ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) has 25 members, and 13 of the 15 members up to May 2004 were former colonial powers, six of these with colonies in the Pacific. There is much talk of a democracy deficit in the EU, of Eurocrats becoming a Euro-caste not accountable to anybody. Corruption once flourished, it seems. A famous Soviet dissident compared the European Union to the Soviet Union, and identified a number of similarities that made him call for dissidents to rise, predicting a Soviet ending to the EU. There are benefits to be reaped from the democracy that exists, even if the European Union is close to sacred, protected by taboos that admit critique only beyond some details. The borderlines drawn for the European Union coincide largely with the almost millennium-old fault-lines in Europe. The EU peace within was a major achievement. Peace without still has to be built.
