Plotters don’t like taste of croissants

By Rein F. Deer

Date: 27/04/06

The papal plot against the croissant is becoming ever more obvious. I am not speaking here about French patisserie but about religion.

Up north we joined the Union still naively believing in the great idea of unity among European nations. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and his fellow countrymen - and others - are now seeking to gerrymander Europe's borders to exclude certain obscure, but nonetheless European, territories.

The not-so-coded message is that Muslim Turkey, and by extension Muslim anywhere else, should never become a full member of the Union.

The (German) Pope Benedict XVI and much of Germany and Austria, together with elements in Catholic Poland and elsewhere, agree with these crusaders, silently or not so silently.

Napoleon and Hitler wanted to extend Europe all the way to Moscow, and even to the Urals.

Most of the the locals were reluctant to join, at the time. Now that they show a desire to join our club they are being refused by the heirs of those early but unsuccessful champions of European unity.

To be frank, we northerners are also against Turkish membership for the time being, not because of their religion but because they are not house-trained yet.

Any European state that fulfils the conditions of membership has the right to join. We must also admit that interpretations have been quite liberal lately.

Not all of our recent new members qualify, in truth, and eg Silvio Berlusconi's Italy should have been expelled years ago.

We literal-minded types believe in fair play, which means not changing the rules during the game.

We are greatly puzzled by the monkey business surrounding the ratification of the constitutional treaty. Separatist forces in Europe threaten to exclude the western Balkan states if we are not able to create a proper constitution.

On the other hand, the constitution as proposed would block Turkey forever.

This is a European Catch-22 designed with the help of Opus Dei. We simple-minded Lutherans are beginning to think that Europe would grow bigger and stronger without a constitution for the EU.

The journey, the saying goes, is more important than the destination. It would be a lot easier and more agreeable without so many ambiguous or downright dishonest road-signs.

Comment feature on a north European view on the borders of Europe.