If you're going to base all your thing on a totally unrealistic vision of Europe then yeah, your points stand.
But so we're clear, all the points the original article was making was about Europe as a an economic entity, most likely not including the likes of Ruasia and Kazakhstan (which you're obviously not afraid to do to reach that quite ludicrous and irrelevant figure of 750+ million people).
At this rate you might as well include all of Africa and Asia in Europe too.
The population of Europe is 739 million and going by the number of Russians I meet here in Scotland and on holiday in France and the Med they seem to be joining in pretty well with the European cultural milieu...
I suspect people from outside of Europe don't appreciate how much things have changed in the last 25 years - all for the better as far as I can see:
> If you're going to base all your thing on a totally unrealistic vision of Europe then yeah, your points stand.
That's like saying the US only consists of New York + D.C. + the Midwest + California.
> all the points the original article was making was about Europe as a an economic entity
Then why didn't he write "the EU" instead of "Europe"? But even if he had, many of his statements would still be wrong. For instance much of what he said didn't apply to Germany (and that's a pretty solid player in the EU).
But so we're clear, all the points the original article was making was about Europe as a an economic entity, most likely not including the likes of Ruasia and Kazakhstan (which you're obviously not afraid to do to reach that quite ludicrous and irrelevant figure of 750+ million people).
At this rate you might as well include all of Africa and Asia in Europe too.