Talk:European Union/Archive 8

Regional Blocks: African Union
Under the "Comparison with other Regional Blocks" economically, it seems that the AU (African Union) is missing?68.98.236.175 06:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Reliability of GDP (PPP)?
Chinese GDP(PPP) goes in EU. after four years. Will you be true? If I continue an anual rate of 10% growth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.146.220.31 (talk) 10:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

European Identity
"Part of the process of building a national identity for the European Union will be to produce a history of Europe that justifies the EU's existence."

How about "millenia of war"? Is that justification enough for a peaceful union?Stassa 14:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The quoted sentence seems to have been dropped into its section with little regard to the flow of the article. More importantly, it's dripping with POV and begs all sorts of questions. The purpose of this article is to review what the EU is, has been and may become, on the basis of published sources.  It is not its business to say or imply that the EU is a good or bad thing, or that particular forms of future development are or are not desirable. Countersubject 15:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. It's extremely POV. Delete it.  Indisciplined 14:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Bugs
The Lithuania link on the Economic Variation section of the main article is displayed in Chinese characters! (Mozilla 2.0/ UTF 8.0 encoding)
 * Fixed the template. Someone rewrote Lithuania with Chinese characters. Gdo01 05:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

French Guiana
Isn't it a bit odd to show French Guiana on the map of EU counties, even though it is technically part of France.
 * And France is part of the EU (so by extension, so is French Guiana). What's your point? - Рэд хот (t • c • e) 22:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You know, maybe we should have a map showing all the overseas dependancies of Europe. I mean, if French Guiana is there, why not New Caledonia or Réunion? CeeWhy2 10:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * French Guyana and Réunion have been included in EU treaties. They should both be shown on the map. New Caledonia has a special status and is not part of EU.Michel Boulanger 01:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Whole section removed???!
Why is the whole "Institutions and legal framework" section removed currently?!?!? Alinor 13:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It was deleted by an IP and not reverted completely by Antivandalbot. Its now restored. Gdo01 14:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the 'Free Institute of Economic Research'?
This unaccredited institute has been putting articles on subjects like Welfare Economics, European Union, and related. I have tried to find about them online, to no avail. It is a breach of NPOV to use wikipedia for self-promotion and advance of private agendas.

History and origins
I dont think mentioning anything prior to European Coal and Steal Industry is necessary. I have many academic books charting the history of the EU and none of the content pre-dates the 20th centuary. Alex Lickorish —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.5.42.1 (talk) 22:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Too Long
I think the article is still a bit too long. Don't you think there are some things we could take out ot possibly shorten it? Things that belong more in subarticles. I think it's important to keep articles a good length. Any ideas anyone? Brainboy109 December 12, 2006 16:36 (UTC)

New map.
I figure we should have a new map ready for when Romania and Bulgaria join. Zazaban 19:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Reconfirm your strategy 20:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There is an excellent official one at http://www.europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm

© European Communities, 1995-2006 Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated.

USA vs EU
EU can surpass America’s global leadership in near future. This article needs to expand this idea. --Reconfirm your strategy 20:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful if you were to define your terms, in an NPOV way. Countersubject 21:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

USA and EU don't need to rival each other Somethingoranother 19:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The EU cannot surpass the US. The US economy is growing much faster. The only reason why the EU is keeping up is due to the fact that they keep tacking on little countries. This notion cannot even be considered until and if this organisation becomes a nation.

Any possibility of a political union between the US and the EU?


 * Extremely unlikely. They're too different in so many areas. By that, I don't mean their structures and powers, I mean people's attitudes to topics (e.g. capital punishment, foreign policy) - Рэд хот (t • c • e) 19:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, how about this as a first step?
 * 1. Make the U.S. Dollar and the Euro equal in value ($1 = 1 euro).
 * 2. Make both currencies legal tender in both the EU and the US.
 * 3. Allow citizens of the EU and the US to live and work in either, without the need of a passport or work visa.
 * 4. Invite Canada to participate.

This may be true, but they are also very close in lots of ways - capitalist system, shabby, corrupt, debased self-serving governments and extreme disparities between rich and poor. However, going on current world trends, it seems more likely that China will end up taking over both. No need then for a merger. :-) MarkThomas 20:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

January 1st
We should get ready for the new states Romania and Bulgaria joining on January 1st. Somethingoranother 19:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It is already 2007 in Romania and Bulgaria, thus they have already joined. Please update accordingly. 1.618033989 23:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

New Map for Member States and Enlargement is needed
We could do with a new map for this section. Somethingoranother 21:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Tag is stuck on page?
Why is the NPOV tag listed at the bottom in the categories section and this article is also listed on the Category:NPOV disputes page? I don't see the tag on the actual page so I'm thinking this is a bug? Strawberry Island 06:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It's possibly been left over from some previous dispute but gone unoticed being at the end of the page. --Robdurbar 07:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Flag should have 27 stars
--J intela 02:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Flag of the European Union always contains 12 stars, with the number of stars not being based on the number of members. For this reason, the flag should not have 27 stars now that Romania and Bulgaria have joined (it didn't have 25 beforehand). [[Image:Flag of Europe.svg|20px]][[Image:Flag of Romania.svg|20px]] Ronline ✉ 02:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

From the EU's own website, http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/emblem/index_en.htm, "The number of stars has nothing to do with the number of Member States. There are twelve stars because the number twelve is traditionally the symbol of perfection, completeness and unity. The flag therefore remains unchanged regardless of EU enlargements." - Arctic Wolf

Amounts in Euro
In the Common Agricultural Policy section the amounts are in British Pounds. It would be more appropriate if these were converted to Euro.

