6 ms·

The law itself makes sense in my opinion, but the way it was introduced makes the self declaration as being democratic a cheap farce. I doubt the EU will survi

The law itself makes sense in my opinion, but the way it was introduced makes the self declaration as being democratic a cheap farce. I doubt the EU will survive in its current state. 10 years ago that would have made me sad. There are enthusiasts, but not enough to make it work.

kzrdude 6y ago
The enthusiasts need to temper their dreams and expectations - EU is doing fine, and doesn't need to always become more powerful or more integrated. Especially not now, when citizens don't want it.
- oaiey 6y ago
  That is a very good point. Problem is that the enthusiasts are the young people across Europe and not exactly a minority. That is a 50:50 or 60:40 thing. So when you satisfy on group (good enough) you will make the the other half unhappy.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    The old people will die off rather sooner than later, the problem will solve itself biologically. The real question is: will this happen fast enough to avoid hitting a no-way-back point in climate change?
    - oaiey 6y ago
      That is not really accurate. The young people get older as well. And change their world view. Once you hear hundreds of times the "bad" news of immigrants, workers from rumania taking your jobs, etc, experiencing the slowness of evolvement of the EU or just switch to thinking british style (nations do better, europe is only a shared market). For sure, that is all inaccurate in one way or the other, but people are busy or in bad situations, leaving their enthusiasm behind them.
- mamon 6y ago
  In fact I think EU should take few steps back: the perfect state was before Lisbon treaty, when EU was basically just a free trade zone. Since Lisbon they try to make it a single country, with unified policy on international affairs, military, etc, which doesn't make sense.
  - nix23 6y ago
    >EU was basically just a free trade zone Exactly! That's what the EU should be and nothing more.
    - M2Ys4U 6y ago
      The EU has never been "just a free trade zone", though. It has always had a political element. To quote a 1963 Court of Justice judgment: "The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields and the subjects of which comprise not only member states but also their nationals. Independently of the legislation of member states, Community law therefore not only imposes obligations on individuals but is also intended to confer upon them rights which become part of their legal heritage. These rights arise not only where they are expressly granted by the treaty, but also by reason of obligations which the treaty imposes in a clearly defined way upon individuals as well as upon the member states and upon the institutions of the Community. "
      - imtringued 6y ago
        The trade union, although critical to our modern day understanding of the EU, was actually not the primary goal, it was all about politics, primarily about maintaining peaceful diplomatic relationships between countries. It's just that doing business together is one of the more effective means to be friendly to each other.
  - simias 6y ago
    I mean that's the crux of the issue, is the EU just a liberal (in the non-american sense) free-trade zone or is it more that that. I personally would like it to be more, but I understand that it's a very controversial topic.
- chki 6y ago
  >Especially not now, when citizens don't want it. Citation needed. While there is some anti-European sentiment in all member states those are almost always in the minority. There are a lot of people who want more integration.
  - m12k 6y ago
    Citation needed. The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. Most of the EU (indeed most of the Western world) is in a democratic crisis - moving decision-making even further away from citizens by centralizing it in Brussels is only going to exacerbate that, leading to more anti-EU sentiment and more brexits.
    - chki 6y ago
      First Google result: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-u... >The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. That's simply not true. There are multiple civil society organizations pushing for a closer union. People are voting for parties that are explicitly pro-European.
      - mehrdadn 6y ago
