Originally posted by Dumb pothead
If France and Germany ever decided to forget the EU and form their own Franco-German Union, theyd become an instant superpower. Seems far fetched right now, but it wouldnt seem that unlikely if France and Germany both took a turn to the right within the next 20 years. I know, at the moment its a complete fantasy, but the potential is there. The EU is really a French and German project. They are the ones who set the agenda. I can forsee several scenarios where France and Germany get tired of being vetoed by Britain and some of the smaller states and decide to strike out on their own. We got a glimpse of this during the debate about the Iraq war when the French basically told the newer eastern EU members/candidates to basically sit down and shut up.
I disagree, sir.
If (and only if) there'd by a "turn to the right" in either France and Germany, you would expect that such governments would try to get out of the EU ASAP, respectively they would not have any interest in forming some sort of French-German union. In Germany, extreme right wing groups are known to be dumb anyways (they have no "real life" policy). The very few candidates from the extreme right that made it from time to time into parliament used to drop out after one period of legislature, because these candidates were usually simply swamped with daily needs of parliamentary work. Thus, even none of the former voters care a sh*t for them again. So I wouldn't expect such scenario happening in the next 20 years over here.
Also, as I understand French right wingers, I think they wouldn't *unite* w/ Germany. Generally, if anything like that happens, I'd think both countries relations would get
worse.
That the EU was invented or pushed by France & Germany doesn't mean that F and G would want to try to dominate Europe. And any formation of different blocks or axis with contrary agendas towards each other, is just the thing that the EU wants to
avoid. From a historical point of view, such blocks have brought a lot of harm to Europe. Me thinks that Adenauer and De Gaulle had exactly this on mind when they started their first efforts on forming some kind of European cooperation after ww2.
Furthermore, "smaller" EU members do not regard this institution as "F/G conspiracy" to gain control over them, plus a lot of newly founded countries in Eastern Europe even
want to get a membership.
And I don't think they're blind.
