President Obama, we are told, is to attend a "summit" with EU leaders in Lisbon in November, planning specifically to meet European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

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I just love the Yanks, they surely know what is going on in Europe yet say nothing to the contrary. I followed a link from a recent Brugesgroup email to a document that mentioned Freedom House, an American think tank on politcal freedom. They conduct a kind of world wide audit on the state of democratic health in each country. I naturally went to the page on the UK which gives an overview on our last thousand years or so of governance. I was just a little surprised to find no mention of the EU, considering it is the primary legislature in regards of quantity. I have emailed them because they invite questions and comment. I have questioned their ommission.

It really is quite intriguing how so many Septics don't "get" the EU. I suspect the construct is so very alien to them that they have difficulty in establishing a conceptual framework which enables them to understand it. However, one might suggest they try a little harder. They have had over fifty years to come up with something, which should be long enough, even for them.

I thought the US of A thinks of the EU as the US of E, at least in making. That it couldn't get there from here escapes them.

RAENORTH: "I suspect the construct is so very alien to them that they have difficulty in establishing a conceptual framework which enables them to understand it."

Doesn't that also apply to most Brits? It is difficult for people to understand an institution that manages to get elected politicians to willingly transfer "their" power to it, for such little apparent gain. I've had long conversations with some Canadians I was working with, trying to make them understand that the EU is a process of continuous integration and how it is driven by a pursuit of superpower status. I don't know if I convinced them. Their tendency was to see it as nothing more than an overly complex and bureaucratic version of NAFTA, and for British euro-scepticism to be nothing more than a quaint local tradition.

Yes, that's fair comment ... when our own people have difficulty understanding what it is all about, it is a little rich of me to expect the Septics to do better. But then, one has higher expectations of them.

The US understood very well the threat of a united europe under Fascism.
So they tried to shape European policy to suit their needs after WWII.
It worked very well untill the late 70's ,early 80's.
Then ..
It didn't.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Not sure the photo accurately depicts "what happened last time the Americans tried to share values with the Germans". Yes, the German's resisted - but in the end they saw the light (albeit through the holes in their roofs).