PRODI: NEW EUROPE - SEMI-PRODUCT

KOPER/TRIESTE, Jan 12 (Hina) - An enlarged European Union can become a global superpower, but it will not become a single nation like the United States. In addition, mechanisms of decision-making must enable small countries and nations which are joining it to have the right to voice their opinion, the European Commission President, Romano Prodi, said in en interview with a Slovene radio station "Radio Koper". The excerpts of his interview were published by the Trieste-based "Il Piccolo" daily. #L# "Europe with its population of one half billion, has great potentials, but they remain unused as we do not speak in one voice. If we do not simplify rules for the decision-making, then the functioning of the EU with 25 countries will be a problem, as the principle of consensus, present in many fields, has become impossible," Prodi said. "Big countries will not dominate over Europe at the cost of small ones. Every decision will be made by a majority, but the number of residents in one country should be also taken into account, and in some situations small countries - if necessary - can block decisions of those big nations. This is an authentic Europe," he added. Prodi explained that European peoples will preserve their cultural differences and specific features and they will not be melted into one nation like it was a model of the melting pot in the United States. "We are not and we do not want to be the United States. Slovenes will never speak Italian or English but the Slovenian language. This is the mainstay of Europe," he said. He added that the European system will discard a concept of "the exclusive loyalty" to the state and nation, and in the Union, all people would feel loyalty to "the European Union, their own country, and often to their own region and city." In the last century the loyalty only to the state or nation caused many tragedies such as Nazism and Communism, since that those systems were based on the concept of exclusive loyalty, the EC President said. (hina) ms