
	by Bob Adelmann 
	03 February 2014
	
	from
	
	TheNewAmerican Website
	
	 
	
	 
	
	 
	
		
			
				| 
				A graduate of Cornell 
				University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular 
				contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at 
				www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. | 
		
	 
	
	 
	
	 
	
	 
	
	 
	
	
	
	
	 
	
	
	
	
	Viviane Reding, the vice president of 
	the European Commission, has made it abundantly clear that
	
	her vision is to create and enforce a 
	United States of Europe, and the upcoming election of 751 delegates to the 
	European Parliament in May is just the time to accomplish the task. 
	
	 
	
	Said Reding, 
	
		
		"We need to build a United States of Europe, 
		with the Commission as government, and two chambers: the European 
		Parliament, and a 'Senate' of Member States."
	
	
	Once enacted, the commission would reign supreme 
	over the governments of the once-sovereign nations of Europe, and the 
	European Parliament members (MEPs) would supersede the authority of 
	parliament members of the various national governments. 
	
	 
	
	And now is the time, declared Reding:
	
		
		This debate is moving into the decisive 
		phase now. In a little more than four months’ time, citizens across 
		Europe will be able to choose the Europe they want to live in.
		
		There is a lot at stake. The outcome of these elections will shape 
		Europe for years to come.
	
	
	And then she acknowledged why such a big push 
	for a supranational regime is needed: the growth of the Euroskeptics who see 
	what she is planning and don’t like it one bit. 
	
		
		"This will be our best weapon against the 
		Euroskeptics: to explain to our citizens that their vote really 
		matters," Reding noted.
	
	
	It’s going to be close. 
	
	 
	
	The harder Reding and her comrades push toward a 
	political union with teeth, the more her efforts are being resisted. Major 
	media mouthpieces for internationalism are getting nervous and are devoting 
	massive resources not only to explore the breadth and the depth of the 
	euroskeptic movement, but to begin to mount counterattacks to neutralize it.
	
	For example, Huffington Post turned loose five of their journalists to 
	explore the extent of the Euroskeptic movement across Europe and had them 
	report back to headquarters what they found. 
	
	 
	
	What they found wasn't pretty. 
	
	 
	
	Peter Goodman, the leading light among 
	them, titled his report "Skepticism 
	and Contempt" and noted that his researchers found strong 
	sentiments of "suspicion and even contempt" for Reding’s plans. 
	
	 
	
	He added:
	
		
		Given abundant signs of Euroskepticism from 
		London to Berlin, this once-every-five years electoral exercise appears 
		to be shaping up as no less than a referendum on the merits of 
		continuing on with the European Union itself...
		
		Distrust about the treaties and conventions that hold together modern 
		Europe appear[s] to be at an all-time high... [which is] fueling a drive 
		to reclaim national identities.
	
	
	The Economist devoted nine pages to that growing 
	unrest in its January 4 article, "Turning 
	Right," noting that parties expressing skepticism in,
	
		
			- 
			
			France 
- 
			
			Great Britain 
- 
			
			the Netherlands, 
	
	...could take as much as a quarter of the 751 
	seats up for grabs in May. 
	
	 
	
	Said The Economist: 
	
		
		"Across Europe disillusion with the EU is at 
		an all-time high: in 2007 52% of the public said it had a positive image 
		of the EU; by 2013 the share had collapsed to 30%."
	
	
	As if on cue, Bloomberg took pains to quote 
	European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who is concerned 
	that the May elections could turn into,
	
		
		"a festival of unfounded reproaches against 
		Europe." 
	
	
	He added,
	
		
		We are seeing, in fact, a rise of extremism 
		from the extreme right and from the extreme left. I hope we’ll have a 
		more profound European debate and the European project will be more 
		strongly defended than before.
		
		I hope, namely, that the mainstream political forces will... no longer 
		consider European unification as a given.
	
	
	The British tabloid The Telegraph gave 
	German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier plenty of ink in his 
	counterattacks against those favoring retaining their sovereignty:
	
		
		We must not avoid confrontation with 
		populists, nationalists, with these brainless people who call themselves 
		Euroskeptics. They all promote anything national [but] without making 
		proposals of their own.
		
		I’m concerned about the situation in our union. [These] forces could 
		prove dangerous to the European Union as a whole.
	
	
	As Reding has pushed forward with her view of 
	how her world should work, she has unapologetically expressed her plan to 
	use force and the threat of force to accomplish the task.
	
	 
	
	In November 2012 she even called her vision 
	"powerful" and explained, 
	
		
		"If we want a budget policy that is sound in 
		the long term and also a force for solidarity, we need a European 
		finance minister who... has clear powers of intervention." 
	
	
	Reding said that all this cannot be accomplished 
	immediately, but she envisions the steps that must be taken to turn Europe 
	into a total state:
	
		
		To do so we shall certainly need new 
		treaties, and Germany will probably have to amend its Basic Law. We 
		shall have to find out whether all member states, or only the euro-zone 
		countries, want to embark on the venture of a Federal Europe.
	
	
	Reding explained in her "Vision for a 
	Post-Crisis Europe: Toward a Political Union" that citizens will have the 
	freedom to vote for the new law, or not, but opting out altogether isn't 
	going to be possible:
	
		
		Citizens should be given two alternatives: 
		either to accept the new Treaty; or reject it and then to remain in a 
		close form of association....
		
		For this, we need to be more united than ever and take our citizens with 
		us. 
	
	
	Time, says Reding, is on her side. In at least 
	two presentations promoting the wonders of coerced unification, she ended by 
	quoting the authors of This Time is Different, economists Kenneth 
	Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart: 
	
		
		"The pressure of the crisis may unleash a 
		dynamism that we cannot imagine in our wildest dreams. In the end the 
		United States of Europe may come about much faster than most people 
		think."
	
	
	It could also collapse much more quickly. 
	
	 
	
	The harder she and her comrades push for their 
	elitist socialist dream of a perfect society with them in charge, the 
	greater the mounting pushback from citizens who increasingly see what’s 
	coming. 
	
	 
	
	The elections in May, while not definitive, 
	could be indicative instead of that mounting resistance to tyranny. The 
	clock is ticking. 
	
	 
	
	The disintegration of the dreamers’ dreams 
	could,
	
		
		"come about much faster than most people 
		think."