posted 06-10-99 09:31 PM ET            

as to will the EU be stable, why not. up till 1945 the nations of Europe have been prety much at each others throats for the past thousand years. Wars that last in the tens of years have not been uncommon. in some cases in excess of 65% of a countries population have been wiped out, but ten years later we have been back at each others throats again. for the last 30 years through the EU we have generally managed to keep our most hostile groups at peace.

You also ask when Europe will get it's act together. Its rather good that the EU dosen't. if it did it could quite quickly take the dominant position in the world that the US has today. In the late eighties when the US was worrying about the massive buy in by japanese industry of US Business interests i remeber reading that if you lookaed at japan compared to the us at the time the japanese economy at the time then it was very much like the WWII propaganda cartoon soldier compared to the US Marine. The EU however on the same scale was an 800 lb gorilla. in the chemical industry for example, four of the 5 biggest chemical firms were European as were 8 of the top 10