Wednesday 18 May 2011

US and EU

BBC News reports

The US and EU have warned of more pressure on Syria over its violent response to anti-government protests.

"We will be taking additional steps in the days ahead," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after talks with EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton.

The US and EU have already imposed sanctions on some members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.

(emphasis mine)

Feel like you're living in a superstate yet?

Without being specific, Baroness Ashton said: "There will be a number of moves in the coming hours and days that you will see."

"If the [Syrian] government really does - as it keeps telling us it does - want to see some kind of change, it's got to be now," she added.

Mrs Clinton and Baroness Ashton declined to reveal what measures might be taken against Damascus.

Despite the sanctions on senior figures close to President Assad, both Washington and Brussels have so far stopped short of targeting him specifically.

Whatever kind of foreign policy you favour, there's something very disturbing about it being determined in Brussels by the likes of Baroness Ashton.


UPDATE

To confirm my fears about where all this is heading, I decided to google for "EU military".

Sure enough, Wikipedia has an article dedicated to the subject:
Several prominent leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, have voiced support for a common defence for the Union.[3][4][5] This possibility was formally laid down in Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009.[6]
...
"The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common defence policy. This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides." (TEU, Article 42) [10]
They've even got their own coat of arms ...

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