Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

The common currency is established as is a common foreign policy, common civic rights and obligations, a common army is on its way and an EU Chancellor for tax raising is on the horizon. Police force? Well Interpol.

Escaping from the EU will become progressively more difficult and will reach impossibility on the peaceful side armed revolution.

Maybe tgere was a chance of avoiding the demise ofvEuropean Nation States while the UK acted to block such things, but the UK saw it coming and wanted out.

Who was Poland anyway?

It may also be that he is shrewder than we think, and that could have long-lasting consequences, particularly for the EU, and I am not sure we're going to like it. The EU has not been in such a strong position as now for about 20 years. The last time was in the middle 1990's when the dust from the collapse of the Iron Curtain had mostly settled. [Then we] got the Maastricht Treaty and the EU enlargement. The latter buried any hope of the French ruling classes to dominate the EU, the former reduced the rulers' possibilities to dominate France (offset by better possibilities inside and outside the EU). With Britain gone there might come some French-German power moves on level with Maastricht in their combined impact.

Quote from: Belfrager on 2017-05-08, 21:52:35

Care to ellucidate what is the "such a strong position" the EU has now?
Never, ever, the EU was at such low position.

The British traison doesn't make a stronger EU. Punish the traitors, I agree with that, but nobody should think that France can stop Germany. Never.
Is not possible to have a strong EU, while Germany is illegally deciding everything about Europe.
An invisible Reich, the fourth I suppose.
Europe is under occupation.

We agree, it seems, that the countries have the power in the EU, and really the most powerful at that, which in particular means Germany.

If we go back to the original vision of what was to become the EU, that vision was decidedly Charlemagnean. The ideal was the Germanic war criminal Charles the Great. A recreation of a new Western European superstate without Britain, Portugal, Sweden or Poland. Britain has never wanted that, so when in they immediately set out to corrupt it, by arguing for Greek membership. (They are still at it, so the same politicians that campaigned that Britain should leave the EU because of the danger of a Turkish invasion through the EU are the ones arguing that Turkey should become an EU member.)

I think the corrupted British vision is far better, but not accidentally it also means that the EU is less powerful. Whatever power the EU has is what the constituting nations give it. Many of those nations, not the EU itself, have had a prolonged crisis of confidence. The EU is relatively popular, while nations that have traditionally been strongly for EU have lost a lot of that support, nations that have been critical of the EU have begun to like it a lot more. It's a harmonisation of attitude so to speak. The troll factories in the US, Russia, Iran... have not had the deleterious effect intended. On the contrary, Putin, Trump, Erdogan and Brexit have made the EU far more attractive.

European integration in fields that for decades have been blocked by member nations (particularly Britain), may come on the agenda. As I said, I don't think I like it, and I suspect many of you won't either. Like the British I prefer an EU not so dysfunctional as not to get things done, but not so functional as to get ideas. The pendulum seems to be swinging towards the latter.

The EU is moving inexorably towards a Federal State.

Individual countries are becoming irrelevant, and relics of yesteryear, curious cultural enclaves gradually losing distinction and individuality and submerging into enforced uniformity.

I had no particular disaffection with the EU.

But I have seen the clumsy way that the EU has approached the negotiations in claiming unreasonable and also undeserved payments and not honouring the defined process for States leaving the EU which is that all things should be agreed in the light of the post exit velrelationship. I have also noted statements from EU politicians demanding punishment if the UK for deciding to leave. So my friendly feelings towards the EU have been, let's say, damaged.

The UK has stopped the formation of a European army and pan-European taxation. But, hey, Europe can now look forward to both. Maybe at least Europe will pay its own defence costs and not act like a parasite on the American tax payer.

To me it's  clear that as the power of the European Parliament increases, the influence of national governments will diminish to the point that they become anachronisms concerned only with ceremonial duties

There are four power centres in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, and Brussels (maybe one day Ankara, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). Brussels only as the capital of EUropa. If the EU was dismantled there would be three left. The power balance in EU/Brussels is complicated. The engine used to be Paris-Berlin (Bonn), each had what the other wanted, and together they could rule the rest. It was 843 all over again.

London decided this was not in their interest, and it was better to expand and conquer, an expansion that went as far North-East as Estonia (in part due to Nordic pressure), and as far South-East as most-of-Cyprus (in part due to Greek pressure). Berlin-Paris is still strong, but no longer sufficient.

