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Except of course if you are Norway or Switzerland or... > whole EU would be rendered meaningless No, the whole EU project would finally be true to its words,

Except of course if you are Norway or Switzerland or... > whole EU would be rendered meaningless No, the whole EU project would finally be true to its words, and I don't see freedom as meaningless. > divided Europe Well the EU should stop dividing it then - instead of supporting freedom of trade and movement and work, regardless of politics and ideology, as they told us, they do the exact opposite, using mafia practices to get their way.

jnurmine 6y ago
I'm not sure I follow. What do Norway and Switzerland have to do with anything? Norway and Switzerland have never been a part of EU, so they have never left EU either. Their situation is in no way comparable to Great Britain, which was/is a member of the EU. > freedom as meaningless I'm not sure I understand this either. Is your argument that dismantling of EU leads to freedom? If so, in what way? What freedom do you not have now that EU has taken away from you? > divided Europe In what way does EU divide Europe? Claiming that EU does not support freedom of trade, movement and work is bizarre. Those are the principles at the core of the EU. And of course a country has to, first and foremost, be a part of the EU to have access to EU rights, like free movement in the EU area and so on. > Mafia practises Care to give a concrete example of this? The continuous refusals by Great Britain to negotiate in a meaningful way (give some, get some) is not exactly "mafia practises" from the EU's side. Furthermore, my experience is that many people don't seem to understand even the basics of what the EU is and what it does and has done and why it even exists. And they don't seem to want to find out either -- those people are content with suspect, often state-sponsored sources, feeding them easy but false narrative along with some meme pictures. For example, according to polls, some Serbians believe that Russia and China have sent more aid to Serbia than EU. Ergo: EU bad, Russia/China good. But actually, the truth is that EU has sent by far the most amount of aid. China ranks in the 15th place and Russia even lower. EU had given 3.6 billion EUR in the past 18 years as pre-accession aid. But this is a fact which isn't given to you when you "Question More". Also, earlier during the EU elections there was so much talk about "undemocratic process" and "undemocratic EU" with "behind the scenes scheming by Juncker" and whatever. I found it personally sad, since criticizing something without understanding even a small part of it is prejudice, nothing more. There was a lack of basic knowledge about how the EU institutions like the EU Parliament, EU Commission and EU Council relate to each other, and what was being voted, and how.
- TomMarius 6y ago
  > Claiming that EU does not support freedom of trade, movement and work is bizarre. Those are the principles at the core of the EU. > And of course a country has to, first and foremost, be a part of the EU to have access to EU rights, like free movement in the EU area and so on. These two paragraphs sum it up nicely. You've fallen to the newspeak. Back when we were joining the EU in 2004, freedom of trade was supposed to mean everywhere, thus also with Norway and Switzerland, the UsA, Russia, Australia etc. As you said, these coubtries have never been to the EU, so why do they have access to the EU market? How is "left" different from "never been in"? Because you're angry the state left? That's supposed to be fair (core EU value, right?) to the people (as in humans) of the UK?
  - jnurmine 6y ago
    No, it's not "newspeak" and there is nothing contradictory about those things. This is a long reply, but please read on. EU has absolutely never said that they somehow provide automatic free trade/movement agreements with a random country on the planet regardless of what terms EU gets in return. If that is what you think, then I think you have misunderstood what the EU is about. The key point is this: EU as a block provides freedom of trade and movement etc. to countries WITHIN THE UNION. This happens "automatically" for union member countries. When Czech Republic (for example) joined in 2004, it enabled a person from Czech Republic to move to Portugal or work in Spain. And vice versa. Countries outside of the union, like Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan etc. have to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union. This is a process of give and take and often takes several years to make it happen in a way which everyone is happy with. So: the EU is the entity which agrees on free trade agreements (and other agreements) with nations outside of the EU. This is the reason why e.g. Norway and Switzerland have the good trade deals they now have -- they negotiated those deals with the EU. (Note that this is also beneficial for the union member countries since, as a bigger entity, EU can negotiate better deals) Now, Great Britain had these benefits as a member of the EU. But due to whatever reasons, which I won't go into to, they left the EU. Therefore the status of Great Britain reverts to the default state, which is NO AGREEMENT of any kind with EU. The contents of a new kind of agreement is what people have been trying to rehash out from the day 0. This is why it is different. When Great Britain left, they reverted back to a "random country with no deal in place". The fact that Great Britain is geographically in Europe or was in the EU in the past means nothing now; the situation now is they are not a member of the EU AND they lack an agreement with the EU. To summarize: Great Britain has no deal right now and has to negotiate a deal again. For what it's worth, unfortunately Great Britain appears to be not very enthusiastic to truly negotiate. They seem to have an idea that the EU benefits are possible without being in the EU, but of course such a thing won't happen. And that has nothing to do with EU principles of free movement and work or fairness to the people of UK and whatever, it has to do with the fact that now Great Britain is a country outside of the EU and will be handled like such. How "left" is different from "never been in" is that it is no different; the difference is that e.g. Norway and Switzerland have long ago negotiated an agreement with the EU, which spells out how the EU and that particular nation play together. And Great Britain has no such agreement in place right now. Hope this helps.

