A Marshall Plan is not what the EU needs

A column in the Guardian calls for a new Marshall Plan to save the EU, but unfortunately the EU's dominated by leaders who believe in unconstrained free market capitalism, according to Mark Mazower. That's a load of twaddle.

The EU's problem right now is that EU enthusiasts ran too far out in front of the citizens of the various nations. They pushed for an integrated EU that required a lot more solidarity and a lot less nationalism than the people of the EU were ready for. Unfortunately they ended up with a fudge - a unified currency stretched over loosely unified national economies. It's stuck in between integration and a loose confederation, which is a disaster.

Mazower's call for an EU Marshall Plan is only a band-aid. The only solution now is for there to be one polity and one economy. The national identities need to be buried in favor of a new overarching European identity, one that accepts that the problems of Athens, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Paris, Dublin - are everyone's to share.

I just don't see that happening. It will have to be forced on people or as the integrationists have done for the past 20 years sold to them under false pretenses. That's not a winning formula.

Oh, and as for Mazower's history, he talks about Truman and the Marshall Plan without once mentioning the USSR, which the plan was designed to thwart. Methinks his love of central planning blinded him to this side of the central planners' history.

National coffers boosted by training corrupt regimes' armed forces

So the Irish government got money for training the armies of dubious regimes. Isn't that one of those charges that's always flung at America - they're "America's creation" or "America's puppets."

I wouldn't want you to think that I'm criticizing the government for this decision. I just like the fact that this muddies the water for those who 'blame America first.'