EU on the Brink of Big Changes

Watching the early stages of the transformation of the revived Roman Empire is fascinating. We know how it will end up, we just don't know what the process will be. Either way, this process has most definitely started, as we watch the news coming from Europe:

France plots eurozone 'breakaway group'

France is drawing up plans to create a breakaway organisation of eurozone countries with its own treaty, parliament and headquarters – a move that could significantly undermine the existing European Union.

The proposal would see a formal "union within a union" created, but would lead to a significant deterioration in Britain's influence in Europe.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has warned Mr Cameron that unless he accepts unconditional changes to the Lisbon Treaty a split will take place, leaving Britain isolated and in a voting minority within the EU

"She explicitly told Cameron that if there was no treaty change at the level of the 27 EU members then others will peel off, which is not what she wants," a senior EU diplomat told The Daily Telegraph.

Jean-Claude Piris, a former senior EU official, has come out of retirement to "help the eurozone in the current crisis" by working on a blueprint for the new union and its separate institutions. Mr Piris is the "eminence grise'' of EU legal texts and is credited with the Lisbon Treaty, the failed EU Constitution and their predecessors, the Nice, Amsterdam and Maastricht treaties.

He has argued that it would be “far better” to create “an avant-garde group, probably based on the current 17 members of the euro area” than attempt treaty change.

This next article isn't so much as the title suggests, but more about the coming transformation of the EU:

Death of the Euro

French and German officials have already set up a secretive cabal known as the “Frankfurt Group” to pursue their federalist agenda and bully Britain.

The Brussels source insisted the plan was not about creating a two-tier Europe but a radical re-drawing of the entire euro project.

Mr Cameron, in his starkest assessment of the crisis yet, confirmed that the Government was engrossed in contingency planning for the unravelling of the single currency.

“If the leaders of the eurozone want to save their currency then they, together with the institutions of the eurozone, must act now. The longer the delay, the greater the danger,” he said. “Here in Britain, outside the euro, we must prepare for every eventuality, and that is exactly what we will do.”

Mr Cable went even further by conceding that officials were examining the dangers of an “Armageddon narrative” in the eurozone.

Confirming that the Government’s contingency planning for a euro break-up was well under way, he said: “We have a plan. There’s a lot of scenario planning, thinking about all possible outcomes. We have to deal with the world as it is.”

Eurozone crisis: stained hands of banker tasked with cleaning up the Greek mess

Lucas Papademos, who was governor of the Bank of Greece for eight years, was appointed leader of an interim government, backed by the four largest parties, following the resignation of George Papandreou.

However, there was an angry reaction on the streets to the choice of Mr Papademos, who was one of the key players in Greece's entry into the eurozone a decade ago – a process allegedly underpinned by statistical fraud about the real state of the country's economy.

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund had issued an ultimatum to Greek politicians to back a technocrat-led national government last week.

It's The End Of The Eurozone As We Know It

Just a few interesting nuggets from this article - an article that gets to the essence of the whole EU "crisis":

Whether such apocalyptic rhetoric is a ruse designed to concentrate more power into the hands of the EU as part of the drive towards a federal superstate remains to be seen. The fact that the euro currency itself has actually risen over the past 48 hours suggests that the collapse is by no means imminent.

We know that the agenda is to create a centralized European economic government that would dictate decisions to all member states.

Whether that takes the form of a newly stripped-down eurozone or whether it will come into being as a result of Brussels exploiting the current crisis to pose as saviors matters little – the goal remains the same.

Eurocrats are keen on exploiting the debt crisis in a bid to create a “United States of Europe” led by European Council president Herman van Rompuy

For months, EU leaders have been fearmongering over the consequences of member states abandoning the single currency, warning that a euro collapse would lead to martial law and even civil war.

Their “solution” is to hand themselves even more power to create a common economic policy that all member states would be forced to follow at the expense of their national sovereignty, a de facto financial government for the whole of Europe.

And while the EU situation dominates the news right now, lets not forget the Middle East, as we see two very interesting articles today:

"Al-Qaeda acquires Gadhafi's weapons"

Al-Qaeda’s North Africa franchise acknowledged it had acquired part of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s arsenal, in comments by one of its leaders quoted Nov. 9.

Officials and experts have expressed concern that part of Gadhafi’s considerable stock of weapons could end up in the hands of AQIM, which has bases in the Sahel and currently holds several foreign hostages. According to several experts, AQIM has acquired surface-to-air missiles which could pose a threat to flights over the region.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also urged Libya’s new leaders to quickly bring under control unsecured munitions. U.N. Security Council before urged Libya to prevent such weapons from reaching terrorists and other armed groups. It also called on Libyan authorities to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles in coordination with international authorities.

Libyan mercenaries arrive in Gaza with Grad multiple rocket launchers

Fifty Libyan Muslim Brotherhood mercenaries arrived in the Gaza Strip from Tripoli last month - in time to take part in the Jihad Islami's last missile offensive against Israel starting Oct. 29, DEBKAfile's military sources report.

They arrived at the wheels of minivans on which were mounted the new Grad multiple rocket-launchers which Palestinian terrorists fired for the first time last month. These mobile rocket-launchers were last seen on the Libyan battlefield in use against Muammar Qaddafi's army.

The minivans mounted with the Grad multiple rocket launchers had been moved out of Libya by a separate route and were waiting in the care of Bedouin smugglers beside a Sinai wadi near the old copper mines of Ras Sudar.

Our military sources report that, Qatar and the United Arab Republic had supplied these advanced rocket-launchers to assorted Libyan National Transitional Council militias, their accurate fire against designated targets intended to counter the precision of the Libyan army's artillery.

But their effectiveness was demonstrated most strikingly after Qaddafi's fall in the Gaza Strip, where they instantly improved the Palestinian extremists' aim against Israeli locations. Most of these rapid-firing missiles were also able to evade Israel's Iron Dome missile interceptors.

The Libyan convoy had to travel some 2,000 kilometers through Egypt to reach the Gaza Strip, raising questions about how it had failed to arouse the notice of local security units.

Western sources discovered that the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood had made all the necessary arrangements for the Libyan Brotherhood mercenaries' long trek to Gaza under its protection, and more are on the way.