Led by Germany and France, Europe and the European Union (EU) have in recent years been splitting from the west and Britain to create a European superstate. They even had it pretty much sown up by last November, when things started going south on them. As is oft the way of kings, they got a bit ahead of God and have been acting like the confused leaders during the time of Nimrod and the tower of Babel when suddenly they started speaking different languages. Everyone started looking out after their own interests and the unity that existed before went up in flames.

Ironically, we may be witnessing how God thwarts the plans of kings as is described in Psalms 2:1-4, "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD... The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them." In any event, understanding what is happening in Europe would be comical if the world were not at stake in this geopolitical game of marbles.

Germany makes bid for federal government of Europe

In the latest shot at Britain and France, Germany officially made public the brewing internal war within the European Union by issuing a document insisting it is essential to develop a federal government for the EU patterned after that of Germany. German Chancellor Helmuth Schröder and his fellow Social Democrats claim the EU must be federalized to create a European state by the end of the decade to harmonize taxes in the EU. “In 10 years we shall live in a Europe with a constitution. In 10 years, we shall live in a Europe with a [single] currency,” states the document developed under the guidance of Schröder. 

The International Herald Tribune reported on April 30 that Germany called for a centralized government with a two chambered parliament system almost identical to the German federal system. In the German model, the executive branch, the EU Commission holds all the power. The European states would become merely the second house of Parliament, a position in which they would essentially lose all their power to the EU Commission.

Both France and Britain strongly oppose the German proposal, but for different reasons. The federalist structure proposed by German is a policy which is anathema to both the main parties in Britain and to governments in some other EU states. England is adamant that the individual states (nations) maintain their individual sovereignty and the EU serve as merely a confederation of states within which travel is unrestricted and the elimination of tariffs promote the EU's economic health trading power in the global marketplace. 

The main concern in France is the German plan trumps France's bid for creating an EU superstate based on the parliamentary system in which the individual states control parliament and maintain power over the central executive branch, the EU Commission. In a bit of convoluted logic, France also wants the budgeting powers to stay in the Commission, where France has a better chance at controlling, or at least guiding, the process to France's advantage. While the German federal model places the powers of state in the European Commission, it would also take the budget power from the European Commission, where it currently resides, and places it in the new parliament. 

The London Electronic Telegraph reported on May 3 that France is insistent that the budgeting process stay in the Commission where it can maintain the enormous agricultural subsidies the EU provides farmers – especially French farmers. Nearly half of the EU £65 billion budget goes to these agricultural subsidies. To blur the difference between the German federal and the French hybrid parliamentary/federal, Pierre Moscovici, the Minister of France for Europe claims, "It's an idea that goes a long way down a German, that is to say federalist, road. I don't think it is at the centre of EU thinking."

The German proposal puts the war of ideologies between Britain, France and the other socialist Europeans fully on the front pages of European newspapers. Until last November, the move to create a European superstate was led by both Germany and France. The two nations had agreed to rewrite the EU treaty so as to include an EU constitution –  thereby creating the Euro superstate during the December, 2000, European Summit. Instead, France made a power play to control the process and Germany countered with their own plan. As explained in the December Discerning the Times Digest, the result was a degeneration of the summit into an internal squabble that threatened the very existence of the EU. 

As Discerning the Times Digest detailed in December 2000, Britain has historically aligned itself with the US as the dominant global economic power axis. It is this axis  that is currently controlling the process of creating the world government. The socialist European nations, led by Germany and France, generally supported this effort until about two years ago when they began to move to take control away from the US and Britain. The idea was to create a European superstate, and by working together Germany and France would control the process – almost guaranteeing its creation at last December's EU Summit. But, in a sequence of events that is almost comical, the whole plan came unglued.

First, Germany and France made a power play to weaken the US while creating a more powerful EU state. In November 2000 Germany and France refused to accept the just agreed-to US greenhouse gas reductions after an all night negotiating session at the Hague Climate Change Conference. The concessions made by the Clinton administration would have seriously hurt the US economically. Even so, Germany and France became greedy and wanted even more concessions from the US. As detailed in the November 2000 Discerning the Times Digest that it was obvious to the rest of the attending nations that Germany and France were forcing unreasonably severe restrictions on the US – not to hurt it, but to destroy it. 

The gambit was done by Germany and France to fire a warning shot across the bow of the US that Europe was going to have equal say in how the emerging world government was going to be formed. Both Germany and France had expected the US to come back to the negotiating table before Clinton was put out of office and sign the agreed to concessions. But, in a totally unexpected move, Clinton refused and now Kyoto is in its death throes.

The second blow came two weeks later at the December 2000 European Union Summit where Germany and France had greased the skids to create a EU constitution and consolidate power into the EU Commission – thereby creating a European superstate. That effort self-destructed in slow motion when both Germany and France got greedy and attempted to put their respective nations at the top of the power structure at the expense of the other. In what looked to be a hilarious squabble by five- year old boys over a game of marbles, the resulting mêlée almost resulted in the destruction of the EU concept entirely. 

But it wasn't about marbles. It was about control of the world. The infighting between Germany and France destroyed not only the chance to create the EU superstate, but also the chance and the ability to control the birth of the emerging world government. That will now fall to the financial institutions of the US and Britain. The world government will now be centered on a controlled capitalist system rather than on the near feudal model that would have been employed had the EU superstate been created in time. Even so, the power plays continue to this day. Incredibly, after working for months to mend fences between Germany and France after the December EU disaster, Germany announced the bombshell to create a federalized EU to which France is adamantly opposed.

Another brick wall

Again, Germany and France went to work mending fences. Just when things began to smooth out between Germany and France, the plan for a European superstate ran into more problems – more like a brick wall – the election of Silvio Berlusconi as Italy's Prime Minister. The election of Berlusconi deals a severe blow to Schröder's call for a united federal Europe by 2010. Berlusconi agrees that the EU needs to expand its membership, according to the May 15 London Electronic Telegraph. Berlusconi even supports integrating the EU more deeply and the admission of Turkey as soon as feasible to counter the threat of Islamic extremism. "But deepening cannot mean a federation of states and a federal government," he said in a clear reference to Mr Schröder's call for the European Commission to become a new government for Europe with an elected president. "The strength of Europe lies in its diversity, not its homogeneity that is an illusory quest, and a confederal structure is the only one that can possibly work," he added. In other words, Beerlusconi is solidly in Britain's camp to create a confederation, not a federation.

Berlusconi's election is the most severe threat to the EU superstate ever faced, and EU proponents are trying to find ways to discredit Berlusconi like they did with Austrian Jörg Haider in 2000. But Berlusconi says he is in the mainstream of European politics. "Those who give the red carpet treatment to such state visitors as [Zimbabwe's president] Robert Mugabe [as Belgium recently did] and then opt to boycott Berlusconi would be showing their true colours. And the would-be boycottters [sic] should remember that the European Parliament presently has a centre-Right majority," said Berlusconi.

Germany is taking this bad news with a grain of salt. "I would dare to prophesy that things will go this way [to form an EU federal government]. Certainly, not without crises or problems, but the pressure is in that direction," predicted  the Green party member Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister in the May 16 Financial Times. In responding to questions about the British resistance, Fischer said, "I'm a convinced believer in the federal state. But visiting Westminster, [England] I understood for the first time Britain's resistance above all to a transfer of the sovereignty of the House of Commons." So Fischer stuck a compromise. "We have three possibilities - intergovernmentalism; federalism; or a federation of nation states. In the light of experience, it would seem advisable to seek the third option as our next step even if the second has my full sympathy."