EU: an end to independence.

ITEM: On October 13, 2004, the New York Times reported that the European Union Commission plans to exert its authority. over Germany at the European Court of Justice for refusing to scrap a law protecting the Volkswagen company from any possible foreign takeover. The Times stated: "The decision to challenge Germany is part of a wider campaign by the [EU] Commission to force member states to abandon protectionist measures that prevent cross-border investment...." As an indication of what membership in the dominant EU already means, the article continued: "Denmark agreed this year to scrap a law preventing the takeover of the Copenhagen airport. Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal have also been forced to amend laws with similar effects after rulings by the European Court."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: As far back as our April 10, 1989 issue, THE NEW AMERICAN pointed out that membership in the Common Market (or European Community), the precursor of the European Union, would transfer vast new powers from sovereign nations to a new supranational authority. We wrote: "Citizens of the Common Market are finding their lives and livelihoods increasingly controlled by Eurocrats in Brussels, even as national governments find their sovereignty rights sacrificed under such deliberately vague and ambiguous rubrics as 'cooperation,' 'union,' 'integration,' 'convergence,' and 'harmonization.' "We added that the Single European Act then being proposed--and later agreed to--would "soon make it impossible for member states to block policies that go against national interests."

For more than a decade, THE NEW AMERICAN has continued to point out that the independence of European nations has been steadily eroded by the various stages of involvement in what has become the European Union.