Last Friday
I really should have blogged this then (2005-11-11) but I simply didn’t have time (also, I was hung-over). I attended the weekly sub rosa breakfast gathering at KTH, which this day had a celebrity guest: Johan Norberg and was therefore packed. We were supposed to discuss the EU, but true to form the discussion rambled. I made the observation that there are at least three European Unions:
- The original (and best?) vision of a united Europe so tightly bound together that war becomes impossible. This is the favourite argument of the pro-EU debaters in Sweden, but it’s rapidly losing its shine as the world wars fade from memory. Some countries (the Baltic states come to mind) still subscribe to it, with good reason.
- A free-trade area. This is the “Anglo-Saxon” view, and personally I think this is what EU should be first, before trying to start to layer on federalism and especially “social justice”.
- A method of distributing agricultural aide. This is what the EU is now, I’m afraid.
No conclusions were reached in the time I was there. I had to leave after an hour to get to work. Maybe the riots in France were discussed, I don’t know.
The rest of the day was rather hectic. Being as I noted a bit hung-over didn’t help. Even so, I feel pretty good about work right now. My colleague and I have found a pretty effective way of dealing with the daily deluge of issues, and we’re even finding some time to handle unscheduled stuff. Of course, there’s a whole lot of issues remaining, such as the pay and pensions situation, but I feel I can’t do anything about that right now anyway.
The evening was a nice little Ubuntu-fest, as previously noted.
Posted at 16:42,
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