June 22, 2007

DING...DING...DING...DING...:

Poland evokes war dead as EU talks get tough Ian Traynor and Patrick Wintour, June 22, 2007, The Guardian)

Under the nationalist Kaczynski brothers, prime minister and president of Poland, it seemed Poland was bent on refighting the second world war against Germany in the bunkers of Brussels. "If Poland had not had to live through the years 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million", rather than 38 million, and would warrant a much higher quota of votes in the EU, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister, told Polish radio.

Under current arrangements dating from 2000, Germany has 29 votes to Poland's 27 in EU councils. The new system,based on population sizes, will give Germany more than double the Polish vote. The Poles are demanding a new way of calculating votes that would diminish German "hegemony".


If it were a prizefight the ref would be counting the Germans out.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 22, 2007 9:46 AM
Comments

Telling it like it is. What a concept.

Posted by: erp at June 22, 2007 10:23 AM

And how many electoral votes would belong to the southern states if so many hadn't been killed and disenfranchised in the 1860's?

What an idea; let's try to pretend that we can change the past.

Posted by: Brandon at June 22, 2007 10:33 AM

You don't have to change the past when you can control the present. Pole hatred is so bizarre...

Posted by: oj at June 22, 2007 11:57 AM

If the Euros were not so reflexive anti-American, they would adopt our system. E.g. less populated states like Montana and Iowa have same representation in the Senate as California and New York.

Come to think of it, it may have noting to do with anti-American-system. It is their desire to dominate the less powerful. Germany is finishing what Hitler has begun: dominate Europe, then the world.

Posted by: ic at June 22, 2007 1:23 PM

I don't hate the Poles. But why should living people be denied representation so that it can be given to dead people?

Posted by: Brandon at June 22, 2007 1:55 PM

The issue isn't really about WWII, so much as it is about recent German moves to greatly increase that country's power within the EU.

Posted by: molon labe at June 22, 2007 2:30 PM

Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.

Posted by: G.K. Chesterton at June 22, 2007 3:22 PM
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