New EU recruits – getting cold feet

It was never going to be easy -– creating a union of
separate nations, each with history and ethnicity and national pride and 'everything
to lose' BUT apparently so much to gain. And the path to a unified
Europe has indeed been fraught with difficulties and issues which will take many
years to resolve. Look at the historical process and pain involved in the
uniting of the now United States of America, blood, sweat, tears and lives -–
and many years of it! The foundation upon which to build the United States of
Europe is barely established. Squabbling over rights and protections and
settling sibling fears -– Daniels prophetic interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's
dream (Daniel 2:41-42) indicated trouble for the 'iron/clay mix' making up
the feet of this statue - and sure enough...

Let's do a quick revision of the meaning of the statue
revealed to the King of Babylon in his unusual dream: revealing all world
empires up until Jesus Himself returns to reign as King of Kings and Lord of
Lords, in the Kingdom of God:

• Head made of Gold -– Babylon
• Breasts and arms made of silver -– Medes & Persians
• Belly and thighs made of brass -– Greece
• Legs made of iron -– Rome
• Feet and toes made of iron and clay -– the EU

Iron and clay nations reveal an interesting dynamic.
Inferiority and weakness, versus superiority and strength. Some strong leading
nations and some weaker nations.

The scriptures refer to Ten toes (Daniel 2:41-42); ten Kings
(Daniel 7:24; Revelation 17:12); ten horns (Daniel 7:24; Revelation 17:12) and
ten crowns (Revelation 13:1).

Sunday Star Times, 13 October 2002, "New recruits for
European Union getting cold feet -–

...In Paris and Berlin it has long been felt poor cousins
from the former Soviet bloc and the Mediterranean were lucky to be offered the
chance of joining the world's biggest trading club and that the only hindrance
to doing so by 2004... was the ferocious mechanical complexity of such a
historic merger. Far from it...

...the Poles, at least, appear distinctly lukewarm about the
project: the country's prime minister recently warned that foreigners would
come to pick over his country's economy "like crows" when it joins...

Opinion polls in the Czech Republic show the "yes" camp's
majority is shrinking fast...

Things might have been more clear-cut for these eastern
applicants if they had been wooed with the same bonanza of EU benefits showered
on some of the western members...

...if the Irish turned their backs on EU expansion again,
then plans to hold final entry negotiations in December with Poland, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Malta and
Cyprus would be thrown into disarray."

So -– at this time the iron/clay dynamic is not mixing
particularly well at all. For some members, cracks are starting to appear in the
façade which promises so much, as rules are changed and policies are developed,
threatening individual security.

"Switzerland urged to reveal its secrets -– Luxembourg
will not pare back its banking secrecy laws to comply with a European Union rule
on reporting interest income unless Switzerland and other nations do the same...

...the 15-nation EU meeting in Copenhagen said that they
would consider curbing the flow of money to and from Switzerland unless it
agreed to clamp down on tax evasion.

In Luxembourg, the EU's smallest state, a law guaranteeing
the anonymity of deposit-holders is a top selling point for the financial
industry...

Switzerland is reluctant to loosen its secrecy rules, which
are the linchpin of the nation's financial industry" New Zealand Herald, 9
September 2002.

Financially, the EU is comparatively 'weak' compared to
the might of the US dollar. The vulnerable Asian markets jump and stabilise
again according to the movement of the US$. So there is a lot of work to be done
consolidating progress and carving out the way forward.

We'll watch progress with interest: some catalyst will
bring urgency to the unification process in the near future (most probably, the
demise of the existing US pre-eminence on the world scene).