--80.126.175.197 19:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Motto Translation
I see that the Latin Motto "In varietate concordia" is not translated into English, Shouldn't it be? I was going to edit in the Translation "Unity in diversity", but there are so many warnings on that info box that I decided to ask here before proceeding. Is there some kind of consensus that it shouldn't be translated? The way I see it is, this is the English Language Wikipedia and surely everything should be translated into that language. Thoughts? --Hibernian 11:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's an interesting issue, not the least because the difference between the commonly-used English version and the original has political implications. The Latin concordia would be better translated as 'concord', 'harmony' or 'agreement', rather than 'unity', which speaks of a more uniform, centrally-defined approach to European integration.  It would be interesting to know if the translation in use has any official status, and whether it originates from an institution or individual with a POV on the form integration should take. Countersubject 13:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I've got to say I have no idea what the actual Latin means (I'm no linguist), I just got the "Unity in diversity" translation from the Wiki article about European Symbols (specifically the motto section). I didn't know there was any debate about the translation or any political POV in it, I just assume that was the standard English translation, and so I thought it would be logical to have it there. But what I really want to know here is, whether there is any objection to it being translated for any reason. I ask because it would seem obvious to provide a translation but it doesn't seem to have been done so far, is there any reason for that or has it simply been overlooked? --Hibernian 02:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It should be translated, IMHO, but I don't think "Unity" is the right word to use. I'm no Latin expert, but I don't think they have agreed to pursue unity, yet, much less acheived it.  "Harmony" is probably a good word.  Mdotley 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Though not in force, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe contains an English translation of this Motto, which has therefore a more or less official status : see article I-8 "The motto of the Union shall be: ‘United in diversity’." French Tourist 18:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There are two interesting things here. Firstly, it's suggested that the origin of Unity in Diversity is an unadopted constitution.  If this is so, then it has no official status, and shouldn't be quoted in the article as 'the motto'.  Secondly, it appears the constitution has changed the motto, at least in its English form, to emphasise unity rather than harmony.  That speaks volumes for the thrust of the constitution, but nothing for the validity of Unity in Diversity as a translation of In varietate concordia. Countersubject 22:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Countersubject, I see you've edited out any translation and have changed the translation on the European symbols page to "concord in diversity", but where did you get this translation from? It was translated as either "Unity in diversity" or "United in diversity" on all the EU pages, and everywhere else. So why have you now suddenly changed it to "concord"? (Isn’t that a bit of OR). Like I said, I don't know much about Latin, but I assume the people at the EU do, so if that is their translation, then surely we should stick with it. You've also changed it to "An EU motto" instead of "The European motto", its debatable about the use of the terms EU and Europe, but why "An"? Is there more than one Motto, which we don't know about? Anyway I still think that if we're going to have a Latin motto on the page it should be translated into English. --Hibernian 14:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess it's a moot point whether some knowledge of a language in which one pretends no great expertise (beyond what little I remember from school) counts as original research. I wouldn't have thought so, but if you'd like on-line references, try Merriam-Webster for the etymology of concord ("from Latin concordia") and unity ("from Latin unitat-, unitas, from unus one").  As to your suggestion that the folks at the EU know Latin, so we should accept their translation: that rather misses the interesting point that Unity in Diversity appears to be a development of the motto, that reflects its origin in a constitution (yet to be ratified) designed to centralise many aspects of EU law and administration. BTW, that's not a POV observation - I don't pass any judgement on the desirability of the proposed constitution.  I think you have a point about my change of "The European Motto" to "An EU Motto".  "The EU motto" would be better.  "The European Motto" is inaccurate, because the EU isn't the same as Europe - just ask the Norwegians and the Swiss!  As to whether the Latin motto in the info box should be accompanied by an English translation - I agree with you in principle, but there are practical difficulties.  We could add "concord in diversity", but that would miss the proposed English form, a development of some interest.  If instead we add "unity in diversity", that would be inaccurate.  And unfortunately an info box is the wrong place to explain more fully!  There is currently a footnote link from the motto to the European Symbols article, where the issue is described at greater length. Countersubject 15:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I've just checked the series of versions in question, and neither the definite nor the indefinite article was present in any of them. It went from "European motto" to "EU motto". Countersubject 15:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I see you were referring to the other article! Countersubject 22:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

A certain amount of chaos in the Economic variation table of GDP figures
There have been some unsigned changes to the France part of the table of GDP figures today, which checking up on I see lead only to further confusion. For example, the comments above the table state that the data set is for 2007 and the source information below that the primary data is the CIA World Fact Book, which typically only has 2005 estimates; and the IMF website data tables, which are 2007 estimates, but not for population. Therefore I presume that we need to change the comments and also recalculate the first column to be a calculation based on the IMF data multiplied by the most recent population data. The unsigned figure given today for France is wrong on these criteria, but so was the previous one! The remaining question if we do this (for example I am willing to do the calculations) is which set of population data to use? I propose the official EU website figures. MarkThomas 13:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Merging "current issues" with "criticisms"
Can I please suggest that the current issues header be merged with the criticisms header down below on the EU article? I would be happy to do this, because they both cover (excellently explained) similar, overlapping ground. Thoughts? Wikidea 07:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Other websites
The European history website indicates as I have said.

The CIA factbook does not mention Bulgarian and Romanian as forthcoming languages (mid-December update) Jackiespeel 18:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)