Asia-wide trade pacts. The global financial crisis, he said, bore this out.

"The old growth model, where simply put we have to rely on consumption in the West for goods and services produced here, we feel will no longer serve us as we move to the future," Abhisit told a news conference

continued ..http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP476578

-- Reuters 25/10/09

[Publicus]

The CPC's overreach is huge, and foolhearty. North Korea and Singapore in the same union as the PRC, Japan and Vietnam? These disorganized and greedy countries of the region will talk but never sign the dotted line.

But just think of the all-expenses-paid shopping-trips, with first-class air-travel & 5-star-hotels, not to mention 'study-trips' to Europe, which this particular idea might generate, for those civil-servants & politicians involved in the project ?

All Aboard the Gravy-Train !

These folk know how cheap talk is - most often high sounding talk is for free - as we've seen again these past three days.

The expense accounts over the next ten years however are lucrative and plentiful. Go to work right away guys

[tw25rw]

They would do their best to dominate it and use it as a tool to bully their neighbours and ostracise Taiwan.

As long as they are intent on persisting with their territorial claims on any Asian waters that might have oil/gas reserves, it will be hard to reach an accord.

Inviting Russia into the EU would be a similarly bad idea.

[LaoPo]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

And we know who the Big Dog on that Bloc will be too.

Maybe that Big Dog had a good look at another Big Dog, trying to control the world for a long time. That Big Dog however is tired and old, losing control, fast.

LaoPo

[Bagwan]

If you dine with the Devil, best use a long spoon.

[animatic]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

And we know who the Big Dog on that Bloc will be too.

Maybe that Big Dog had a good look at another Big Dog, trying to control the world for a long time. That Big Dog however is tired and old, losing control, fast.

LaoPo

No, that was just a lucky break for China,

they have only started reaching their ability to really sway things their way.

The American implosion, was a happy coincidence for China's aims.

They HAD been working towards just this with ther purchase of currency reserves/trade balance,

but Bush's 'Oil Buddies', last yearplayed into their hands blindly,

not even thinking about their 'Banking Buddies' over extension.

China is just getting an early political windfall.

[h90]

considering china's history in terms of human relations and trade embargo et cetera.... imho it will be decades before anything will materialize.... if at all

for all the s.e.a. countries to agree on one currency, be it a new currency or consortium of current bills.... is virtually humanly impossible....

unless of course, if every s.e.a. country agrees on using juans.... lol

well, perhaps i know too much, or perhaps on the other hands--not enough, of the oriental cultures to believe that all s.e.a. countries can present a unified front, even if for only one issue--such as one single currency for s.e.a....

i could almost see taiwan and hongkong going at it already, even before the conference begins.... lol

now throw in the emerging india, japan, NORTH KOREA, south korea.... etc

guess 'who is coming to dinner'..... lol

Similar things was told about the EU.

Germany and France never...

Deutsche Mark...never they will do.....

Germany and France will control everything the small countries will never.

Still they did it. If China AND India want to do it, it will happen.

[Publicus]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

And we know who the Big Dog on that Bloc will be too.

Maybe that Big Dog had a good look at another Big Dog, trying to control the world for a long time. That Big Dog however is tired and old, losing control, fast.

LaoPo

Many East Asian countries look to the United States and the European Union to counterbalance and to counterweight the increasing influence of a developing People's Republic of China.

A major reason is that the EU is essentially two things an Asian Union cannot be. First, the EU at its core is a league of democracies which has an overriding commitment to human rights, freedom, discussion, debate, consensus; the EU gives great weight to process. Secondly, and more restrictively there is the EMU, the Eurozone of the Euro currency in which only a slight majority of EU countries can yet participate; more will participate but ever so slowly and cautiously. This limited acceptance of the Euro currency in Europe and its slow and cautious progress towards legitimacy and use, is more a warning to East Asian countries than an encouragement or inducement towards an Asian Union.

East Asian democracy where it exists is......well, East Asian democracy, but democracy it is. The PRChina is the opposite model of government and society to the democracies of East Asia. East Asian democracies know fully well that democracy is a dagger to the heart of the Communist Party of China in its one party rule of the Middle Kingdom. The official CPC line to the PRChinese people is that democracy in the PRC will means the dissolution of the country (and empire), which is correct, so the PRC population readily and fully receive the complete and total rejection of democracy.

Yet the people of PRChina know that the most successful economies of the world are democracies. The existence of democracy as a model of advanced economies and societies is such a dagger at the heart of the CPC that democracy cannot be recognized or allowed by the CPC in any way, shape or form anywhere or at any time.

The Chinese diaspora have long been recognized as the economic engine of the East Asian economies, country by country. The Chinese diaspora fled the People's Republic of China to do business abroad that is prohibited in the PRC and in the process have acquired a new awareness of democracy albeit East Asian style democracy. The Chinese diaspora throughout East Asia detest the PRC so will have nothing to do with it. This is true in Singapore, in Indonesia, the Phillipines and so on. PRChina can never overcome this burden of its economically powerful refugees and their economic and political clout in so many East Asian countries.

