But “EU” simply is the official short version for European Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

“The European Union (EU) is an economic and political union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe.”

I’m not using EU because I want to say “entire Europe”. EU simply stands for the words European and Union. It simply is the short version of the term.

Actually, I think some common values apply to the whole of Europe and are not restricted to the EU for any particular reason.

@Sense:

You’re right, according to Dutch spelling rules, it is Herman van Rompuy. There is a long-standing irritating tradition in Belgium, however, to write the last name first. Dutch spelling rules then dictate that it should be Van Rompuy Herman. This leads many people to believe that the first letter of the last name must always be capitalised, even when preceded by the first name.

@pvanhoof:

I’m just as much as an atheist as the next mentally healthy person. I mean to say that our Western values have evolved in an environment dominated for two millennia by Christianity. Pre-Christian Greek and Roman traditions established values such as democracy, differentiation between the powers, rights and responsibilities of citizens. Christianity added moral values such as honesty, fairness, equality, compassion.

I do think that Van Rompuy will become a better president than our prime minister would have been. However, he is from the christian democrats, and they have done really bad things in the European Parliament. First they (justly) criticised the freedom of press in eternal EU candidate Turkey, but when other parties wanted to get the European Parliament to condemn Italy because of a lack of freedom of press — thanks, Berlusconi! — they blocked it (they’re the largest block) because they said the EU had nothing to do with freedom of press in its member states. They also block motions for equality for homosexuals and the other things you’d expect conservative christians not to like. I don’t expect Van Rompuy to not support this.

With Leterme back we could execute Geert Wilders plans and add Flanders to the Netherlands! That would give us Antwerp! (Any ideas on what to do with the Belgians? He didn’t seem to be very interested in those.) Maybe we’ll then have the power to kill off a harbour that is way too much inland for the size it wants to achieve. ;) Save our polders!

By the way, why is it Herman Van Rompuy and not Herman van Rompuy? It’s ugly and looks so wrong!
Phonetics: [ˈɦɛɾmɑn vɑn ˈɾɔmpœy̆]

Anyway, back on topic.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4181

This profile is certainly coloured by the author’s political views and personal frustrations, but I have some faith in the factual correctness of the raw data. It is interesting because of some of the background information it provides on Van Rompuy.
Specifically, the author paints a picture of him as someone who used to be led by his principles, but has forsaken them over the course of history. Principles inspired by a person’s religion are still principles. An intelligent yet religious person (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, but they really are out there) can philosophically accept the ideas imposed on him by his religion. Nothing there implies that the idea is wrong or the person is stupid.

So now we have someone who once strongly believed in a Europe based on Christian values and the exclusion of Turkey as our president. Yet when asked what his stand is on Turkey, he announced that his personal opinion does not matter. I think your fears about him letting his personal religious principles interfere with his work are ungrounded.

I, for one, am disappointed by that. I think Europe *should* accept and honour the Christian values on which it was based. And, definitely when it comes to leadership, I trust a man with principles more than a man without.

Btw, there’s a bug in your comment system. It rejected this comment at first when I forgot to fill in the captcha, and when I did, it rejected it again as a duplicate.

I of course already try to ensure that what I write is appropriate for planet-gnome (because I know that it’ll probably appear on it). There are a few planets aggregating my blog. I only have this (minor) discussion with planet-gnome. The other planets simply have moderation and/or ignore the problem (planet-gnome also mostly ignores it, regretfully some of its audience doesn’t).

But yes, all in all I think it’s going fine with planet-gnome and all in all I personally don’t see a reason for having to change things. But that being my personal opinion doesn’t make me responsible for planet-gnome.

I don’t think I’d be a good maintainer for planet-gnome, so I’ll most likely never propose wanting that responsibility.

I think you guys are doing just fine, I think planet-gnome is good the way it is now.

I’m not going to reply to the other straw man arguments.

@Ian: I don’t think we need one. But Obama does indeed get a lot of attention among Europeans. I don’t think Europe hasn’t been responsible for any Bush-type screw ups, though. Perhaps didn’t the screw ups scale as big as Bush’s did …

Kind of off topic to your main point, but I found this part really interesting! Is it really common opinion in Europe that you all need an Obama too? Why? From my perspective Europe has made steady progress over the last, say, twenty years, and hasn’t been responsible for any Bush-type screw ups. Why would you need an “Obama”, then?

Moreover, if a majority of people living around Brussels want to join it, why not siply listen to the people ? Isn’t that democracy ? Who cares about the territory wars ? Listen to people ! Organize public consultation.

And there is no support from Brussels to Flanders because you just want Brussels to be part of Flanders. But it has never been the case, and it will never be. Brussels is part of Brabant, and Brabant has never been part of Flanders ! If you doubt it, please revise the history of Europe.

And do not think that am I one of those unilingual french-speaking morons… I work in Flanders, I speak French, English and Dutch, and a bit of German. I am all for a multilingual Brussels extended to the borders of Brabant as defined before the border. But you’re too scared of the “French oil pool”. So much that Belgians cannot even move wherever they want in their own country ! It’s easier to move to London than to move to Antwerp. But whatever you do, the Flemish culture is slowly decaying. And so is the Walloon culture… (original Brussels culture has already disappeared, and so what, we have another one now, no problem). It’s being replaced with a different European, more modern, international culture.

So accept to be Belgian first, or just split the country and decay alone in the corner, but do not take those who do not want to die with you ! Ask people what they really want, and let them choose for their future, even if they want to be attached to another region.

But obviously, in Flanders, you never care about people, only about money (which comes originally from Wallonia by the way… Who paid to build Zeebrugge ??) and territory. That’s so outdated… You’ll disappear because, even though your technology is turned towards the future, your minds are definitely years in the past.

@Gareth: Then write to the politicians of your country that you want them to leave the union. But then ask to really leave it.

On that, we agree. Split BHV, and enlarge Brussels. Good deal, everyone’s happy. And reform, yes needed, taxes paid to the region you work in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Walloon… nor German-speaking actually. I’m one of those forgotten people, you know, those who are not supposed to exist according to Kris Peeters… Yes, Brusseleers ! We are neither Flemish nor Walloons, and we want to be more independent too !