jnurmine 6y ago

I'm not sure I follow. What do Norway and Switzerland have to do with anything? Norway and Switzerland have never been a part of EU, so they have never left EU either. Their situation is in no way comparable to Great Britain, which was/is a member of the EU. > freedom as meaningless I'm not sure I understand this either. Is your argument that dismantling of EU leads to freedom? If so, in what way? What freedom do you not have now that EU has taken away from you? > divided Europe In what way does EU divide Europe? Claiming that EU does not support freedom of trade, movement and work is bizarre. Those are the principles at the core of the EU. And of course a country has to, first and foremost, be a part of the EU to have access to EU rights, like free movement in the EU area and so on. > Mafia practises Care to give a concrete example of this? The continuous refusals by Great Britain to negotiate in a meaningful way (give some, get some) is not exactly "mafia practises" from the EU's side. Furthermore, my experience is that many people don't seem to understand even the basics of what the EU is and what it does and has done and why it even exists. And they don't seem to want to find out either -- those people are content with suspect, often state-sponsored sources, feeding them easy but false narrative along with some meme pictures. For example, according to polls, some Serbians believe that Russia and China have sent more aid to Serbia than EU. Ergo: EU bad, Russia/China good. But actually, the truth is that EU has sent by far the most amount of aid. China ranks in the 15th place and Russia even lower. EU had given 3.6 billion EUR in the past 18 years as pre-accession aid. But this is a fact which isn't given to you when you "Question More". Also, earlier during the EU elections there was so much talk about "undemocratic process" and "undemocratic EU" with "behind the scenes scheming by Juncker" and whatever. I found it personally sad, since criticizing something without understanding even a small part of it is prejudice, nothing more. There was a lack of basic knowledge about how the EU institutions like the EU Parliament, EU Commission and EU Council relate to each other, and what was being voted, and how.

TomMarius 6y ago
> Claiming that EU does not support freedom of trade, movement and work is bizarre. Those are the principles at the core of the EU. > And of course a country has to, first and foremost, be a part of the EU to have access to EU rights, like free movement in the EU area and so on. These two paragraphs sum it up nicely. You've fallen to the newspeak. Back when we were joining the EU in 2004, freedom of trade was supposed to mean everywhere, thus also with Norway and Switzerland, the UsA, Russia, Australia etc. As you said, these coubtries have never been to the EU, so why do they have access to the EU market? How is "left" different from "never been in"? Because you're angry the state left? That's supposed to be fair (core EU value, right?) to the people (as in humans) of the UK?
- jnurmine 6y ago
  No, it's not "newspeak" and there is nothing contradictory about those things. This is a long reply, but please read on. EU has absolutely never said that they somehow provide automatic free trade/movement agreements with a random country on the planet regardless of what terms EU gets in return. If that is what you think, then I think you have misunderstood what the EU is about. The key point is this: EU as a block provides freedom of trade and movement etc. to countries WITHIN THE UNION. This happens "automatically" for union member countries. When Czech Republic (for example) joined in 2004, it enabled a person from Czech Republic to move to Portugal or work in Spain. And vice versa. Countries outside of the union, like Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan etc. have to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union. This is a process of give and take and often takes several years to make it happen in a way which everyone is happy with. So: the EU is the entity which agrees on free trade agreements (and other agreements) with nations outside of the EU. This is the reason why e.g. Norway and Switzerland have the good trade deals they now have -- they negotiated those deals with the EU. (Note that this is also beneficial for the union member countries since, as a bigger entity, EU can negotiate better deals) Now, Great Britain had these benefits as a member of the EU. But due to whatever reasons, which I won't go into to, they left the EU. Therefore the status of Great Britain reverts to the default state, which is NO AGREEMENT of any kind with EU. The contents of a new kind of agreement is what people have been trying to rehash out from the day 0. This is why it is different. When Great Britain left, they reverted back to a "random country with no deal in place". The fact that Great Britain is geographically in Europe or was in the EU in the past means nothing now; the situation now is they are not a member of the EU AND they lack an agreement with the EU. To summarize: Great Britain has no deal right now and has to negotiate a deal again. For what it's worth, unfortunately Great Britain appears to be not very enthusiastic to truly negotiate. They seem to have an idea that the EU benefits are possible without being in the EU, but of course such a thing won't happen. And that has nothing to do with EU principles of free movement and work or fairness to the people of UK and whatever, it has to do with the fact that now Great Britain is a country outside of the EU and will be handled like such. How "left" is different from "never been in" is that it is no different; the difference is that e.g. Norway and Switzerland have long ago negotiated an agreement with the EU, which spells out how the EU and that particular nation play together. And Great Britain has no such agreement in place right now. Hope this helps.