        I don't know who's right but France has some 65M people whereas e.g. Lithuania has 3M people. And France provides 15% of the EU budget whereas (say) Lithuania provides 0.3%. I'm not sure listing all countries on a bar chart as if their opinions have equal impact on the fate of the EU is an accurate way to illustrate the situation? Would the EU do just fine after losing the UK and a country like France? Would Germans still love the EU so much after they realize they're paying twice as much into the EU as the next country? Maybe you could argue it would, but I guess it seems far from obvious to me.
        bkor 6y ago
        > Would Germans still love the EU so much after they realize they're paying twice as much into the EU as the next country? Germans took up way more monetary responsibility during Corona. E.g. they took various patients from Netherlands and paid for the care themself. Same with the financial crisis that was a result of Corona, Germany was happy to help out other countries. Now if you look at what Netherlands gains out of the EU (so what the EU is worth to NL) it is about 7 to 8 times the net payment. Limiting the net amount paid is good, but the focus on net payment without looking at what you get is quite short sighted. See e.g. UK where just paying the custom agents will cost an equivalent as the EU payments.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  > EU is doing fine If it is, why isn't it cracking down more seriously on, say, GDPR violations already? Is giving companies multiple years to adjust still not enough? Or does a serious enforcement of its laws not fall under the umbrella of doing fine (nor sure if pun intended)?
  - yorwba 6y ago
    https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ Order by fine, descending.
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/data-protection-laws-are-great-shame-they-are-not-being-enforced https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/data-p...
  - bkor 6y ago
    One does not follow the other. EU can be doing badly while GDPR is fine, GDPR can be crap while EU is doing fine, etc GDPR violations are handled per country btw. Further, GDPR is a regulation which EU member countries turned into law.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Comparatively? Which countries are doing more to protect citizens from data-hungry corporations?
- krageon 6y ago
  > citizens don't want it You're talking about the populist dregs of society. Let's not make the very american mistake of validating that rhetoric by considering it true.
normalnorm 6y ago
> I doubt the EU will survive in its current state. A lot of people desire this to be true, but that does not mean that it is. It is a particularly weird opinion to hold in the wake of the most recent challenge to its continuity -- the Brexit fiasco, with the EU having maintained a united front for more than 4 years, while the UK emerges out of it in a terrible state -- and the worst is yet to come. The EU is not perfect by any means (what is?), but it is a terribly ambitious project that has been painstakingly built over decades. Every step of the way, someone like you was claiming that it was impossible, that it was surely about to collapse. Well, we are 27 member states strong and we are dealing with the economic challenged posed by COVID better than most of the rest of the world. If we look at objective measures, such as economic inequality, political polarization or civil unrest, we are perhaps forced to conclude that the US are closer to collapse than the EU. To be clear, I do not desire the collapse of the US. I think that that US and the EU are natural friends, in a world where they have much more in common than what separates them.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I wanted to write "in its current form". I don't think it will dissolve, but people will realize that some countries have different ideas about government. Especially with the planned addition of new countries. Many countries favor democracy a lot less and we are blindly expanding. Many people believe we need the union to defend our values, but it becomes more apparent that we might loose them on the way.
- nbevans 6y ago
  I just read this and your comment history. You need to cut back on that Kool-aid.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  I don't understand how you can look at the world and honestly think the US is closer to collapse then the EU. Also what world do you live in where the EU is doing better then most of the world? Half the EU countries are in the top 20 deaths / pop.
  - 6y ago

