EU= Peewee football Team

What does the EU and a typical American peewee football team have in common?
Often, the last picks (read: unpopular kids) end up pulling their own weight on the team,while the quarterbacks and runningbacks enjoy the glory but shy away from real responsibility when the game is lost.

The last picks being Poland,Latvia,Malta,Lithuania,Bulgaria and the like. When these countries joined the EU in the 2000s there was a lot of negative sentiment from the citizens of the already existing EU member countries,which I experienced first-hand while traveling.These 'last-pick' countries seemed unable to convince anyone that they deserved to play in the major league,although they clearly and by their own right, met the requirements for sitting at the big-kid table ,also known as the Copenhagen Criteria.

Nevertheless, the 27 member countries of the EU have spent all year trying to tighten its financial belt, but a lack of consensus has made it impossible to belt that notch. Not surprisingly, smaller, dorkier ,last-pick countries on the pee-wee team have not been the ones gracing the international first-pages with their indecision, rather the larger, more confident countries have. British Prime Minister James Cameron has refused to abide by all the regulations in the new fiscal treaty, claiming that not all of them are in "Britains interest". Someone should have let him know that there's no I in TEAM. Hungary and Sweden are also reluctant to commit. Incidentally, both Britain and Hungary continue to use their on currency, both valued higher than the euro, despite enjoying the rest of the membership benefits of a currency union.

One simply must wonder when all the bickering will end and each nation will realize that joining the EU means taking responsibility for ones own actions but also dealing with the consequences of others'.