As the European Council meets in Brussels to consider the EU’s future direction, it’s a real challenge for any observer to wade through the confusion of conflicting rumors and stories to get to the reality of what this is all about.

There’s only one way to make sense of the European Union today, and that is to understand the true origin of the vision of a united Europe, to comprehend the repetitive history of its leading national group and its leading spiritual guide, and to see this all in the light of unbending Bible prophecies for our time. Our archive contains countless reports monitoring the rise of the European Union to power. This article deals with what is really happening today behind the scenes in Europe.

The next few weeks are crucial to the future of the European Union for a number of reasons, all of them technical, one creating a domino effect on the other.

First, the most vital issue at the heart of all things under consideration by the European Council at its summit over the two-day period October 29-30 is the ratification of the European treaty. That is a necessary technicality, the fulfillment of which immediately triggers four things: the creation of an EU presidency, the creation of an EU Foreign Ministry and diplomatic corps, the consolidation of a European defense industry, and the creation of a pan-European military force.

The fly in the ointment technically preventing this all from going ahead is Czech President Vaclav Klaus. He has held out for an opt-out on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The media hullabaloo that this has created is a whole lot of hot air. Precedents for such an opt-out already exist by the granting of such already to the UK and Poland. It was just a matter of time till the same was granted to the Czech Republic. It is anticipated that the Czech opt-out will be approved during the current EU Council summit. All that Klaus has done is delay the inevitable—the timing of Lisbon’s full ratification.

But Klaus also triggered a challenge to the constitutionality of the Lisbon Treaty within his country, which case is presently being heard by the Czech Constitutional Court. Its decision is anticipated on November 3. It is considered that the court will endorse its previous decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Lisbon Treaty. For the maverick Klaus, this was another simple delaying tactic which he realized in the end that the EU elites would steamroll over.

Once that decision is publicized, the EU leader currently presiding in the rotational six-month presidency of the EU, Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, intends to call yet another EU summit, tentatively scheduled for November 12, to name the first permanent president of the European Council and the next high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, both being new positions created by the Lisbon Treaty.

But all these technicalities are a mere smokescreen for the reality of what the EU elites are really up to. As Vaclav Klaus so realistically observed, “The train carrying the treaty is moving so fast and (has) reached so far that it can neither be stopped nor returned, though many people would like to do that” (Lidove Noviny, October 17).

As witness to this, attesting to the determination of EU elites to let nothing stop that EU locomotive from further gathering steam, Brussels has had scores of trainee diplomats being prepared in numerous EU member countries for the overnight transfiguration of the European Commission’s offices around the world into EU embassies and consulates as soon as the new EU foreign minister is appointed.

Hence, the establishment of the EU diplomatic corps is one of the prime items on the agenda in Brussels at the current Council meeting. As European Voice reports (October 29):

“The leaders of the EU’s national governments are to endorse the broad outlines of the future EU diplomatic service during a summit in Brussels today and tomorrow (October 29-30). …On the assumption that the treaty is going to come into effect, the summit will approve a document, agreed by foreign ministers on Monday (October 26), that aims to guide the Union’s next foreign policy chief in setting up the European External Action Service (eeas), which is to assist him or her in implementing EU foreign policy.

The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, is, in the meantime, hidebound. Under the headline “Power Drains Away From Lame-Duck Commission,” European Voice observed, “The European Commission will be in a state of limbo from Sunday (November 1), unable to launch legislative proposals or initiatives because of uncertainty over its legal powers” (October 29).

There can be no doubt that this is a position into which Barroso has been cleverly maneuvered in preparation for the deliberate weakening of the European Commission upon the appointment of the two new EU gurus. Barroso’s Commission has been cleverly placed in a lame-duck position giving space to the new EU chiefs to move in and establish their respective power bases without the Commission’s interference. Barroso’s worst fears are about to be realized. He is destined to become but a puppet of the new EU high representative, who will also become vice president of the EU Commission. Barroso will be the meat in a cleverly crafted EU foreign-policy sandwich. You’ve got to hand it to those cloak-and-dagger German Catholic elites.

So, in the final analysis, what’s it all about?

Take an objective look at what that visionary observer of European affairs, Herbert Armstrong, prophesied decades ago (Plain Truth, November 1965):

Watch for developments suddenly to speed toward European political and military union, through religious union! [I]n very few years at most, it must start. And when it does, events will flash by with a lightning speed that will astound the world.There is a very significant prophecy: “The beast (Roman Empire) that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit … and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder!” (Revelation 17:8).This sudden blitz toward union … once triggered … will move so swiftly the whole world will be caught by surprise. Yes indeed! They shall wonder in amazement!”

Herbert Armstrong may well have been a man way ahead of his time. But that’s what makes his revelatory vision of these events so much more arresting. He could see the reality of world events of today actually occurring in their biblically revealed context literally decades before they have come about in our day!

Bible prophecy is a most powerful proof of the existence of Almighty God! It is the most powerful endorsement of the reality that it is the great Creator of mankind who sets up even the basest of men over nations and groups of nations to fulfill His divine will (Daniel 4:17).