Hi all,
Some of you might remember a half-asleep group that I sometimes "revive" when something excites me, the Virtual Governance group. I still have some ideas left for discussions that I didn't manage to host, but I came up with a topic which might be interesting for us CDSers.
One of the things I always loved about our community is the rather well-balanced number of citizens on both sides of the Atlantic. Entering into our 10th year, it shows that we can go well beyond cultural differences and find common ground — and mostly, share a lot of experiences. I'm not ashamed to say that practically everything I learned from common law was thanks to the CDS 
Now, apparently our world leaders are thinking along similar lines. Presidents Obama (US) and Barroso (EU) have announced a Free Trade Union between the US and te EU, negotiations starting in June and probably going to take about 2 years (which is not much, considering all that it entails!). I'm actually surprised that this bit of news didn't get much coverage, except for a few scattered articles and opinions on the day of the announcement (during the State of Union address). One US commentator went through the whole of Obama's speech, pretty much criticizing it all the way, but "forgot" to talk about the US-EU trade union! That's how little attention it deserved!
Both presidents also explained that it will be "more" than merely abolishing import taxes at customs. This has been in "secret" conversations for a year now, but it's clear that both partners in the future union wish to go beyond that, and include things like freedom of travel, residence, and work. In a sense, this would be similar to the status that countries like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland already have — their agreements with the EU already provide much more than merely "free trade". It's expected that the agreements with the US will be similar.
The possibilities are tremendous. But so are the obstacles. On the US side, we already know that farmers want free access to the EU market, and this means dropping the protectionism the EU has regarding agricultural produce, which will require dramatic changes. On the EU's side, they want to flood the US market with much cheaper BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis, which troubles the struggling car industry in the US, which has barely recovered from the serious blow, but was already on the right track. So things won't be easy. I think that 2 years is very optimistic, and very likely, it will be a step-by-step approach. It also raises some interesting questions about the UK: will they leave the EU and apply for the same "free trade" status as the US? Or will the US and the EU grow closer together — say, emitting a new currency, the eurodollar or something like that! — and leave the UK behind? All this is quite mind-boggling And, of course, what will China do? (since both presidents were quite clear that the major reason for the mega-trade-union was to keep the Chinese at bay)
So, I think I'm going to hold a discussion event on this, next Sunday, March 3rd, at 3 PM SLT.
Now all I need is a place I usually pick the Amphitheatre in Colonia Nova, since it's not overly laggy, and is one of the spots in the CDS where I can actually announce events through the Linden's system. But I see that the Amphitheatre has been the stage for a lot of activity lately, and is all set for the next round of events. So, I'm open to ideas. Where do you wish this to take place?
And could you point me to the law dealing with the restrictions on event hosting again? The one bigger than my head? I am trying hard to find it atm. I am looking forward to see a thread dealing with event policy in general shortly btw and I place value on your input.