kzrdude 6y ago

The enthusiasts need to temper their dreams and expectations - EU is doing fine, and doesn't need to always become more powerful or more integrated. Especially not now, when citizens don't want it.

oaiey 6y ago
That is a very good point. Problem is that the enthusiasts are the young people across Europe and not exactly a minority. That is a 50:50 or 60:40 thing. So when you satisfy on group (good enough) you will make the the other half unhappy.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  The old people will die off rather sooner than later, the problem will solve itself biologically. The real question is: will this happen fast enough to avoid hitting a no-way-back point in climate change?
  - oaiey 6y ago
    That is not really accurate. The young people get older as well. And change their world view. Once you hear hundreds of times the "bad" news of immigrants, workers from rumania taking your jobs, etc, experiencing the slowness of evolvement of the EU or just switch to thinking british style (nations do better, europe is only a shared market). For sure, that is all inaccurate in one way or the other, but people are busy or in bad situations, leaving their enthusiasm behind them.
mamon 6y ago
In fact I think EU should take few steps back: the perfect state was before Lisbon treaty, when EU was basically just a free trade zone. Since Lisbon they try to make it a single country, with unified policy on international affairs, military, etc, which doesn't make sense.
- nix23 6y ago
  >EU was basically just a free trade zone Exactly! That's what the EU should be and nothing more.
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    The EU has never been "just a free trade zone", though. It has always had a political element. To quote a 1963 Court of Justice judgment: "The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields and the subjects of which comprise not only member states but also their nationals. Independently of the legislation of member states, Community law therefore not only imposes obligations on individuals but is also intended to confer upon them rights which become part of their legal heritage. These rights arise not only where they are expressly granted by the treaty, but also by reason of obligations which the treaty imposes in a clearly defined way upon individuals as well as upon the member states and upon the institutions of the Community. "
    - imtringued 6y ago
      The trade union, although critical to our modern day understanding of the EU, was actually not the primary goal, it was all about politics, primarily about maintaining peaceful diplomatic relationships between countries. It's just that doing business together is one of the more effective means to be friendly to each other.
- simias 6y ago
  I mean that's the crux of the issue, is the EU just a liberal (in the non-american sense) free-trade zone or is it more that that. I personally would like it to be more, but I understand that it's a very controversial topic.
chki 6y ago
>Especially not now, when citizens don't want it. Citation needed. While there is some anti-European sentiment in all member states those are almost always in the minority. There are a lot of people who want more integration.
- m12k 6y ago
  Citation needed. The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. Most of the EU (indeed most of the Western world) is in a democratic crisis - moving decision-making even further away from citizens by centralizing it in Brussels is only going to exacerbate that, leading to more anti-EU sentiment and more brexits.
  - chki 6y ago
    First Google result: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-u... >The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. That's simply not true. There are multiple civil society organizations pushing for a closer union. People are voting for parties that are explicitly pro-European.
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      I don't know who's right but France has some 65M people whereas e.g. Lithuania has 3M people. And France provides 15% of the EU budget whereas (say) Lithuania provides 0.3%. I'm not sure listing all countries on a bar chart as if their opinions have equal impact on the fate of the EU is an accurate way to illustrate the situation? Would the EU do just fine after losing the UK and a country like France? Would Germans still love the EU so much after they realize they're paying twice as much into the EU as the next country? Maybe you could argue it would, but I guess it seems far from obvious to me.
      - bkor 6y ago
        > Would Germans still love the EU so much after they realize they're paying twice as much into the EU as the next country? Germans took up way more monetary responsibility during Corona. E.g. they took various patients from Netherlands and paid for the care themself. Same with the financial crisis that was a result of Corona, Germany was happy to help out other countries. Now if you look at what Netherlands gains out of the EU (so what the EU is worth to NL) it is about 7 to 8 times the net payment. Limiting the net amount paid is good, but the focus on net payment without looking at what you get is quite short sighted. See e.g. UK where just paying the custom agents will cost an equivalent as the EU payments.
mehrdadn 6y ago
> EU is doing fine If it is, why isn't it cracking down more seriously on, say, GDPR violations already? Is giving companies multiple years to adjust still not enough? Or does a serious enforcement of its laws not fall under the umbrella of doing fine (nor sure if pun intended)?
- yorwba 6y ago
  https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ Order by fine, descending.
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/data-protection-laws-are-great-shame-they-are-not-being-enforced https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/data-p...
- bkor 6y ago
  One does not follow the other. EU can be doing badly while GDPR is fine, GDPR can be crap while EU is doing fine, etc GDPR violations are handled per country btw. Further, GDPR is a regulation which EU member countries turned into law.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Comparatively? Which countries are doing more to protect citizens from data-hungry corporations?
krageon 6y ago
> citizens don't want it You're talking about the populist dregs of society. Let's not make the very american mistake of validating that rhetoric by considering it true.

normalnorm 6y ago

> I doubt the EU will survive in its current state. A lot of people desire this to be true, but that does not mean that it is. It is a particularly weird opinion to hold in the wake of the most recent challenge to its continuity -- the Brexit fiasco, with the EU having maintained a united front for more than 4 years, while the UK emerges out of it in a terrible state -- and the worst is yet to come. The EU is not perfect by any means (what is?), but it is a terribly ambitious project that has been painstakingly built over decades. Every step of the way, someone like you was claiming that it was impossible, that it was surely about to collapse. Well, we are 27 member states strong and we are dealing with the economic challenged posed by COVID better than most of the rest of the world. If we look at objective measures, such as economic inequality, political polarization or civil unrest, we are perhaps forced to conclude that the US are closer to collapse than the EU. To be clear, I do not desire the collapse of the US. I think that that US and the EU are natural friends, in a world where they have much more in common than what separates them.

raxxorrax 6y ago
I wanted to write "in its current form". I don't think it will dissolve, but people will realize that some countries have different ideas about government. Especially with the planned addition of new countries. Many countries favor democracy a lot less and we are blindly expanding. Many people believe we need the union to defend our values, but it becomes more apparent that we might loose them on the way.
nbevans 6y ago
I just read this and your comment history. You need to cut back on that Kool-aid.
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
I don't understand how you can look at the world and honestly think the US is closer to collapse then the EU. Also what world do you live in where the EU is doing better then most of the world? Half the EU countries are in the top 20 deaths / pop.
- 6y ago