That's the propaganda line. In actuality, the EU is now a bigger economy, it is a motor for innovation, international comparisons of growth suffer from several apples-and-oranges problems thematised on ET in the past (hedonic pricing, different accounting, totals vs. per capita), and has been fuelled by the unsustainable financial bubble-boosting which Jérôme calls Anglo Disease. (That, in effect, is a tax on the economies of the rest of the world, too.) At any rate, I don't see how the size of the economy can be a rationale for alliance or vassaldom. We don't need to be allied to or be vassals to China, either.

They are our biggest and strongest ally.

Ally in what? I just don't understand what benefits you see in vassaldom to the USA, nor those national leaders. (We asked Atlanticists on ET before, but never got a real answer.) And for the record, being idependent doesn't mean cutting off. We aren't cut off from China, Japan, Russia or Australia, either.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}