h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe - A704341
Author: McGaggs - U189631

I was wondering why numbers like this:
”.
keep appearing on the page?

If you are copying and pasting from a Word document, the so-called 'intelligent quotes' don't match, and get converted into those numbers. If you use something simpler like Wordpad, which doesn't insist on 'intelligent quotes' this doesn't happen.

Azara

I don't have time at the moment to read the entire article, (looks good as far as I got), but i will.

In the mean time, I hope you are aware of some of the conflicts in eu enlargement.

Without change, social policy (ie generous retirement and sickness benefits), common agricultural policy veto's are not compatible with enlargement.

on the other hand, for stability, you need an increase in the number of members, convergence of the economies of those members wih the rest of europe (which means greater trade) and an increase in qualified majority voting.

This is an ongoing problem withing europe, let's hope that they sort it out eventually.

oops, that should have been common agricultural policy and veto's are unsustainable, but my keyboard played up. sorry.

You can turn off the Intelligent Quotes feature in Word. In my version, it is: "Tools/Autocorrect/AutoFormat as you type". Then remove the tick in front of "Straight quotes with Smart quotes".

Ooh, it pains me to do it, but for the sake of the guide I have to agree with Xyroth.

I'm mostly pro-European and I like seeing articles in favour of EU decisions simply because they are quite rare and usually well written.

This is one such entry, but there are counter arguments which I feel haven't been approached. Guide entries should at the very least acknowledge and ideally address both points of view on political topics like these. So if you could insert a couple more commonly voiced opposing views then all would be dandy.

I have now had time to read it, and generally it is pretty good.

There is a slight problem with your interpretation of the wto vs the cap.

You rightly state that the americans (and others) have a serious problemwith the common agricultural policy. however you imply that in the long term this will be a problem for the european union.

The common agricultural policy dates back to the initial founding of the common market, and was set up that way to sell the market within france.

ever since expansion started to increase the size beyond the initial three members, there has been internal pressure to reform the cap, as it was obviously not sustainable with much larger numbers of members.

However, the farming lobby within france is incredibly strong. This has delayed reform, and thus made a bad problem worse. when the external and internal pressure gets large enough, the french will have to stop vetoing cap reform, and when the reform happens, it will ease some of the current problems with expansion.

That is not the impression that you give, so that section needs reviewing and rewriting.

Also, there is the unaddressed problem of the common currency. (I know they like to call it the single currency, but that won't wash).

Now that there is actually a set of 12 countries using the common currency as their coinage, there is the problem which europe as a whole has not yet addressed of the different countries at different stages of integration.

First, you have the eastern european countries trying to join in a common market. Then you have another set of countries trying to become full members of the european union. Finally, you have the core counties using the common currency as a single currency. This last group has to start merging political power so as to not prejudice the currency, but they must do it in such a way as to not disadvantage the other two groups to such an extent that countries like britain can't afford to remain in the union.

This is still a major unsolved problem within the eu, so don't try and solve it, but I think it is probably worth a mention.

still, on the whole, very good.

If you keep up the good work, then I look forward to reading the finished version in the edited guide.

Re Single / Common...

It's been a long time so I can't remember too well, but isn't the difference that Common means adopted by all but regulated seperately, whereas single means with one ruling body?

If so then the Euro is indeed a single currency.

This is an interesting article. I think if you tidied up the spelling and got rid of those strange numbers, it would be ready for Peer Review as an Edited Entry.

If you do want this to become an Edited Entry, have a look at the Guidelines for Edited Entries. One says that if the content is debatable or a matter of contention, the entry must present a balanced viewpoint. I think you will probably have to be very careful not to seem too much in favour of expansion. As it is, you article provides arguments both for and against expansion, so it is fairly balanced.

Here's some tidying to do:

1. get rid of those &8220; and &8221; numbers. It doesn't matter how they got there, just go in and edit them out, replacing them with an apostrophe.

2. Change the word "essay" to "entry".

3. Factor costs - should this be factory costs?

4. "choke on to many" --> "choke on too many"

5. polish --> Polish

6. Visegrad - never heard of it. Can you explain? This explanation could be put as a footnote in the final version.

This entry is actually an essay i had to write as an assignment for a module on EU Law at uni. This being my final year, i am rather busy, possibly too busy to re-write it. Also, it was written about 2 years ago and some of the issues that are important now didn't seem so important at the time. If anyone out there would like to have a go at fixing it up they're more than welcome. But i think i will do it myself when i've completed my degree in a few months time

Fair enough. Best of luck in your studies!

single vs common currency.

for the twelve countries that have taken the euro as a replacement for their currency, it is indeed a single currency. The problem with that is that as there is general agreement that expansion of the eu is a good idea they can't manage it just for the twelve, as for the rest that trade with them it will be a common currency.

When the italians? hijacked margaret thatcher with an agreement between the other countries which she could not sign up to, and used that to get the word changed to "single" rather than common, they neatly sidestepped the problem of different times of entry for different countries.

When the eu then decided to build closer ties with eastern europe, this rather forcably put the questions that she raised back on the agenda, but in the meantime, they had wasted 12 or more years when they could have been solving the problems with a more gradual process.

with the pressure now on to have a good answer they don't have the time to think it out as carefully as the gradual process would have allowed, so it is almost certain that whatever result they do come up with will be inferior to what they could have had.

PS. I don't expect this lot to go in the article, but I thought I would resolve that small point in detail so that it didn't crop up again in sub-editing.

Well said.

Thatcher had her head srewed on right when it came to dealing with European bureaucracy.

that isn't exactly true now is it?

her entire approach to europe was that it was something to be kept on a leash, and not allowed to mess on the floor. this didn't go down well with other eu partners, hence the general troubles that she had with europe all through her time as prime minister.

Without engaging in the discussion about problems when asked to, it is a bit hard to have any credibility when you moan that you don't like the results.

Fair point, but the general defiance of the theory that if you work with Europe you don't have to necessarily agree with the way it's run is one that should perhaps be adopted more often.

With the problems Greece has faced, and Russian intervention in Crimea, and further in the Ukraine, due in part said Putin to 'Western expansion to the east'. Also the idea of a European defence army (to take over from NATO?) being mooted. And the forthcoming referendum on the UK's whole future in the EU. This needs bringing up -to date, and possibly re-titled?

Unfortunately, McGaggs hasn't been on the site since 2002. Would you like to take on the task yourself?

G

Thank you but my knowledge of the subject would not stretch that far. If I get time I will try to learn more and comeback to this another time.