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

Entry: European Union - A558966
Author: HappyDude®[Scout&Guru]Keeper of Happiness & Fluffy Cuddly Soft Toys, Jester@Balwyniti, dressed as a girl-short skirt-long jacket - U150533

There is already an entry but it is kak, perhaps time it wuz replaced

I posted here 'cos this is more than just a small update

Well done, good article.

Netherlands is misspelt a couple of times, but otherwise excellent.

Sorted the spellings out

*waits*

Hi HappyDude!

I think it would be useful to spell out what the Marshall Plan was and when and how it came about (a footnote should suffice).

The preamble confuses me. Perhaps I should go away and come back to this fresh.

The EC is of course a huge economic force and I was reading recently its role in maintaining the economic divide between the rich and poo nations. Oxfam's current Fair Trade campaign has stuff to say on this. I'll do some looking around and come back on this.

cheers, all input apreciated

Thanks for reminding me HappyDude. I'll have a look this evening, hopefully.

Hi HappyDude,

The following information is taken from the March 2002 Oxfam Report 'Make Trade Fair':

'Who are the worst offenders in damaging the interests of developing countries through trade barriers? Oxfam has attempted to answer this question through its Double Standards Index (DSI). This measures ten important dimensions of rich-country trade policies, including average tariffs, the sizes of tariffs in textiles and agriculture, and restrictions on imports from the Least Developed Countries. We call it the Double
Standards Index, because it measures the gap between the free-trade principles espoused by rich countries and their actual protectionist practices.

No industrialised country emerges with credit, but the European Union (EU) emerges as the worst offender, beating the United States by a short head. Nowhere are the double standards of industrialised-country governments more apparent than in agriculture. Total subsidies to domestic farmers in these countries amount to more than $1bn a day.'

Here's a link to the whole report:

http://www.maketradefair.com/stylesheet.asp?file=03042002121618

The US has probably nipped ahead on protectionism now, following the recent Farm Bill.

The EU's record is definitely not glorious though - the 'Everything but arms' proposal to unilaterally drop all tariff barriers (bar arms as you guessed from the title) with the world's poorest countries would have been a step forward in the right direction, but in the negotiations, they took out some of the few commodities in which these countries can compete on the world market! Grrrh...

It ended up being everything but arms, sugar...

From what I heard you can blame that particular compromise on France.

Sprout

perhaps the above two post could be reposted to F19585?thread=98809&post=2012956#p2012956

This entry looks great to me, but I'm short on facts and long on enthusiasm. (Short of pants, long in arm?) In other words, I have few resources to check the facts in this article, but it's well written.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

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Yay! That European Onion... brings tears to my eyes. Oh, no, wait... that said union, didn't it?

Oh yeayh, and congratulations on this great entry. Now maybe we can get the European Citizenship entry in there too, and have a nice little segment on Urp! sorry, Europe.