In Brussels The Rest is not as strong as Berlin-Paris-London. That is, technically Berlin-Paris-London would need the support of Estonia (or other rank-breaking country) to form a blocking minority, but as hard as it would be for the Big 3 to agree, it is easy comparing to the Other 25.

UK stopped pan-European army and that's a good thing? It's an ambivalent thing, at best, particularly in connection with the silly view that the EU acts like a parasite on the American tax-payer.

Quote from: string on 2017-12-17, 21:50:02

The EU is moving inexorably towards a Federal State.

Individual countries are becoming irrelevant, and relics of yesteryear, curious cultural enclaves gradually losing distinction and individuality and submerging into enforced uniformity.

That is pretty much completely independent of the EU. You will see exactly the same forces afoot outside as inside the EU, being a member of the EU or not doesn't change that. The EU is about power and trade. Sure there is a veneer of Europeanness on top, Ode to Joy, and all that.

Individual》parish council》town council》county council》regional government》national government》European Government.

[...]

Overall the above is a heck of a lot of government layers...

Look, you were wrong to have friendly feelings towards EU in the first place. Not a good idea to have a feelings-relationship with impersonal entities. Such entities do not embody any ideals. It's better to view them as pragmatic tools for more specific purposes, but better high than low purposes.

I should have written about Europeans, not the EU, I sit here now with my Danish wife and brother in law wondering whether to serve English beer with Aquavit tonight or skip it and go to a nice glass of Sangre del Toro.

Your own country has the sort of low cynical relationship to EU as described in jax's clip. It's a good idea to be aware of this, to be realistic and diplomatic.As do we all apparently

From the continental point of view, we (the continentals) are aware of the cynicism and self-interest of the UK. We would like to be friendly and we would be happy to consider the UK as a member among European nations. But let's be honest: The UK came in negotiating (i.e. demanding like a spoiled brat) the biggest number of exceptions to themselves and, while inside, kept asking for more. This is the objective character of the UK. There is no friendly way to initiate a divorce, but luckily under Cameron the UK maneuvred itself into the position that made the UK the initiator of the divorce.

You are arguing in slogans, you'll start talking about cake soon. Look at the basic, both sides want a good result for themselves.

Quote from: string on 2017-12-18, 12:00:12The UK has stopped the formation of a European army and pan-European taxation. But, hey, Europe can now look forward to both. Maybe at least Europe will pay its own defence costs and not act like a parasite on the American tax payer.

To me it's  clear that as the power of the European Parliament increases, the influence of national governments will diminish to the point that they become anachronisms concerned only with ceremonial duties
  
Views like this do not reflect the objective nature of the EU, but they fully reflect the warped perception prevalent in the UK.

UK stopped pan-European taxation? In reality, UK only fought to be individually exempt from pan-European taxation, while taxation for everyone else was okay. (Depends of course which particular issue you have in mind.)
The meaning of Pan European is that it is applied to all parts of the EU, not part only
The UK stopped pan-European army and that's a good thing? It's an ambivalent thing, at best, particularly in connection with the silly view that the EU acts like a parasite on the American tax-payer.

It is not silly, the US has kept us all safe for many years and Europe has not paid it's fair share• A European Army makes sense only if the EU is one country, otherwise It is a duplicate of NATO and is wasteful with more Generals, more headquarters in addition to the national and NATO facilities [/]

The parliament has hardly any power in the EU. Eurokommissars have the power. There is no legal or institutional corrective to the kommissars, unfortunately. The only corrective against their abuse of power is collegial agreement within their own clique. The UK in its own narrow self-interest always had a destructive effect to the sense of collegiality.

The EU Executive is indeed exceeding what would be the more defensible role of an apolitical civil service; I would hope that Europeans will get wise to that soon and deal with it. It was a concern that had great weight in the UK for the leave campaign, sentiments with which you seem to agree.  I argued against it at the time, but it was difficult

It's not that I like the EU as it is, but there is no way to alter it other than destroy it, which would make someone/something worse to take over the power vacuum, so let's be sensible about it. God save us from the UK. Good riddance, seriously.

As to national governments, given the ambivalent legitimacy of the EU and its likely eventual doom, the EU can be viewed as a protective shade for the time being. I'm of course presupposing that national entities ("states" or "countries") consist of (a) populated communities with concrete linguistic and cultural cohesion and historical tradition rather than (b) governments with fiscal power. Apart from common currency, (b) is not under further threat from the EU, much less is (a).

Quote from: string on 2017-12-19, 16:20:49

Individual》parish council》town council》county council》regional government》national government》European Government.

[...]

Overall the above is a heck of a lot of government layers...

