My new dream (Eng)

I was reading recent speech by David Milliband, Foreign Secretary, at EU summit in Bruges this week. And to be honest, it was like a revelation. It’s not that I never knew about the specificity of the UK policy towards EU: it’s reluctance to engage in many community-level policies and its eagerness to expand the Union even further. I always knew that this is a clever combination of weakening the Union and turning it into more or less manageable ‘trade and economic collaboration block’ which does not pretend to have greater social, foreign policy and defence functions. So I was always pleased when next British politician would tell that EU needs to remain open to such countries as Ukraine, as they are integral part of Europe. But what Europe?

I am obviously one of the greatest supporters of European integration and potential membership of Ukraine in it. But at such price I am not sure it is wanted or needed. By the time we crawl there in 20-30 years it won’t be what we expect it to be. It will be just a bunch of states, from Portugal to Turkey and from Ireland to Morocco, which have very little in common as the majority of functions would be back on the tables of national governments.

David Miliband does not believe that Europe can become a strong power in the world. He admits that there is only one at the moment (US) and there might be only two more coming – China and India (I wonder how much more trouble this statement will bring to UK-Russia relations!). Whatever you do in Europe, he believes, you will never supersede them, let’s face it! What can I say, if Britain will continue such an irresponsible rhetoric it will definitely be true.

I do believe Europe can become the power equal to the States and new Asian ‘tigers’. And for that it must not turn into ‘a super-state’ which is a favourite horror scenario of the Brits. At least it has no heavy luggage of combating the poverty which both India and China still have and which US has – the highest level among developed countries. By uniting its efforts to improve its skills, quality of products and innovations through greater mobility of the resources (including human) it has a chance to stand equal in the multi-polar system.

And to be fair, I don’t want anybody to spoil the drive the EU is already having on this road. Even if this somebody is Britain.

So, I am not sure what new inspiration I should find for myself after giving up a dream of Ukraine becoming a member of the EU. But I know for sure that this is only in the interest of Ukraine and all other members of the ‘neighbourhood’ ring that EU continues to play a crucial role it the international architecture, going beyond trade club, single currency and one visa. And I am not sure it will have such an opportunity if Miliband’s projections come true. To be fair, his speech was changed in the last moment by PM when he found out how pro-European it was. But still, it does not change the result…

Any suggestions for my next dream?