stigweard,

Quite right. The EU is a very different sort of entity inits nature and origins from the USA. It's a good thing, too. It illustrates a lesson that many of my countrymen and, sadly, most in the US Government have yet to learn -- that the US model is not for everyone and will not work everywhere.

Stephen Lee

BTW, my bad. That was a typo and shopuld have read "the EU as a whole". Sorry.