Personally, I'm against a united Europe. It's difficult enough to get every voice heard in today's political discussions, and if you suddenly begin bringing different cultural parties, as well as a wider religious demographic, some groups will end up being naturally excluded from these discussions. However, it's apparent that many nations do seek a greater unity within Europe, with many seeking entry into the European Union as a both a means to establish closer ties with the rest of the European cultures, but also to strengthen economic relations.
So, what are all your thoughts on the matter? Is it a good idea to create a European Federation, where every nation is represented, but not everyone has an equal voice? Or is it better to decentralize, and use the European Union to keep the peace? Or maybe there's another way to settle the matter?
I'm in favor of it completely, for unrelated reasons:
You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you.
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew.
There are major problems with how EU organs function. There's the European Commission that has too much powers behind closed doors, it's not really proper parliamentarism because it holds so much power in compairision to the European Parliament, although the Lisbon Treaty made this a bit better.
Then there's the European Council and the Council of the European Union. Those are totally different from the other organisation called Council of Europe. Let's all remember that the current High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is Catherine Ashton. Who comes up with this stuff? Could even the names be made a bit more clear and clean up a bit the organisation structure? Those names sound like some Soviet ones, where they were made complex on purpose for some Orwellian effects.
But yes, while the Commission holds too much power behind closed doors, small countries have even less power in the Parliament, where they're even supposed to represent Europe-wide parties. Commissioners are totally undemocratic, they're not elected anywhere, just nominated somewhere in agreement with all governments.
It's certainly not a good thing that even currently (without a federation) around 50 % of national legislation comes from the EU. A sovereign nation should know what's best for its citizens and the local conditions, and because of that many EU directives have been met with harsh criticism when they've been bad. Some standardization is a good thing, but it's not like that the EU legislation hasn't gone to very accurate details.
The Euro was a failed project, a common currency won't work with too different economies and administrative cultures. But the bank and financial union is even a worse thing. Which country wants to give their budget control to Brussels? Budget control is the important thing in politics today, and it's a big deal to direct that to a supranational organ. Not good.
The best thing with the European Union is that that way Europe can be a big player on the international field with things that European countries agree on. Economic cooperation is great, but we shouldn't forget sovereignity. So I'd say the best case would be to walk a few step downs with integration but still retain the EU as pretty tight-knit union, more so than any other supranational union today. It is a mistake to hurry with integration and give powers to the wrong place, especially on basis with such crises as the current one.
The EU is relatively young, I don't think it is surprising that there are issues. There will continue to be issues and I doubt that it will ever be perfect. But what is the alternative? Just look at how fast countries like China are catching up these days, it won't be easy to compete with these guys on a global market, especially for small countries that are not sitting on giant oil or gas reserves.
Another way to look at it would be to consider where the US would be today if it hadn't been an union but a bunch of invidiual states. They probably wouldn't have been as influential.
In the short term the EU is a bad investment for Germany though. Incredible amounts of money have been spent on the debt crisis and it does not look like the attitudes in southern countries with regard to spending has sufficiently changed to prevent a continuation or repetition of this mess. But if we are lucky the EU will pay off 3 or 4 generations down the road. If not it was probably worth a try.
True. Although, the various councils are more victims of horrendous naming policies. The European Council is the council of leaders, which gathers annually(I think? Or is it quarterly?) to discuss whatever they need to discuss. The Council of the European Union is a step below the Commission, but above the Parliament. Nevertheless, it's a confusing mess that could have been avoided with some alternative naming policies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFancypants
The EU is relatively young, I don't think it is surprising that there are issues. There will continue to be issues and I doubt that it will ever be perfect. But what is the alternative? Just look at how fast countries like China are catching up these days, it won't be easy to compete with these guys on a global market, especially for small countries that are not sitting on giant oil or gas reserves.
Another way to look at it would be to consider where the US would be today if it hadn't been an union but a bunch of invidiual states. They probably wouldn't have been as influential.
In the short term the EU is a bad investment for Germany though. Incredible amounts of money have been spent on the debt crisis and it does not look like the attitudes in southern countries with regard to spending has sufficiently changed to prevent a continuation or repetition of this mess. But if we are lucky the EU will pay off 3 or 4 generations down the road. If not it was probably worth a try.
I would say the European Union has already failed. If the Euro falls off the grid entirely, it's very possibly nations will begin withdrawing. With members withdrawing, they'll need to either centralize or decentralize. They can't stay in the middle, where they are now, or they'll collapse entirely. I think the primary problem right now is you don't know where you have the parliament. The institutions each seem to be stepping on eachothers toes all the time. They're not moving towards disbanding the union, but they seem unwilling to centralize it anymore than absolutely necessary too.
The thing in particular that amazes me is how hard Europeans seem to want to distance themselves from each other. Ukrainians and Belarusians don't want to join Russia, Yugoslavia fell apart and there are more and more separatist movements such as the Catalan. The reason it amazes me is that the differences between aren't that much, for example Croatians and Bsoniaks have added words to their language to distance it from Serbian When they're still the same language. Meanwhile in India and China you have about as many cultures, religions languages and ethnicities willing to become one nationality (ok not all if you include Tibet and East Turkestan, but even without them you still have a diverse group of people). In fact that's what a lot of European nations did, France, Germany, Ifaly etc. and France almost integrated Algeria as Part of France. Why the unity faces such opposition is beyond me.
The best thing about the EU, to my mind, is that it balances the power of our national government to some degree. Parliament has been getting a lot of power over the years, completely unbalancing our political system toward elected representatives with very limited knowledge. The EU is not particularly democratic, but what's that to me? The House of Lords, unelected, has more often served my interests than parliament. It's not, and has not been for some time, my opinion that democracy, when generalised, produces good outcomes.
There's also the, What right do foreigners from another culture have telling us what to do? thing. The EU is not lead by people from my culture. But neither is parliament; a collection of rich fucks whose feet alight for passing moments upon the rest of society. Fuck 'em, they aren't our people. They aren't our people in the same way that the bankers aren't our people. What difference does it make to me if I'm rule by a stranger a hundred miles away in London or a few hundred miles away in Brussels?
The virtues of democracy, to my mind, mainly consist in its ability to say no, rather than yes. And we've largely lost that part of our political system. What remains after that, I don't particularly care for.
"Slippery slopes can be fun - kind of like a water slide."
- Larry, Burn Notice
IMO its hard to deem the current status of the EU without keeping in mind the purpose for what it was created.
If Eu aims at solving intra-europe problems so as to create a platform for bringing the european nations closer, then i think it has so far failed.
But if its aimed to create a unanimous voice of all european countries in order to gain more political influence in the international politics and the UNO then its too early to say anything. It will take time, and effort, and much investment from the more prosperous countries in the union who want to exploit the platform for their own national gain.
Its all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays
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The Future of European Independent Nations 
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