European Politics Thread

Saudi Arabia doesn't even get to sit at the "human rights" table. It doesn't even get to speak to Norway about human rights.

What's "right-wing" about the Constitution treaty?

IIRC, it was extreme economic libertarianism. It boasted a sacrosanct "concurrence libre et non-faussée" (roughly "free and unbiased competition") with provisions against companies owned by the State being injected state funds, furthered the destruction of services publics (the "everything must be private" mentality: Private electricity, private water, private railways, private postal services, etc.)

And also explicitly prohibited any tax on big capital movements (which was a proposed remedy to the loophole Google uses to funnel funds outside of Europe mostly tax-free)

My memory is hazy because it's been years, but I think there was also some kind of prohibition of economic sanctions and a total allegiance to the WTO...

I was too young to vote back than, but I would have voted against as well. It was a corporatist's wet dream, and went directly against my leftist leanings. (leftist by Dutch standards, which means I'd practically be a communist in 'Murica)

I remember a year or so later, when there was some European conference for high school students in Orvieto, Italy. We were promised an intelligent platform of discussion with and between some actual politicians, but what we got was an indoctrination camp. I'm not kidding, every speaker was so ridiculously pro-right-EU, it was sickening. They constantly kept banging on how awesome the EU constitution was until France and the Netherlands ruined it for everyone. Not that there were any French representatives, mind you, since they, along with the German and British students, had better things to do.

I managed to give one of those speakers a hard time by asking him if he had any idea at all why someone would want to vote against such an awesome treaty. He gave a very obvious non-answer, and I got a round of applause from the rest of the audience who were also very, very sick of that bullshit.

And now I'm realising that probably nobody is interested in personal anecdotes, but now I've gone through the trouble of typing it down, so I might as well hit send. Sorry for that.

edited 30th Apr '14 4:24:37 AM by Kayeka

Oh by the way? The Treaty of Lisbon, proposed by Nicolas Sarkozy, who then (with his majority parliament) amended the French constitution so it could be validated by a parliament vote instead of a referendum? Allegedly, it's essentially the same minus the "European constitution" part.

Your story was good. The more we bother politicians, the better.

I'm ashamed about the fact that a city of my country is associated to that treaty.

Yeah, I remember that my father voted in favour of the constitution back then, despite being mostly against it. He said "If we oppose it, we'll seriously hurt the position of the Netherlands within the Union, and they'll probably just slip the treaty through the backdoor eventually anyway."

I really dislike him being proven right like that. It's hard to care for democracy when it becomes so annoyingly obvious that the people in charge have already made a decision that can't be stopped.

Not to mention that the EU already has a rather shaky footing with the people. It's authority is based almost entirely on the support of the people on top, because the people at the base don't seem to care much for it. Going against the wishes of the people like this is us begging for a crisis of sorts, resulting in a major loss of power and ruining the chances of ever properly uniting Europe.

Happy May Day everyone!

How the EU transformed Poland.

Now, where's that Polandball joke?

Poland can into political division.◊

Thank you.

Our manifesto for Europe - Thomas Piketty and 14 others.

So under that proposal national governments will no longer be represented in the EU institutions, just the parliaments, yeah?

Problem is how to do it, as Achaemenid said in the Economics thread.

The part of giving up sovereignity on a political level is the bit that bothers me a bit. Still, let's see how they'll elaborate this further.

The various American states gave up sovereignty to form a federal government way back in the 18th century. It can and has been done; what it requires is a willingness to view oneself as European first and, say, French second. As I said back in the Economics thread; it's either this or a continued spiral into inequality and stagnation.

To paraphrase the manifesto, if you want multinational corporations running Europe, by all means proceed down the path you're on. If, instead, you want a democratic government responding to the will of the people, here's a way to achieve it.

edited 2nd May '14 12:47:53 PM by Fighteer

This is an extremely specious comparison, if you'll forgive me for saying so. Europe is far more diverse - politically, historically, culturally, ethnically - than the Thirteen Colonies were.

edited 2nd May '14 1:10:36 PM by Achaemenid

It's not specious given that it's exactly what the Eurozone (and the wider EU) project is intended to eventually arrive at.

