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I dont agree with this. More centralized power just makes it harder for local and national changes and also makes it easier for lobbyists to undermine the interests of the general population for their own benefit
Oh, you’re not alone. People think the choice is between national interests or Europe.
You won’t agree with me on this, but in reality the choice is arguably between European interests or Chinese/foreign interests. Instead of choosing strength in unity, we’re choosing to be divided and conquered.
Just look at the result of prioritizing national rather than European interests for defense. Not enough industrial capacity to support Ukraine, redundancies, limits on benefits of scale, taxpayer money disproportionately funding jobs in the US defense industry rather here in Europe, and Europe being to weak to scare off Russia from interference or perhaps even worse.
Just look at the greatest Eurosceptic parties. Inevitably they have ties to Russia or are pro-Russian.
Just look at alleged interference in the brexit referendum. The Kremlin had a good laugh about that one.
I don’t expect to change your mind on this, and don’t worry yours is the popular opinion. A European state won’t happen. But I hope you understand why plenty of people are exasperated by this. Continued division will accelerate our decline, and rather than being able to defend our geostrategic interests, we will continue to be pushed around by superpowers. And it won’t be inevitable. It will be a choice that we made.
The power already is centralized to a strong degree. But with an actual statelike system we would have full legislative power through democraticly elected parliaments and governments. With that more changes could happen, as they would now be represented, instead of having the mutant-organizations of comission and council without triple and quadruple indirectness between them and the citizens. That is where the lobbying power is so successfull. Because there is no democratic representation and hence no accountability in these structures.
More centralized power just makes it harder for local and national changes
Would that be a problem?
Yes
I was wondering the same thing. What would that entail for the less influential countries within the EU?
Here in Greece we could use some help. Our legal system is broken, the freedom of press is non-existent, police brutality is at an all time high, we don’t have a train network (in general bad transport infrastructure), to name a few issues.
On the other hand, gentrification is as bad as it is right now, having to move out of the city I was born in and have loved all of my life because I cannot afford rent won’t be fun.
There are way too many small minded people in the EU at the moment to make this a reality.
The idea of a continuous closer integration of states within the EU is one of THE main founding ideas, though.
An ever closer union
We, as Europe, spend three to five times what Russia spends, and we are the second largest investor in military expenditure after the US. It is, therefore, a question of better coordination (…) It is a special moment when we have to review many of the assumptions of our being together”, he concluded.
Great statement here
Can we please stop this eternal debate about the EU becoming a state? I feel like it’s besides the point and only evokes harmful reflexes on all sides. The question should be how to streamline and organize decision making. Who decides on which level about what. As Draghi points out correctly, certain stategic decisions should be made at an EU level. That would be more efficient, more impactful and help Europeans as a whole but it’s not really about “turning the EU into a country”. I get that “the sovereign nation state” has been the single one all-encompassing, all-powerful entity at the heart of political thinking since at least the 17th century but I just feel like it’s no longer necessarily a helpful frame of reference for many developments in the 21st century.
We already have a not insignificant minority trying to leave the EU or destroy it. Imagine how many votes they get if the EU tries to become a state
It would probably be very difficult inside the current system. Maybe it would need to grow dynamically starting with central countries first and then moving further out. If Hungary and Slovakia prefer to be Russian puppets thats fine for them. I am sure they’ll learn in due time.
You do not need every current EU member to agree to this. You just need enough for it to make sense. If for example you have German, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium, which are the countries more or less in favor of federalism at the moment, it is enough for most of the effects of scale to work. Thats like half the population of the EU and with a large share of the GDP. Maybe some of the eastern members join as well, which would mean even more strength.
Minority is exactly right. With Brexit they managed to sway enough floating morons with promises of golden palaces and full autonomy.
In the real world, where you have to cooperate to get anywhere on big issues, we quickly find out that throwing a tantrum because you’re a grown-up that can determine its own bedtime just gets you discredited and tasked with “all right, let’s see you manage all this stuff on your own then”.
Putting this into perspective: The PVV won dutch elections recently and did so with 23% of the vote. It is well known that a significant portion ot those voters don’t support all of Wilders’ policy, they just want to see change. And Wilders’ main argument for leaving the EU is “migrants bad, we want border control”. Not exactly fully thought out.
