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Angela Merkel

European Christian Constitution

European Union

Europe started as the EEC, so having an ECC as next step wouldn't be too bad: Angela Merkel wants a Christian constitution for Europe:

Mrs Merkel will take charge of efforts to revive the constitution when Germany assumes the EU's rotating presidency next January. Any attempt to mention Christianity - or simply God - in the text will be met by stiff resistance from secular France, from Britain, which treads carefully in this area, and from northern Protestant countries such as Sweden and Denmark. During the tortuous negotiations on the constitution in 2004 there were concerns that any religious reference could upset Europe's Muslims and Jews.

But Mrs Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, is determined to reopen the debate when she tries to revive the constitution, a controversial move in itself because many EU leaders want a slimmed down document after last year's no votes.

Neil says she wants a new constitution, but this doesn't sound like it at all. Words like "revive" make me uncomfortable. Either way, any new or revived constitution would need to address the many problems I had with the previous constitutional attempt. Furthermore, as much as I prefer Christian traditions over Muslim ones, the constitution should make very clear that freedom of religion only works when said religions acknowledge being merely one viewpoint and not the absolute truth. Otherwise, leave God out of the constitution.

And a small note to potentially offended Jews and Muslims: if our Christian, pagan and enlightened traditions are a problem, stay in Israel or Arabia. Or move there. Europe is European, okay?

Chirac's pride

Anglosphere

Read on Wikipedia's Euro-English article:

English is frequently used by Europeans to communicate even when neither of them know English as the first language. (For example, a French person who doesn't know German and a German who doesn't know French, but both of whom know English, would use English to communicate with one another, even though it is not the native language of either - such as at the first meeting of Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel at the Elysée palace after Merkel's confirmation as chancellor).

I wish there was a quotation for that, but nonetheless I find it rather amusing to see Chirac as the example of English being pretty much the lingua franca of Europe.

Seriously, die already!

European Union

The situation is getting annoying. Maybe it's because of the recent Europe Day, but apparently the EU is on a renewed mission to push matters forward (read: down our throats). Barely having been able to fully enjoy new Frankenstein-style live support from Barosso, the EU undemocracy gets another boost because Angela Merkel wants the constitution back from the dead as well:

"We need to think about how we make the constitution a success. I want the constitution, the German government wants the constitution."

The EU is divided between countries which regard the existing text of the constitutional treaty as the best possible compromise and others, which would prefer to declare it dead.

We need to think about making democracy work in Europe. We do not want the constitution. And it can not be ratified without us, those were the rules. So seriously, give up on it already. It's so dead, it was never really alive in the first place.

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