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A Changing World: A Changing Union Essay

Decent Essays

A Changing World: A Changing Union

In recent years the European Union has began taking a new shape, positioning itself as a major competitor in the global market. With economies becoming increasingly integrated and globalization creating a new playing field for trade, new strategies have been necessary to grow with and beyond other world markets. Some of these strategies have included monetary unification, decentralization, enlargement, welfare reform, and social convergence. In the following essay I will address of these strategies and convey my thoughts and concerns surrounding them.

MONETARY UNIFICATION AND THE EURO
In my opinion the introduction of the Single European currency has been a tremendous feat for the European Union. …show more content…

The same problem exists to an extent with ethno-centralism. Pride in culture and history threaten the potential of ever achieving a united states of Europe. A good example of this is the language problem. Inability to decide on a common language has created vast inefficiency in the EU’s proceedings – costing money and time. The EU’s agenda is still to be the world economic leader by the year 2010. Centralized European governments as they stand make this goal impractical and unreachable. Another reason may be skepticism over the future of the EU. To an extent I feel this is why the UK has shielded itself from extended involvement. I think they are waiting for the EU to become more established before giving up any more independence. For them if the EU does not live up to their standards they can always look to the US and Canada for a possible alliance. This is not so far fetched when you consider their roots are more extended to the overseas English speaking democracies than most of their European counterparts. England is also most interested in the well being of England. That is, they will consider their policy and economy over the interest of anyone else’s, explaining why the European Union is still a risky partner for them. It is my opinion that the decentralization of these governments will have to be a priority before economic superiority may be acquired.

THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE EU AND CANDIDATE STATES
Enlargement of the European Union may be viewed as

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