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Abstract: The European Union finally succeeded in ramming through introduction of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. The treaty was touted by the powers in Brussels as the vehicle that would create the long-awaited "single phone line" to Europe. Lisbon was to streamline the gargantuan EU bureaucracy and make communication between the two sides of the Atlantic smooth and tidy. Instead, the mess is worse than before, with five EU "presidents" tripping over each other and confusing Washington with ill-defined, overlapping, and flat-out confusing roles and foreign policy objectives. The Lisbon Treaty essentially allows the EU a foreign policy power-grab, the driving force of which is the notion that the countries of Europe will be stronger collectively than they are separately....
TAGGED: European Union,
European council,
Barack Obama,
President ,
Europe,
Washington,
Lisbon,
United States