Comments on: Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels

Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels

rollick — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 08:48:01 -0800

The Big Three of EU Foreign Policy: Stefan Lehne on the contrasting roles of Germany, France and the UK.

By: psoas

psoas — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:22:52 -0800

Literally the first line: "To an outside observer, Europe acts as a bloc with all 27 member states discussing issues and unanimously making decisions on foreign policy." Who is this outside observer, John Birch?

By: quarsan

quarsan — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:39:29 -0800

psoas, Europeans, I suspect

By: librarylis

librarylis — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:46:31 -0800

That was well worth the slog (a whole lot of words there), as it proved very incisive and illuminating. It's also refreshing as hell to get a view of the EU and the European powers without making consistent reference to the US (the US is in there, as appropriate, but this is definitely a Euro-centric analysis). All in all, very interesting. Thanks for posting!

By: psoas

psoas — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:43:15 -0800

After going back and reading: indeed, nice overview. I'm curious about the statement France understands itself to be "European by choice" and different from Germany, Italy, or Spain, which it sees as "European by destiny." Not that I doubt its veracity in relation to its early unification, but I'd be interested to see where else this is discussed.