Saturday, March 10, 2007

Continent cut off

From die Welt, comes this piece of astonishing arrogance from the Belgian Prime Minister,
"The train has to drive on anyway. Should the British Government block the new attempt for agreement on the constitutional treaty, then the European Union must progress without Great Britain. […] The United States of America also did not come about in unison. At the time, only nine of the 13 British crown colonies voted in favour. The rest tailed behind and accepted the agreement later".


Where to start?
Things about the train metaphor that grate with me include;
Nobody gets on a train if they have no idea what the destination is.
If you are on the wrong train, it is normal to get off and change.
Trains are a 19th century technology, condemned to never deviate and run on tracks that may, or may not take you anywhere close to your ideal destination. Requiring, normally other forms of transport to finally arrive.

It is also tired, and a crashing cliche.

The reference to the American colonies is, possibly the most inappropriate misreading of history that I have heard for a while. I am not sure I havce the enegy to go into a history lesson. Suffice to say that the American are not analogous to the Nation States of Europe.

Hat Tip The Brussels Journal

1 comment:

The Aunt said...

My recollection of the last failure of the Constitution was not that it was the Brits who shot it down in flames. In fact, two major cheese-producing nationalities come to mind, one of which has consistently managed to stick spokes in European wheels whilst all the time blamestorming at the Brits. Failure of the European Defence Community? The Empty Chair Crisis? Vetoing Britain's accession twice? The Constitutional "Non!"? I think you know who I'm talking about here.

When it comes to looking for trouble, the Belgian PM's watching the wrong side of the Channel.

Twitter