The exact percentage of people that will actually vote to leave the EU if it even comes that far is likely not much higher. Combine that with the fact that everyone can see the UK doing just great, and the cances are slim any of this big talk actually leads to Nexit.
We’re seeing the power of stupid people in large groups at work, but there are simply not enough of them to do any significant damage. Our political system makes it so that anyone has to cooperate to get anywhere, and Wilders needs support of at least 27% of the elected officials to get anything done. It is highly unlikely any of his more radical policies will survive that process.
I hope it happens one day.
Yes pls.
How much is missing before you can simply call it a state? It’s all about definition.
Plenty is still missing.
A constitution, a parliament with full legislative power, a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law, federal political parties, a unified citizenship and a unified administrative system.
E.g. you would need to be subject to generally the same laws in France as you are in Italy, which are coming from one constitution that all lawmakers and courts need to uphold. When the passport you made in France need to be renewed you should be able to do that just as easily at any government office in Italy and during elections you should be able to vote the same parties that you were able to vote on before. And the people you elected need to be able to actually submit laws and the laws need to be able to pass purely in the parliament, without a veto and design power purely held by the government (comission).
I don’t know about the parties. We have parties you can only vote for in certain Bundesländer. Like the CSU. You can only vote for them if you live in Bavaria. Or in Schleswig-Holstein there is the party for the Danish minority in Germany. Even in elections on a federal level
Never gonna happen LOL
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Europe will then become a gigantic organization that takes forever to take any action, with a fragile election system. There’s a reason why Parisians don’t vote on German issues.
According to him, the time has now come to unite and overcome the difficulties linked to fragmented EU regulations in every sector, which slow down the EU’s operation, particularly in response to emergencies.
I’d say what he wants is basically ignore member states for what he wants to do.
Speaking of the EU’s market potential, Draghi called it “too small”, adding that there “are so many markets and therefore the small companies that are born in Europe, as soon as they grow, they sell or go to the United States”.
And that’s because US is a big market. Whatever EU does, the tFrench market will not become identical to the German one, let alone Turkish or Czech
And just imagine. The next Hitler can get the most of europe by one rigged election system and start expanding from there, using the army from Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, etc. etc. It’s just dangerous and idiotic.
Edit: To whoever replied to me with what follows:
None of what you said makes any sense
No, I’m not going to waste time with someone who shows lack of the concept of nuance. Get out of your echo chamber first.
Parisians also don’t vote on Lyon issues, just like Berliners don’t vote on Munich issues.
We already have different levels of government and administration, including both local and European ones. Different issues are handled on different levels. Always have been.
None of what you said makes any sense to me. Of course EU states are very different right now, and the language barrier is huge.
I’ll say some debatable things now but I don’t want to write a dissertation so i need to take shortcuts.
To unify Europe for real compromises must be made and an european identity must be created, the USA pulled this off almost entirely thanks to having a shorter history and also thanks to things like hollywood pushing calculated stereotypes (an arguably positive form of propaganda). European populations have been fighting each other for thousands of years so it will take some effort, but I think the reciprocal hate is at a legendary minimum nowadays, and there is a lot of mobility.
I may agree that going straight to unification may be premature, but to be honest the usa have a great deal of diversity and still make it work.Whatever EU does, the tFrench market will not become identical to the German one
Not overnight, no. But I think that they’re converging.
Would you say that the market in France of 2023 and Germany of 2023 are more alike or less alike than France of 1923 and Germany of 1923?
I mean, they can get closer but that doesn’t mean they’ll have the same market in the end. Even they will, they should not toss away their governmental structures in order to please businesses as the article indicates.
Then i recommend you to take a train to a village by the sea, have a look around at the local market there, and then take a train to a village 2 hours inland and look at the local market there. You’ll find entirely different goods and the same goods will have different prices.
You will never have the same market everywhere. Doesnt matter if inside a country, inside a region, or heck even in my city the same store chain sell the same products at different prices depending if you are in the affluent city center, the poor outer city belt or the effluent suburbs.
Something might happen now that Germany is no longer the golden child.
Dementia senilis
