5 ms·

In my opinion the long term goal is to transition the EU (over the course of multiple human generations) into a single nation, similar to the way the United Sta

In my opinion the long term goal is to transition the EU (over the course of multiple human generations) into a single nation, similar to the way the United States operates. In that case, the conditions you described are an expected part of the process. In the US the states and local municipalities have different economic situations, different taxes, etc. And if our states broke off into 50 currencies, some would benefit while others would crumble.

thenaturalist 8y ago
Your thoughts are on point imo. One must never forget the context of how the EU and it’s main political objective came to be: the culmination of centuries of small scale wars and two world wars within 30 years of each other. Juncker - who is the only European politician who signed the Maastricht treaty in ‘92 still active today - reiterated at a 20 year commemoration mid January this year that for him, the European Fiscal Union remains an unconventional measure of politics for common peace.
- stordoff 8y ago
  Closer political union has been on the cards for a long time. Churchill post-WW2 (1948) said "Mutual aid in the economic field and joint military defence must inevitably be accompanied step by step with a parallel policy of closer political unity", and referred to a United States of Europe ("I was anxious at first lest the United States of America should view with hostility the idea of a United States of Europe"), with it being presented as a force for peace ("the German problem is to restore the economic life of Germany and revive the ancient fame of the German race without thereby exposing their neighbours and ourselves to any rebuilding or reassertion of their military power of which we still bear the scars. United Europe provides the only solution to this two-sided problem"). It's pre-EU, but clearly the ideas come from a similar place. http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/WSCHague.html http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/WSCHague.html
  - int_19h 8y ago
    And the phrase "United States of Europe", in turn, was coined a hundred years before Churchill. And the idea is older still. Then again, it's also just a logical extension of the same process through which the most powerful European states today have formed themselves.
avar 8y ago
The EU already has a version of this. Some countries in the Eurozone are net recipients of EU money. Just like California is a net contributor and Mississippi a net recipient. It can be argued that the Euro has certain structural issues, or that the wealth transfer is too big/small, but the EU demonstrates that you don't need to become one nation just to have wealth transfers.
- Udik 8y ago
  But is the size of these wealth transfers comparable? I have the impression, maybe wrong (absolutely no data to confirm it, in fact) that wealth transfers within the EU are much lower than those that would take place between the regions of a single nation.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    You're right. The wealth transfers are fairly small. The EU had a budget of €118 billion for 2016. There's only so much you can do with that money for 500 million people. Note that a large chunk of it goes back into the big countries as agricultural subsidies.
  - avar 8y ago
    No, but does it matter? I'm pointing out that you structurally don't need a nation-state to do this. The EU isn't going to have some natural or legal tipping-point where the wealth transfer moves up or down by 0.1% and suddenly it structurally doesn't work.
    - Udik 8y ago
      You said that you don't need to be a nation state to have wealth transfers. And I agree, an in fact the EU has them. But from a political and social point of view, while it's somehow easy to convince the citizens of a nation that they have to contribute from their own pockets to the common good, the situation is much harder in Europe. We are not a nation, we are culturally and linguistically different, we consider ourselves as separate entities. The euro is actually increasing reciprocal distrust. The whole EU political system is overly complicated (and, ironically, undemocratic) because it includes both a parliamentary democracy and a council of heads of states- because no European nation would trust decisions made by a shared parliament without having them vetted by their own national governments. There should have been a major push in education to form citizens that would be at least able to understand each others- there wasn't, at least in part of the EU. Damn, we have major EU members that decide to wage wars on their own, it's inconceivable. So how do you convince the citizens of rich, disciplined countries, to get money out of their pockets to heavily subsidize the citizens of other countries, speaking a different language, with autonomous armies, different legal systems, completely separate political class, very limited transfers of people across borders (and mainly in one direction, north)? /rant :)
IAmEveryone 8y ago
The motto is „a ever closer union“, although that does not necessarily see a nation state at the end, and it has become somewhat outdated... What the US has, and the EU would need, are some mechanisms to level economic differences between the constituent states. Any federal US program effectively works as such, even though that is rarely acknowledged in the public discourse. As but one example: military spending is financed primarily by the economically strong and populous states, and disproportionately favors poorer states with defense contacts or military bases. The EU has a few such mechanisms, some explicit (regional development funds), some less so (agriculture). But the total E.U. budget is rather tiny compared to the economy. Something like a common unemployment insurance would be best, mechanistically. Because it would automatically adjust to changing fortunes at the very local level without requiring constant political intervention and the accompanying bargaining. At present, such a policy is unlikely to find approval because of pervasive remaining mistrust („lazy Greeks taking our money“).
- LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
  We should have two currencies, one slowly sinking in value and one slowly rising. Then a country should be able to choose internally to align itself with the Euro or the Orue, for internal trade, external trade and money value.
mamon 8y ago
The problem is that EU bureaucrats are too impatient to wait multiple generations, therefore they try to speed up the process by schemes like inviting few millions immigrants from Africa and Middle East and then forcing member states to take them, to undermine their national identity. Or try to enforce the same EU wide standards regarding controversial topics such as LGBT rights, abortion, etc. Which of course causes backlash, effectively being counterproductive.
- Udik 8y ago
  Oh no, come on. And by the way, if things keep going like they have, we can't wait multiple generations. We have at most one decade to fix things before they explode.
- presidente20 8y ago
  I think that's an overly conspiratorial view. I agree with your analysis in part but I don't think the EU is doing these things deliberately to undermine, it's more that it's their philosophy (which IMO is counter to the interests of the average european).
vixen99 8y ago
Even with Spanish and English, the US has a few issues. The EU has 23. Out of interest, after these 'multiple human generations' how many languages do you think the single nation will be speaking? You have an opinion. Fair enough but will it be a democratic decision to make the transition? One thinks of 2005, when on a turnout of 69% of French votes, 55% rejected the EU Treaty. It was accepted nevertheless.

