Équilibre entre liberté et équité, équilibre entre libéralisme économique et société solidaire, union de citoyens et d'états, démocratie transnationale oscillant entre association d'états et état fédéral, économie sociale de marché, social-démocratie, progrès internationaliste, défrontiérisation, égalitarisme, bureaucratie titanesque, égoïsmes nationaux, populisme brutal, capitalisme sauvage, ultra-libéralisme..

How to define the EU and isolate its problems? Consolidating current treaties into a single foundation, clarifying the Union goals and values around humanism, reviewing EU institutions, streamlining decision-making and creating a foreign affairs ministry, is necessary for the new Europe of 25. To gain the legitimacy from "us, the people of Europe", establishing a constitution by consensus through referendum is both admirable and necessary. But it failed.

Europe is loosing its focus. The European dream is derailed, if not dead. The clear winner is the right-wing spectrum: extremists who are expectedly nationalists clinging to the dangerous concept of territorial nation-state, and the liberals, led by the U.K., who prefer an economic union without political union. The French socialists were courageous to voice their concerns: too centralized, too diluted, too market oriented, too long… But will we ever have a chance to get any better?

France, you fucked up.

It was surreal to watch the referendum results and the following debate this weekend in Brussels, while Grand-Mother was retelling her war stories - her fleeing to Bordeaux during the German occupation and Grand-Father being deported to work in East-German factories.. That was 50 years ago, are the dangers of nationalism already forgotten?

Solutions: 1. Visionary and courageous politicians that encourage and sell Europe, rather than use it as a cash cow or a scapegoat. 2. A new treaty to enable the most urgent and essential reforms needed for the Europe of 25 - much needed to give international weight to the EU and to insure a more secure and diverse multi-polar world, countering the dangerous American hegemony 3. A new, simplified and correctly scoped constitution for the people of Europe preceded by proper public debates and enacted by referendums.

A new American directive to militarize space is on the way..

"I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if China were to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes." Despite this obvious statement, history continues to be written today, as the US military confirms "space supremacy is our vision for the future" and aims to "expand the choices that we might be able to offer to the president in crisis". A safer world, the American way?

One Air Force program, neo-conveniently nicknamed "Rods From God", aims to "hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking with the force of a small nuclear weapon". Or how about "bouncing laser beams off mirrors hung from space satellites redirecting the lethal rays down to targets around the world"? Or let us be more reasonable and create a "military space plane carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions that can strike from halfway around the world in 45 minutes". (That'll teach 'em)

The new directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space. With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them. (Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs New York Times)

Solution? A global public debate and a UN resolution: space must be sanctified and no weapons ever put in space. Oh yes, and a continuing boycott on the US until it brings its 'defense' budget down to reasonable levels (now more than 50%) and submits fully to democratic principles and institutions on a global scale.

English it must be

This is an attempt at stating the obvious and making the courageous conclusion that International English must be the common language of Europe.

The problem with Europe today is that it remains an intergovernmental organization of member states stuck in their monolingual narrowness: most states face the same economic and social problems, yet there is no collaboration on solutions due to language barriers. Insightful editorials by locally renowned intellectuals are of no value to the outside world because they are published in the local language only. Denmark has no clue what Germans are up to, whom really know nothing about how Danes deal with their own immigration or traffic issues.

There is a lot of potential for creating synergy between European countries. To enable this from grassroots level, Europeans need to embrace and encourage the teaching of a common language, spoken and understood by all. If this common language was chosen to be Esperanto, all governmental services and publications at all levels must be offered in Esperanto as well as local languages, all products must be labelled accordingly, all public spaces must be minimally bilingual, and most importantly all newspapers must publish in Esperanto as well as in their usual language of publication.

Outside Europe, since hardly anybody speaks Danish or German or Esperanto, the only view on Europe is through the British prism.. in English. However the UK is "frequently not in the mainstream of European thinking but rather the odd one out": the world was surprised that the EURO was successfully launched given the tone of the euro sceptic British media (See 'World has a distorted view of Europe').

This leaves only one option to improve both intra-Europe cross-communication and international communication: International English.

The problem with languages is that they represent both cultural identity and a mean to communicate. Europeans must embrace English as a mean to communicate, and their own mother tongue as a mean to express their unique identity. Which to use primarily depends on the audience, usually the public versus the private sphere.

Measures to 'protect' or encourage linguistic diversity are also necessary as long as they are linked to linguistic groups, not territorial space or historical antecedents, and that the measures are rooted in respect and understanding, not ethnocentricity (see the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights).

Under this, public spaces, product and services, and civil services would always be available in English, as well as in any other local languages; a local language being the language spoken by linguistic communities in a given area, independently of the Nation State tradition.