Talk:European Union/Archive 8

message: Under the "Comparison with other Regional Blocks" economically, it seems that the AU (African Union) is missing?68.98.236.175 06:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regional Blocks: African Union  

message: Chinese GDP(PPP) goes in EU. after four years. Will you be true? If I continue an anual rate of 10% growth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.146.220.31 (talk) 10:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliability of GDP (PPP)?  

message: Part of the process of building a national identity for the European Union will be to produce a history of Europe that justifies the EU's existence.
How about "millenia of war"? Is that justification enough for a peaceful union?Stassa 14:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The quoted sentence seems to have been dropped into its section with little regard to the flow of the article.  More importantly, it's dripping with POV and begs all sorts of questions. The purpose of this article is to review what the EU is, has been and may become, on the basis of published sources.  It is not its business to say or imply that the EU is a good or bad thing, or that particular forms of future development are or are not desirable. Countersubject 15:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. It's extremely POV.  Delete it.  Indisciplined 14:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Identity 

message: The Lithuania link on the Economic Variation section of the main article is displayed in Chinese characters! (Mozilla 2.0/ UTF 8.0 encoding)
:Fixed the template. Someone rewrote Lithuania with Chinese characters. Gdo01 05:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bugs

message: Isn't it a bit odd to show French Guiana on the map of EU counties, even though it is technically part of France.
:And France is part of the EU (so by extension, so is French Guiana). What's your point? - Рэдхот(t • c • e) 22:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, maybe we should have a map showing all the overseas dependancies of Europe. I mean, if French Guiana is there, why not New Caledonia or Réunion? CeeWhy2 10:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: French Guyana and Réunion have been included in EU treaties. They should both be shown on the map. New Caledonia has a special status and is not part of EU.Michel Boulanger 01:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: French Guiana

message: Why is the whole "Institutions and legal framework" section removed currently?!?!? Alinor 13:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was deleted by an IP and not reverted completely by Antivandalbot. Its now restored. Gdo01 14:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whole section removed???! 

message: I dont think mentioning anything prior to European Coal and Steal Industry is necessary. I have many academic books charting the history of the EU and none of the content pre-dates the 20th centuary.
Alex Lickorish —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.5.42.1 (talk) 22:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History and origins 

message: I figure we should have a new map ready for when Romania and Bulgaria join. Zazaban 19:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New map. 

message: We should get ready for the new states Romania and Bulgaria joining on January 1st. Somethingoranother 19:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: January 1st

message: We could do with a new map for this section. Somethingoranother 21:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Map for Member States and Enlargement is needed

message: Why is the NPOV tag listed at the bottom in the categories section and this article is also listed on the Category:NPOV disputes page? I don't see the tag on the actual page so I'm thinking this is a bug? Strawberry Island 06:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's possibly been left over from some previous dispute but gone unoticed being at the end of the page. --Robdurbar 07:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV Tag is stuck on page? 

message: --J intela 02:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Flag of the European Union always contains 12 stars, with the number of stars not being based on the number of members. For this reason, the flag should not have 27 stars now that Romania and Bulgaria have joined (it didn't have 25 beforehand).  Ronline ✉ 02:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag should have 27 stars 

message: In the Common Agricultural Policy section the amounts are in British Pounds. It would be more appropriate if these were converted to Euro.
--80.126.175.197 19:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amounts in Euro 

message: I see that the Latin Motto "In varietate concordia" is not translated into English, Shouldn't it be? I was going to edit in the Translation "Unity in diversity", but there are so many warnings on that info box that I decided to ask here before proceeding. Is there some kind of consensus that it shouldn't be translated? The way I see it is, this is the English Language Wikipedia and surely everything should be translated into that language. Thoughts? --Hibernian 11:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an interesting issue, not the least because the difference between the commonly-used English version and the original has political implications.  The Latin concordia would be better translated as 'concord', 'harmony' or 'agreement', rather than 'unity', which speaks of a more uniform, centrally-defined approach to European integration.  It would be interesting to know if the translation in use has any official status, and whether it originates from an institution or individual with a POV on the form integration should take. Countersubject 13:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It should be translated, IMHO, but I don't think "Unity" is the right word to use.  I'm no Latin expert, but I don't think they have agreed to pursue unity, yet, much less acheived it.  "Harmony" is probably a good word.  Mdotley 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Though not in force, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe contains an English translation of this Motto, which has therefore a more or less official status : see article I-8 "The motto of the Union shall be: ‘United in diversity’." French Tourist 18:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are two interesting things here.  Firstly, it's suggested that the origin of Unity in Diversity is an unadopted constitution.  If this is so, then it has no official status, and shouldn't be quoted in the article as 'the motto'.  Secondly, it appears the constitution has changed the motto, at least in its English form, to emphasise unity rather than harmony.  That speaks volumes for the thrust of the constitution, but nothing for the validity of Unity in Diversity as a translation of In varietate concordia. Countersubject 22:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I guess it's a moot point whether some knowledge of a language in which one pretends no great expertise (beyond what little I remember from school) counts as original research.  I wouldn't have thought so, but if you'd like on-line references, try Merriam-Webster for the etymology of concord ("from Latin concordia") and unity ("from Latin unitat-, unitas, from unus one").  As to your suggestion that the folks at the EU know Latin, so we should accept their translation: that rather misses the interesting point that Unity in Diversity appears to be a development of the motto, that reflects its origin in a constitution (yet to be ratified) designed to centralise many aspects of EU law and administration. BTW, that's not a POV observation - I don't pass any judgement on the desirability of the proposed constitution.  I think you have a point about my change of "The European Motto" to "An EU Motto".  "The EU motto" would be better.  "The European Motto" is inaccurate, because the EU isn't the same as Europe - just ask the Norwegians and the Swiss!  As to whether the Latin motto in the info box should be accompanied by an English translation - I agree with you in principle, but there are practical difficulties.  We could add "concord in diversity", but that would miss the proposed English form, a development of some interest.  If instead we add "unity in diversity", that would be inaccurate.  And unfortunately an info box is the wrong place to explain more fully!  There is currently a footnote link from the motto to the European Symbols article, where the issue is described at greater length. Countersubject 15:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I've just checked the series of versions in question, and neither the definite nor the indefinite article was present in any of them.  It went from "European motto" to "EU motto". Countersubject 15:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see you were referring to the other article! Countersubject 22:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motto Translation 

message: There have been some unsigned changes to the France part of the table of GDP figures today, which checking up on I see lead only to further confusion. For example, the comments above the table state that the data set is for 2007 and the source information below that the primary data is the CIA World Fact Book, which typically only has 2005 estimates; and the IMF website data tables, which are 2007 estimates, but not for population. Therefore I presume that we need to change the comments and also recalculate the first column to be a calculation based on the IMF data multiplied by the most recent population data. The unsigned figure given today for France is wrong on these criteria, but so was the previous one! The remaining question if we do this (for example I am willing to do the calculations) is which set of population data to use? I propose the official EU website figures. MarkThomas 13:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A certain amount of chaos in the Economic variation table of GDP figures 

message: Can I please suggest that the current issues header be merged with the criticisms header down below on the EU article? I would be happy to do this, because they both cover (excellently explained) similar, overlapping ground. Thoughts? Wikidea 07:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging "current issues" with "criticisms" 

message: The European history website indicates as I have said.
The CIA factbook does not mention Bulgarian and Romanian as forthcoming languages (mid-December update) Jackiespeel 18:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other websites