EU in the news

There are a couple of interesting articles highlighting the EU today.

In the first, we see a continuing story in which the EU seems to be getting more and more involved in Israeli matters (something we have been looking for):

"Ashton calls on Israel to open border crossings to Gaza"

On her second trip to the Middle East, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Israel to open border crossings to Gaza and fully lift the "unacceptable" blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory.

Her return to the region, only four months after her first visit there, was aimed to "show EU support" and press the Israeli authorities on lifting a four-year blockade imposed on the Gaza strip.

Speaking after a meeting with Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, the British peer welcomed the recent ease of the blockade as "an important step forward," but stressed that the EU continues to see the embargo as "unacceptable, unsustainable and counterproductive."

That's interesting enough, but here comes the kicker (recall we were just speculating on the possibility of the EU sending peace-keeping forces to the region which may represent the "confirming" of the covenant of Daniel 9:27, (link here)):

Ms Ashton said she could envisage sending EU monitors to the crossings to "support a smooth handling of goods", as long as the Western-backed Palestinian Authority was also involved.

Very interesting. EU "monitors" to the crossings. That sounds a lot like peace-keeping forces, just given another name.
But this story even gets worse - now the EU offers to send even more money to the Palestinian Authority:

On Saturday, the EU official also met the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, to whom she pledged an extra €40 million as "direct financial support."

In more EU news, the following article speaks for itself:

"EU to hold atheist and freemason summit"

Brussels is to hold an EU summit with atheists and freemasons in the autumn, inviting them to a political dialogue parallel to the annual summit the bloc holds with Europe's religious leaders.

Under pressure from Belgium, which constitutionally protects and financially supports humanist organisations as well as churches, the EU has been forced to hold a mirror-image summit, but of atheists, scheduled for 15 October.

However, in a move that perplexed and annoyed humanist groups, the EU atheist summit will also welcome under the rubric of ‘non-religious groups', the Freemasons, the secretive fraternal organisation, according to commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein.

This alone is interesting, but there is more. Even their annual summit with "religious leaders" has a twist.

While the EU is a secular body, the three European presidents, of the commission, parliament and EU Council, alongside two commissioners, on Monday met with 24 bishops, chief rabbis, and muftis as well as leaders from the Hindu and Sikh communities. The annual dialogue, which has taken place since 2005, is for the first time this year made legally obligatory under Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has had its nose put out at the annual EU summit with religious leaders by the presence for the first time this year of Hindus and Sikhs.

According to La Croix, the French Roman Catholic daily, the church, happy to embrace an ecumenism of the great monotheistic faiths at the EU level, fears that the enlargement of the meeting to include such groups beyond those "more anchored across the whole of the continent," suggests the EU is being "religiously correct".

According to a spokesman for President Van Rompuy, next year the meeting could include a Buddhist.

So there are now two such annual meetings. The first, considered their "religious" summit, involved Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs and now Buddhists are apparently added to the mix. The "non-religious summit" includes atheists, Freemasons and humanists. How interesting. During the Tribulation these groups will merge in forced worship of the antichrist. It would be interesting to see how that evolves - but I don't plan on sticking around to see it.








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