thenaturalist 8y ago

Your thoughts are on point imo. One must never forget the context of how the EU and it’s main political objective came to be: the culmination of centuries of small scale wars and two world wars within 30 years of each other. Juncker - who is the only European politician who signed the Maastricht treaty in ‘92 still active today - reiterated at a 20 year commemoration mid January this year that for him, the European Fiscal Union remains an unconventional measure of politics for common peace.

stordoff 8y ago
Closer political union has been on the cards for a long time. Churchill post-WW2 (1948) said "Mutual aid in the economic field and joint military defence must inevitably be accompanied step by step with a parallel policy of closer political unity", and referred to a United States of Europe ("I was anxious at first lest the United States of America should view with hostility the idea of a United States of Europe"), with it being presented as a force for peace ("the German problem is to restore the economic life of Germany and revive the ancient fame of the German race without thereby exposing their neighbours and ourselves to any rebuilding or reassertion of their military power of which we still bear the scars. United Europe provides the only solution to this two-sided problem"). It's pre-EU, but clearly the ideas come from a similar place. http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/WSCHague.html http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/WSCHague.html
- int_19h 8y ago
  And the phrase "United States of Europe", in turn, was coined a hundred years before Churchill. And the idea is older still. Then again, it's also just a logical extension of the same process through which the most powerful European states today have formed themselves.

avar 8y ago

The EU already has a version of this. Some countries in the Eurozone are net recipients of EU money. Just like California is a net contributor and Mississippi a net recipient. It can be argued that the Euro has certain structural issues, or that the wealth transfer is too big/small, but the EU demonstrates that you don't need to become one nation just to have wealth transfers.

Udik 8y ago
But is the size of these wealth transfers comparable? I have the impression, maybe wrong (absolutely no data to confirm it, in fact) that wealth transfers within the EU are much lower than those that would take place between the regions of a single nation.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  You're right. The wealth transfers are fairly small. The EU had a budget of €118 billion for 2016. There's only so much you can do with that money for 500 million people. Note that a large chunk of it goes back into the big countries as agricultural subsidies.
- avar 8y ago
  No, but does it matter? I'm pointing out that you structurally don't need a nation-state to do this. The EU isn't going to have some natural or legal tipping-point where the wealth transfer moves up or down by 0.1% and suddenly it structurally doesn't work.
  - Udik 8y ago
    You said that you don't need to be a nation state to have wealth transfers. And I agree, an in fact the EU has them. But from a political and social point of view, while it's somehow easy to convince the citizens of a nation that they have to contribute from their own pockets to the common good, the situation is much harder in Europe. We are not a nation, we are culturally and linguistically different, we consider ourselves as separate entities. The euro is actually increasing reciprocal distrust. The whole EU political system is overly complicated (and, ironically, undemocratic) because it includes both a parliamentary democracy and a council of heads of states- because no European nation would trust decisions made by a shared parliament without having them vetted by their own national governments. There should have been a major push in education to form citizens that would be at least able to understand each others- there wasn't, at least in part of the EU. Damn, we have major EU members that decide to wage wars on their own, it's inconceivable. So how do you convince the citizens of rich, disciplined countries, to get money out of their pockets to heavily subsidize the citizens of other countries, speaking a different language, with autonomous armies, different legal systems, completely separate political class, very limited transfers of people across borders (and mainly in one direction, north)? /rant :)

IAmEveryone 8y ago

The motto is „a ever closer union“, although that does not necessarily see a nation state at the end, and it has become somewhat outdated... What the US has, and the EU would need, are some mechanisms to level economic differences between the constituent states. Any federal US program effectively works as such, even though that is rarely acknowledged in the public discourse. As but one example: military spending is financed primarily by the economically strong and populous states, and disproportionately favors poorer states with defense contacts or military bases. The EU has a few such mechanisms, some explicit (regional development funds), some less so (agriculture). But the total E.U. budget is rather tiny compared to the economy. Something like a common unemployment insurance would be best, mechanistically. Because it would automatically adjust to changing fortunes at the very local level without requiring constant political intervention and the accompanying bargaining. At present, such a policy is unlikely to find approval because of pervasive remaining mistrust („lazy Greeks taking our money“).

LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
We should have two currencies, one slowly sinking in value and one slowly rising. Then a country should be able to choose internally to align itself with the Euro or the Orue, for internal trade, external trade and money value.

mamon 8y ago

The problem is that EU bureaucrats are too impatient to wait multiple generations, therefore they try to speed up the process by schemes like inviting few millions immigrants from Africa and Middle East and then forcing member states to take them, to undermine their national identity. Or try to enforce the same EU wide standards regarding controversial topics such as LGBT rights, abortion, etc. Which of course causes backlash, effectively being counterproductive.

Udik 8y ago
Oh no, come on. And by the way, if things keep going like they have, we can't wait multiple generations. We have at most one decade to fix things before they explode.
presidente20 8y ago
I think that's an overly conspiratorial view. I agree with your analysis in part but I don't think the EU is doing these things deliberately to undermine, it's more that it's their philosophy (which IMO is counter to the interests of the average european).

vixen99 8y ago

Even with Spanish and English, the US has a few issues. The EU has 23. Out of interest, after these 'multiple human generations' how many languages do you think the single nation will be speaking? You have an opinion. Fair enough but will it be a democratic decision to make the transition? One thinks of 2005, when on a turnout of 69% of French votes, 55% rejected the EU Treaty. It was accepted nevertheless.