Also, India and PRChina can't agree on the time of day. The CPC of the PRC fills the heads of its sheeple with anti-India propaganda because democratic development of hugely populous India provides the model of development which is the most directly contrary to the one party, state monopoly PRC with its endemic censorship and pervasive prohibitions against discussing religion, politics or government.

To the elites and peoples of East Asian countries, the United States and the European Union are the counterbalance and the counterweight to the PRC, in politics and government and in economics.

Edited October 31, 2009 by Publicus

[xminator]

I'm sure imperialist and nationalist China want more influence in the region. What is missing here is the foundations EU is founded on. Its not only the market. Its also a set of values. Like the one about the death penalty. I can't see China, a country that have industrialized the state sanctioned killing of its own people by law, even try to bend to a set of moral an ethical rules that are close to what EU stands for.

[Publicus]

I'm sure imperialist and nationalist China want more influence in the region. What is missing here is the foundations EU is founded on. Its not only the market. Its also a set of values. Like the one about the death penalty. I can't see China, a country that have industrialized the state sanctioned killing of its own people by law, even try to bend to a set of moral an ethical rules that are close to what EU stands for.

True, to which I would append that at least in the US the matter of the death penalty is left to the individual state. About 1/3 of the 50 states have abolished the death penalty, some as long ago as 1983 which is the same year as some founding countries of the EU.

Nor have the EU or the US or Canada had a Tienaman massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators as the People's Republic of China was pleased to execute. Places such as the People's Republic of China and its good friend the Islamic Republic of Iran are not healthy places to reformers, dissenters or original thinkers.

Edited October 31, 2009 by Publicus

[h90]

I'm sure imperialist and nationalist China want more influence in the region. What is missing here is the foundations EU is founded on. Its not only the market. Its also a set of values. Like the one about the death penalty. I can't see China, a country that have industrialized the state sanctioned killing of its own people by law, even try to bend to a set of moral an ethical rules that are close to what EU stands for.

True, to which I would append that at least in the US the matter of the death penalty is left to the individual state. About 1/3 of the 50 states have abolished the death penalty, some as long ago as 1983 which is the same year as some founding countries of the EU.

Nor have the EU or the US or Canada had a Tienaman massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators as the People's Republic of China was pleased to execute. Places such as the People's Republic of China and its good friend the Islamic Republic of Iran are not healthy places to reformers, dissenters or original thinkers.

Well most of the ASEAN countries have death penalty and many have bad massacres not too long ago. 1973 in Thailand I think. So they fit well together

[Publicus]

I'm sure imperialist and nationalist China want more influence in the region. What is missing here is the foundations EU is founded on. Its not only the market. Its also a set of values. Like the one about the death penalty. I can't see China, a country that have industrialized the state sanctioned killing of its own people by law, even try to bend to a set of moral an ethical rules that are close to what EU stands for.

True, to which I would append that at least in the US the matter of the death penalty is left to the individual state. About 1/3 of the 50 states have abolished the death penalty, some as long ago as 1983 which is the same year as some founding countries of the EU.

Nor have the EU or the US or Canada had a Tienaman massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators as the People's Republic of China was pleased to execute. Places such as the People's Republic of China and its good friend the Islamic Republic of Iran are not healthy places to reformers, dissenters or original thinkers.

Well most of the ASEAN countries have death penalty and many have bad massacres not too long ago. 1973 in Thailand I think. So they fit well together

The People's Republic of China has another such quantry concerning Taiwan. The more the PRC keeps its grubby hands off Taiwan the less threatening PRChina can seem to democratic countries of the region. Conversely, the longer the PRC leaves Taiwan to its own unhindered development, the more difficult it becomes to reclaim Taiwan as the inherent part of the PRChina that the Communist Party of China has indoctrinated its sheeple to believe it to be.

The prosperity of democratic Tawian and its further development is a mortal threat to the CPC. The PRC is still stinging from its failed 1996 attempt to invade Taiwan, which was thwarted when Pres Clinton sent two aircraft carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait to force the PRC to cease firing missles into the strait to within 1km of the island itself. Having miserably failed that test of US resolve, the profoundly humiliated CPC have since indoctrinated its sheeple to ache for the (inevitable) day the PRC can and will sink US aircraft carriers....and more.

[LaoPo]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

I fully agree; I'm surprised there's so much ignorance amongst some members about the reality situation in the Far East.

The West may try and try to steer the Asians their way but they can't; impossible.

The future is not only with the BRIC* countries but also with other countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, some African Countries etc. and nobody, including the EU and/or US, is going to stop their train, and hat includes the creation of a EU style pact of Asian countries, one way or another.

After all, it took the EU countries a long march of many decades to reach the bloc they have now: 27 countries and 500 million people.

Such a march will happen in Asia too but faster due to technology and with a much larger source of people....a few Billion !.... versus the 500 million in the EU (830 million in Europe!) and 528 million in "Northern America".

Combined that's still a lot less than the combined population of India and China with 2.4 Billion.