Artificially increased by inserting "individual" and probably also "regional government".

Now, I know France has some seven layers of government^[1] and maybe some other big&old&respectable continental countries do too, but Mid-and-Northern European countries generally have two or three layers. So your argument works only if everybody think and act British. Luckily not everybody is British.

...maybe somewhere perhaps in a few cases...

I agree that the EU needs reform...

“Within a period of two years a significant number of laws have been adopted - 13 in total - which put in serious risk the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers”, the vice president of the commission, Frans Timmermans, told reporters in Brussels.

“Judicial reforms in Poland mean that the country’s judiciary is now under the political control of the ruling majority. In the absence of judicial independence, serious questions are raised about the effective application of EU law.”

The issuing of a formal warning to Poland has been recommended to the member states under the first clause of the, until now, unused article 7 procedure. “It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to initiate Article 7.1”, Timmermans said. “But the facts leave us with no choice”.

Now, I know France has some seven layers of government^[1] and maybe some other big&old&respectable continental countries do too, but Mid-and-Northern European countries generally have two or three layers. So your argument works only if everybody think and act British. Luckily not everybody is British.

• The municipality. In theory it can do basically anything it isn't forbidden to do. Which means an awful lot except for stuff like international diplomacy and raising an army. This is pretty much the same in Belgium. In some countries only "cities" have such rights.
• The watership. This doesn't exist in Belgium. (Video explanation here.) It takes care of water-related things like dikes and polders, obviously.
• The province. While in theory you could make things like infrastructure entirely municipal business, it just doesn't make much sense to.
• The state. This is where things deviate in Belgium, because you have the "regions" that largely fulfill the same role as the state does in the Netherlands. Depending on your inclinations you could call the regions either superprovinces or substates. In the Netherlands, the Second Chamber is directly elected, while the First Chamber is chosen by electors from the provinces (who are chosen in the provincial elections). This might have originated as a historical remnant from the time when it was similar to the UK, with the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, but now it serves as a system of checks and balances by the provinces on the state.
• The federal state. This doesn't exist in the Netherlands, but in Belgium it takes care of the army, foreign policy and such.

@string If you are still typing on a phone, maybe get a rubber stylus. They are much cheaper than keyboards.

Quote from: string on 2017-12-19, 17:24:24

...maybe somewhere perhaps in a few cases...

Incidentally in the overwhelming majority of the cases.

But yes, I understand, for the Brits, depending on the historical era, either France or Germany is the most imminent big threat and everybody else is the underdog that must be rallied against the threat. This is innate to Brits and this is why no union with them can work.

Quote from: string on 2017-12-19, 17:13:06

I agree that the EU needs reform...

But I don't agree. Incapacity for reform is in the bones of the EU and it's good this way.

Why would you want reform? To make the EU more effective? To indeed become a superstate that would obviate nation states? I thought you were concerned about the demise of nation states. Now, I am certainly concerned about what effect a highly operative EU might have on the power of nation states, which is why I want the EU as it is. It may grab more functions as it likes, army or whatever, but it shall be clumsy and not obviate national armies, just like Interpol has not obviated local police authorities.

But I don't want a divided and quarrelling EU, which was how the UK always made it (the US and Russia can in turns manipulate the EU into internal disagreement whenever they like, no help needed from the UK). I want an EU under the spell of self-importance, casting an image of collegial consensus over the world, while really being a hollow shell inside. It's at its best right now.

Most of these "layers" are directly chosen by the voter and it wouldn't make sense to centralize things too much, so I don't really see what the problem is supposed to be.

I think you will find that many countries in Europe have been happily fighting different neighbours over years past.

Frenzied- your description if the Dutch government hierarchy seems to show that the state is already considered defunct in the Netherlands (Maybe in part due to endless coalition government's and the passing if policies which are not popularly mainstream?). But whether that lessening if the state is regrettable or not depends on where one sees one's essence; if one's identity, in town, region or state or, indeed thd EU. But I think it illustrates my point that the concept of the nation states as we have known them in Europe is shrinking.

Well Frenzie can I remind that Gt Britain is a very exceptional country as unlike the rest and their routine we do not have a Constitution.

...it's in Belgium that the state is weaker than it was, say, 150 years ago because it now effectively consists of various  regional governments such as Flanders and Wallonia. Back then, Belgium didn't have a federal state either.

...the French-speakers realized it was unacceptable in a civilized country that someone could be found guilty in court just because none of the judges (or anyone!) spoke Dutch.