COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I find your analysis refreshing here in Europe. Sometimes we cannot always look in the mirror objectively. You are correct that perhaps the greatest fault in trying to create the euro has been this idea of forcing one culture upon everyone in Europe. The feelings about the EU are very different in the south compared to the north.

Thank you for being unbiased. It does help to see things through different eyes.

PD

REPLY: Perspective is everything. When I speak to people in government in Italy, they see the EU as oppressive and believe their country is now occupied with the will of Brussels being imposed against their own culture. I have lived in Europe and I have probably spent 1/3rd of my life there. What I LOVED about Europe was indeed the diverse culture. Language has been the greatest stumbling block. Even myself, very short trips running around between countries puts a different strain on you. In just 10 days, I was in Germany, then flew to Zurich, then down to Milan, over the Paris, off to London, and then back to Frankfurt. While I was checking into a hole in Paris, there was a Japanese couple trying to check in and the hotel had nobody to speak Japanese. I then stepped in trying to help. After a few days, you try to speak and a missmash comes out of several languages combined and you are so tired, it gets hard to keep flipping between the languages. I LOVE Europe for that, but not on a business trip of rushing around in the middle of madness. Even getting cash from an ATM varied depending on the country you were in. In Switzerland, 1,000 CHF was no problem. In Paris, €200 euros was max.

There is absolutely no open question that the European Union remains a very diverse Union. There are significant differences in the concerns of the people in the EU as a whole. I have explained that Southern Europe got the worse deal. They converted their debts to Euro and then the Euro rose from 80 cents to $1.60 doubling their national debts and the austerity policy forced economic recession upon their economies. In southern European countries, the YouGov polls showed that unemployment was seen as the major issue, but this was less so elsewhere in northern Europe where the number one issue was terrorism.

The terrorism was viewed as a major issue in Britain, France and Germany, where the terrorist acts have been primarily targeted. The number one concern was health and social security when you turned to Poland and it was a top concern also in northern European countries. Lithuania was the only place where inflation was the most important current issue. Sweden was the only country where crime came in the top three, but this was related to the immigration issue which is beginning to create a new Separatist movement there as well.

While the whole thing with global warming seems to be mostly confined to northern Europe rather than southern. Nevertheless, the refugee crisis, of immigration crisis as well as rising terrorism as a result, are clearly the two top issues across the EU as a whole. The YouGov poll is indeed showing the diversity among the cultures within the Eurozone. This idea that one central government can dictate policies to be imposed on the whole is a failed model that has brought about the communist revolutions. Even in the USA, there are 12 branches of the Federal Reserve BECAUSE after the Panic of 1907, it was realized that there was a great diversity economically throughout the United States. We have called it the Texas-New York Arbitrage for when commodities boom, New York suffers. That diversity was suppressed by Roosevelt to impose one central policy on the nation to fight World War II. It was never returned to normal and this once again is fueling regional discontent despite the single language. ONE-SIZE does not fit all and Europe copies the Roosevelt model rather than understand the history behind the economy. It was the diversity that made America work. The same is true in Europe. You cannot force cultural change to this ONE-SIZE fits all policy. It will fuel the separatists as it is doing in the United States to a lessor degree driven more by left v right politics

COMMENT:  Dear Mr. Armstrong, I look to help others as you do.

My wife turned 60 in June and we planned a trip to Milan and Lake Como on June 30.  We arrived at the airport in Nashville yesterday, checked in, printed our boarding passes and tagged our luggage, then presented our tagged luggage to the AA attendant.  She reviewed our passports to verify the name matched the luggage tags and boarding pass, then said we could NOT board the plane.  We were told that my passport expires less than 60 days before our return flight and we would not be allowed to board without an updated passport.  I spoke to the gate manager at AA and he indicated we would be deported if we arrived and checked in to Italian customs.  My passport does not expire until a month after our return, but we were told it has to be 6 months.

When we purchased the Airline tickets, we entered the passport information to include the exp date.  No problem was indicated.  We checked in the Airport with our Passports and entered the exp date. No problems. We had to process all the way to the gate to be told we could not travel.  How does this happen with the advanced computer systems we have today?  How costly could it be to update the program for buying tickets to reject a passport number with an exp date of 6 months or less?  AA told us it was not their fault, but they stand to gain significantly with change fees.  I have been traveling internationally since 1981 and have never encountered this problem.  I have not spoken to a person who travels internationally that knew about this rule.

….

Best,

John

REPLY: Each country has different rules. The 6 month rule is also applied by the USA to foreigners and that also applies to visas. Any employee from Ukraine has to have a visa that will not expire in less than 6 months in order to come here even if their passport is good for 10 years. I have a very good travel agent who books me on international flights in the most amazing ways. Often they will be one-way tickets because meetings pop-up often during a crisis and so it is not always black and white when I have to travel overseas. Some just learned through the grape-vine that I am in their country and requests begin.

Most of the time I have no problem even with one way tickets. The only country that causes a problem in France. I must have a return ticket out of France. One from Greece does not count for some strange reason. My agent will book a first class return fully refundable for me to land booking that the day before. When I arrive, he cancels it and I can then go on my way around Europe. The easier work-around is to travel to France within the EU and fly into Frankfurt or Brussels first.

It is the airline fault for their computers should flag a passport that expires in less than 6 months. There are many countries that do have that rule, yet it varies. Best to renew a passport more than 6 months before it does expires just to be safe.