If you can't fight them...join them

*BRIC: Brazil - Russia - India - China

LaoPo

[Publicus]

And all that beautiful going together under the umbrella of China? Just imagine that.

what is there to imagine? it will take time but it's only a matter of time till an asian economic bloc will be formed. we have that in Europe without "umbrella" and that is possible in Asia too.

I fully agree; I'm surprised there's so much ignorance amongst some members about the reality situation in the Far East.

The West may try and try to steer the Asians their way but they can't; impossible.

The future is not only with the BRIC* countries but also with other countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, some African Countries etc. and nobody, including the EU and/or US, is going to stop their train, and hat includes the creation of a EU style pact of Asian countries, one way or another.

After all, it took the EU countries a long march of many decades to reach the bloc they have now: 27 countries and 500 million people.

Such a march will happen in Asia too but faster due to technology and with a much larger source of people....a few Billion !.... versus the 500 million in the EU (830 million in Europe!) and 528 million in "Northern America".

Combined that's still a lot less than the combined population of India and China with 2.4 Billion.

If you can't fight them...join them

*BRIC: Brazil - Russia - India - China

LaoPo

The huge populations of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India are a burden, a ball and chain attached to their economic development. In several years the PRChina will have the largest GDP while 50% of its population will continue to live in the Age of Agriculture under their present feudal conditions. India faces the same problem of a humongous population which can't conceivably be elevated to middle class status any more than the population of the PRC can.

Of the BRIC countries two are democracies (Brazil and India), Russia in Putin's famous words has a "dictatorship of democracy" while PRChina is a totalitarian, censoring and controlling fascist dictatorship which closes all international "foreign media" to its people and which comically cites Marx as its guiding light (irony of ironies).

The EU, which presently has the world's largest GDP hasn't had a huge and unwieldy one party censoring and controlling state/empire PRChina to deal with. Throw in the equally massive peasant population of India and any analogy or parallel to Europe and the EU becomes absurd on the face of it. The EU isn't remotely a model to East Asia (Far East??) in any respect, to include especially democratic decision making and due process of law.

A common East Asia currency? Were one to be created in our lifetime, one must laugh heartily at the value of such a currency, not to mention its potential viability, when one considers the drag on any such common currency countries such as Burma, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines and others would have. The political obstacles to a common currency are as prohibitive as climbing Mt. Everest.

Ideations and imagination often are driven by wises and wish lists. Rather, let's consider realpolitik.

[whichschool]

As the Lisbon treaty has shown the EU is an undemocratic regime that is no better then communist China.

Just ask the people of France Holland and initially Ireland who voted against its identical predocessor.

Ive been promised a referendum on the eu by Labour for the last 12 years but theyve shown their red streak running right through the party by denying us this, yet Dvid Milliband in his rewriting of history in his Newspeak manner has only last week told the proles of this Island in West Eurasia that the Lisbon treaty was democratically voted for.

Free trade is a wonderful thing anything further is very worrying.

[Publicus]

It's been said many times at this board that parliaments are voted into being by voters who then leave the matters of choosing a PM and of state to the MPs. If parliaments vote to approve a treaty, it's approved democratically. Don't like it, vote the rascals out (which in the UK will happen by next spring, but changes nothing in respect to the Lisbon Treaty).

In the US the Senate of the Congress must pass on a treaty proposed by the executive, which is a similar process but differs in fundamental ways because of the separation of powers, the system of checks and balances and the larger constituencies US Senators have in contrast to MPs in a parliamentary system.

Anyone who thinks the EU is the equivalent of the Communist Party of China would be so far to the right of the political center that he'll soon be coming at us from the other direction, ie, so far on the far left that it would be difficult if not impossible to discern any difference between his position at either end of the political spectrum. (I mean, what exactly was the difference between Stalin and Hitler???)

Which is how PRChina and Burma, for instance can hold hands and be comfortable together.

[whichschool]

It's been said many times at this board that parliaments are voted into being by voters who then leave the matters of choosing a PM and of state to the MPs. If parliaments vote to approve a treaty, it's approved democratically. Don't like it, vote the rascals out (which in the UK will happen by next spring, but changes nothing in respect to the Lisbon Treaty).

No no no you are wrong, French, Irish and Dutch govts. in their manifesto offered a referendum to their people this was a major vote winner their people vote against it and now theyve had it thrust upon them ... Yes i know the Irish got 2 votes but why wasnt the first recognised the guy who wrote the Treaty prior to the Lisbon treaty even say they are as good as identical.

In England NuLiebour with Tony Blair have been promising a referendum for the last 3 elections to gain votes this hasnt happened and now they are pushing for him to become an unelected President a job he will only take if it has serious powers.

The EU is supposed to be a free trade zone only, there seems to be dark forces pushing it hastily towards becoming some kind of unwanted superstate. Surely for free trade you only need to stop govts. interfering with the overburdened taxpayers cash to fund their nations industry in a anti competitive way, nothing more nothing less!

PS How many times do Switzerland have to vote against joining the EU before this democratic decision is recognised?

Edited October 31, 2009 by whichschool