At the outset, the European Union’s (EU) champions presented it as a plan to increase trade and lessen restrictions on travel among the nations of Western Europe. But the EU’s leaders have forged it into a powerful political force, swallowing up national sovereignty and threatening the personal freedom of all who reside in member nations.

Americans must take a hard look at this emerging superstate because we have been placed on an identical slippery slope. The lure of gaining enhanced economic activity via NAFTA, the Free Trade Association of the Americas, the World Trade Organization, and other economic pacts will lead our nation to the same loss of sovereignty and freedoms that Europeans now face.

New awareness about the ultimate goal of the EU is taking hold throughout Europe. During 2001, for instance, the Austrian people gathered the constitutionally required number of signatures on a petition seeking to have their government reconsider EU membership. But Austria’s pro-EU leaders promptly rejected the petition. Having previously assured the people that entry into the new European structure would never adversely impact national sovereignty, Austrian leaders now insist that the people voted for everything the EU has become when, years ago, they opted for EU membership.

The Charter’s Article 21 reads: “Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation, shall be prohibited.” Another article states that the unelected European Council “may take appropriate action to combat discrimination.”

Professor Roberto de Mattei of Italy’s Monte Cassino University notes that “it is difficult to find a term as ambiguous as ‘discrimination.’” In his analysis in the U.S.-based Chronicles, he insists that the “pretense of abolishing any form of discrimination constitutes an act of brutal egalitarianism.” He predicts that a clergyman who praises the traditional family, condemns homosexual unions, or upholds traditional moral standards will invite “criminal sanctions.” Ultimately, he claims, the Charter that is to be the basis for a new European constitution exudes “a totalitarian spirit [that] will provide an indispensable tool to corner those who do not identify with the new European values.”

German economist/journalist Dr. Bruno Bandulet sees the influence of Antonio Gramsci in this Charter. A diehard communist, Gramsci held that total power could best be achieved by attacking a region’s culture. Bandulet insists that “the family” is its main target, and the Charter’s goal is “changing society, [a] part of the arsenal of culture revolutionaries since the 60s.”

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, approved in Nice, France, in December 2000, is an excellent indicator of the EU’s totalitarian goals. Drafted by a commission assembled from EU nations, the Charter’s preamble and 54 articles were officially designated “unamendable” and sent to EU nations for ratification.

Last June, however, Ireland’s voters rejected the Nice Treaty in a referendum vote of 54-46 percent. (Voters in other nations were never given the opportunity to reject it.) Because the treaty cannot take effect until all 15 EU member nations approve it, Ireland’s move has bought time for the rest of Europe. Yet Ireland’s pro-EU Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and other EU leaders are demanding a second Irish referendum. Anti-EU leader Brian Flanagan sees in the treaty “the end of citizenship in Ireland as we have known it … and the annihilation before long of our traditions and laws created over centuries with inexpressable courage.”

According to Jesper Morville of Denmark’s People’s Movement Against the EU, the EU began forcing member nations to strengthen their laws against terrorism prior to the September 11th attacks on the United States. He claims that the increased concern over terrorism has as its goal “the harmonization of each nation’s laws on the way to destroying national sovereignty.”

Only eight days after the September 11th attacks, the EU produced its “Council Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism.” As with other EU statements, this one is the product of the non-elected EU commissioners who claim the power to impose their views on member nations. Its extremely broad definition of terrorism begins with the stipulation that a terrorist’s crime must have “the aim of intimidating [the people] and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structure” of a country. But a partial listing of punishable terrorist crimes includes: “murder; bodily injuries; kidnapping; hostage taking; threats; extortion; theft; robbery; fabrication, possession, acquisition, transport or supply of weapons or explosives; and unlawful seizure of or damage to state or government facilities, means of public transport, infrastructure facilities, places of public use, and property (both public and private).”

Morville believes this definition could include “minor civil disobedience.” He wonders if mere dissent about the EU will eventually be added. He believes that “instead of fighting terrorism, the E.U. is introducing state terrorism.”

Americans must learn from the plight of Europeans who are losing freedom — because they believed economic gains were the only goal of each new attack on sovereignty.