Congrats, Miklos Vamos!

Your comment describes the situation of the European Union perfectly. It's time to realize that the European Union is just the modern version of the U.S.S.R. and the hope of the people in Eastern Europe will become a nightmare. No doubt, the European Union will also collapse like the U.S.S.R. back in the last century, therefore, it's time to make new friends on the other side of the pond. That's the best the people from Eastern Europe can do in order to preserve their independence.

You simply need time for peaceful development.

One of the best features of the EU, not accidentally, is that its global power is not much infected by the sort of exceptionalist nationalism which infected the USSR's power, and which is at the centre of US power & policies. That makes the EU is a welcome counterweight to US aggressiveness.

Mr Vamos:
Of all the panelist, I would like most to respond to you. Hungary has many things to offer the EU and the World. You must be creative in captializing on them, i.e., making money. The future is yours to create. A future without europeans killing one another offers the opportunity for happiness. If anything, I believe the bloody history of europe has finally convinced them that happiness is not found in bloody conquest. It is found in good health and the ability to walk down the street and not be called a DIRTY JEW. Thanks.

Mr. CB et al: Thank you for the correction. Praise be all and thee. huggs n kisses from Brookltn, N.Y., Ya, Ya, TONKIN Shane! :-)"

Not only is Hungary not the land of Dracula, it is also not the land of the Tasmanian Devil. Those are found in Tasmania, an island state of Australia.

Congratulations, you've taken your country's first step....

...in becoming a state.

I more often than not feel quite uncomfortable reading what its latest members have to say on Europe, more particularly Eastern Europeans.

Will I say what I really think?

It seems to me (a non-European) that they are being abusively critical of what they need the most, and should at least go easy at it, at least until they have contributed enough to the community to be in a position to raise their voice... little by little.

We are told that "not much has changed within Hungary since the celebrations began. The EU... is after all merely a union of independent states." Indeed. It is therefore the responsibility of the new members to adapt, develop and contribute. From what gets written by them generally, I conclude that they make it quite clear THEY still have a long way to go before they can claim to be, fully, twenty-first century Europeans.

Here is a major case in point. Apparently, Miklos Vamos would like very much to see not only "the EU... be the number two superpower in this world...", but also "act as a superpower on the global scene"!

I am not convinced that has been the foremost preoccupation of Europeans, in recent years. Nor do I think it is a major European goal, at the moment. Playing the superpower game remains very much an (exclusively?) American obsession.

Part of being European, from now on, may very well begin by being rid, first, of that obsession... and to abstain from playing footsie with superman, while others are looking away, busying themselves at more essential activities for all.

Hungary is the land of gypsys and land of goulash (i like it alot) but not the land of DRACULA,DRACULA IS PART OF ANOTHER EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY TO THE EAST OF HUNGARY, ROMANIA