If you are trying to form a football team, and someone tells you that you need to get all the players organized into positions and have them go to practice, it's disingenuous to say, "Wait, I don't like that. We want to have a team that wins games but we don't want to actually do any of that work. We're all too individualistic. We're just going to give them uniforms and tell them to do their thing. But we'll chain them to the field so they can't leave."

edited 2nd May '14 1:14:34 PM by Fighteer

Beyond deliberately vague references to "ever closer union" in the treaties, there is no official or even unofficial "endpoint" for the EU. It is generally agreed that a degree of integration will be a good thing for all, but whether the EU is - or even should - lead to United Europe is not a subject on which there is any great consensus.

To address the analogy: what you seem to be saying is "well, some people with wildly different circumstances and players did this, maybe we should try it even though our situation is nothing like theirs". A federal Europe is certainly desirable, in my view, but to say "oh, the Thirteen Colonies managed it so it must be easy" is palpably absurd. The European road to union cannot be the same as the American one.

Not to mention that the Thirteen Colonies shared a common language and a common enemy.

There is none of these things in today's Europe.

I'm ok with economical and fiscal union. And I consider myself European. But I'll always prefer to be Portuguese first and European second.

So dissolve the EU and the Eurozone. You can't half-ass a project like this and expect it to work. It's like a guy who decides that to get inside the building with everyone else, he has to ram his head through the wall. When you tell him that there's a perfectly usable door nearby, he insists, "But it's my culture!"

Then you tell him, "Well, you won't get inside that way. Maybe you should stop," to which he replies, "But I'm already half an inch through!"

Another analogy: The Council of Elrond is contemplating taking the Ring to Mordor, but everybody (including the Hobbits) is determined not to let a member of another race take it, since they don't trust them. So they sit there arguing until Sauron's servants come and kill them.

edited 2nd May '14 1:35:47 PM by Fighteer

Actually, culture is the least of Europe's problems.

Imagine trying to form a union comprised of the US, Canada and Mexico (this is hypothetical, of course. It will never happen). You have different languages and political attitudes. The different asymmetries between the first two countries and the third one would obviously cause trouble. I'm sure that Mexico would get a treatment simmilar to what the PIGS (and it's the last time I'll use this insulting acronym) get nowadays.

The analogy of the council of Elrond knows that there's a common, single enemy. There is no such thing in today's Europe (or even today's world). So, it falls apart a bit, wouldn't you say?

edited 2nd May '14 1:38:11 PM by Quag15

I'm not really sure what your point is here. The analogies don't make it any clearer.

The project was never about building a united Europe, though most Eurofederalists were in favor of the EU, it was about instituting a degree of integration for mutual political and economic interests. Your posts seem to be predicated on the idea that the only way the EU (or any wider European integrationist project) develops is by evolving into the United States of Europe. That was never the case, and never has been.

edited 2nd May '14 1:39:13 PM by Achaemenid

Quite. While the U.S. and Canada might get along just fine after some teething woes, there's no way that Mexico (or any Central or South American nation for that matter) could join the U.S. without major economic and political reform, and it would be foolish to try without first attempting that reform.

I'm trying to point out that proclaiming the impossibility of the resolution doesn't make the current situation tenable. You're going to fall apart if you don't move forward somehow, or move backwards. The Eurozone as conceived simply cannot work.

edited 2nd May '14 1:41:08 PM by Fighteer

There is no such thing in today's Europe (or even today's world)

I am guessing that Vladimir Putin does not count, there. My newspaper had an opinion post which basically claimed that Putin's Crimean doings are encouraged, among other things, because Europe thinks it can work without a common foreign policy.

I've never said resolution of Europe's difficulties is "impossible", nor, if I had, would I suggest that makes the present situation workable. My point is that specific proposals and comparisons - such as the American route to union - do not apply or will not work in Europe for a variety of reasons. The existence of problems does not make all solutions equal.

The obvious solution, and the one I would support, is the one presented by Picketty et al. But I am disappointed in the lack of a plan for gaining support for it.

edited 2nd May '14 1:42:57 PM by Achaemenid