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I would love for the EU to even give glimpses of a super government; what I see is fractal bureaucracy. Every crysis that seems to come up, it's a show of peopl

I would love for the EU to even give glimpses of a super government; what I see is fractal bureaucracy. Every crysis that seems to come up, it's a show of people in suits, negociating and coming up with plans and commisions and big worded manifests, and coming up with solutions sometimes decades after the initial spark. I come from Central Eastern Europe i.e. the poor people of the great EU. Our government is incompetent, corrupt, all the stereotypical attributes, and somehow, the most incompetent, lazy and corrupt end up Europoliticians (note: this is not a rule, there are exceptions). It's almost like a status symbol of when you beat the system; you get a nice cozy place where you do nothing. I am highly skeptical that we are alone in this. Then, from a ground level, as someone that wants to love the European Union and can see the great economic benefits it brought us since joining, I can't help but stare in awe as all the brain gets drained from my country. Every single capable person has to decide whether they want to stay here and basically fight for scraps or go to the west where they get money they couldn't dream of here. Sorry for the rant, your mention of a super government made me irrationaly angry at something I can't have, or don't want in its current form, and your deconstruction point is very much aligned with what I think needs to happen' currently.

nirv 6y ago
Visa and borders won't stop capable people from migrating out of the country that you are amusingly planning to fix by isolation. It didn't before you joined the bloc, it won't after you "deconstruct the EU" — and you know it well. As long as you have precisely pinpointed the issue with supplying EP with incompetent MEPs (a common problem among most members of the bloc today, arguably including the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen), you've resorted to a completely destructive resolution of deconstructing the EU. As a punishment for the failures of your homeland, I suppose? "Bad EU did it, not our fault" is such a common trope among local politicians (hallo Österreich[1] from the latest news) and some citizens. The solution is in fixing your domestic politics, not dragging your capable citizens and fellow European neighbors down. It's solely thanks to the European Union's common approach[2] that the small/poor members of the bloc have truly equal access to vaccines. Otherwise small countries would have never been able to outbid rich Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and other power states on the free market. As you understand, there are no benefits for Germany, France et al. in this collective decision, they're literally paying with the lives of their citizens for the idea of the EU. A little gratitude. By being in the same boat, we will together overcome pandemic, poverty and political incompetence. You're free to disagree, just don't pretend that your local brexit will go swimmingly — it isn't rosy even for such a developed country as the UK. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-on-official-for-vaccination-missteps/ https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-o... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralised-eu-approach_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralis...
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >A little gratitude Oh please, rich EU countries haven't accepted the eastern block countries in the EU out of charity, they did it because it benefited them massively. Big French and German businesses could now export their products to millions more people without tariffs and relocate production there lowering the cost and making insane profits. Danish, French, Dutch and Austrian banks took over the banking business in the eastern block offering the citizens there much higher fees and interests than they would in their home countries, again, making massive profits which got funneled back "home". IKEA, German and Austrian furniture and logging companies are heavily involved in illegal deforestation in Romania via bribes and corruption. Austrian construction companies are often involved in corruption scandals for shitty and massively overpriced infrastructure projects in the Eastern Block, some with EU money even. And not to mention the workforce and 'brain drain' that moved to the west benefiting the businesses, both white collar and especially agriculture, and also the landlords there on a huge scale. The EU expansion has been a massive wealth transfer project of taxpayer money from rich countries to the big businesses and asset owners of the same rich countries, funneled through the newer poorer members in form of various EU projects. And of course the poorer members then get the blame by the populist politicians in the richer countries because they're "stealing your tax Euros and your jobs" even though their policies directly enabled and supported this wealth and job transfer in the first place as it benefited the big and well connected businesses in their countries.
  - nirv 6y ago
    > Oh please, rich EU countries haven't accepted the eastern block countries in the EU out of charity, they did it because it benefited them massively. Oh, you know perfectly well which paragraph you pulled this sentence from. Nothing will sell the idea of exchanging tens of thousands of lives for some kind of commercial benefits for some large companies to the citizens of advanced European countries, if the citizens themselves didn't believe in the European Union. It just doesn't work like that in Europe. > Big French and German businesses could now export their products to millions more people without tariffs and relocate production there lowering the cost and making insane profits. Yeah, these pesky businesses optimize costs and seek profits, who would have thought. They do it while developing the industry and create a pool of high-grade (Germany and Western Europe is known for quality goods) specialists in regions where such competencies have often never existed. It's all obvious, the same thing is repeated again and again. You know who else benefits? Competitive companies from the poorer/newer members of the bloc, which now have a massive open market to compete due to the lower OpEx/labor costs, and essentially pushing stagnant players out of their home markets. E.g. my customers are a small factory supplying manufactured goods and high quality services all over the EU, especially Sweden, Germany and Switzerland—for a much lower price. My company is able to provide SWE solutions for companies in France and Finland just like to local businesses. Some of my partners run a 3-employees SWE consulting company from home offices in Estonia, providing services for a particular Spanish fintech enterprise as if it were across the street. It wouldn't be possible without the EU, the market is truly open and transparent without red taping. > Austrian construction companies are often involved in corruption scandals for shitty and massively overpriced infrastructure projects in the Eastern Block, some with EU money even. I don't get it, this is just ridiculous. You do realize that corrupt governments and institutions are exploited by foreign forces all the time, it doesn't have to be European? China[1][2] and Russia[3] are heavily involved in such activities, both are outside the EU. What's your point? It's not EU's fault that some Eastern politicians/institutions are corrupt, but this is its prospect problem and responsibility[4], I'd agree with that. > The EU expansion has been a massive wealth transfer project of taxpayer money from rich countries to the bg businesses and asset owners of the same rich countries, funneled through the newer poorer members in form of various EU projects. These allegations run counter to the economic growth charts of almost all countries that have joined the European Union. This definitely contradicts the economic situation in Estonia (again, Eastern Europe); also below is a reply by an Irish citizen, country which got richer after joining the bloc. You're clearly reaching the anti-EU narrative with your exploitation/corruption claims, and you do it quite lazily. As I said, start by putting things in order in your home country, and then threaten or moan at the "oppressive" European Union. If you don’t change your mind by then. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868102620963134 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/18681026209631... [2] https://www.amo.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AMO_central-europe-for-sale-the-politics-of-chinese-influence.pdf https://www.amo.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AMO_central-eu... (PDF) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Laundromat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Laundromat [4] https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studien/Report/PDF/2018/IW-Report_2018-44_Democratic_Support_and_Corruption.pdf https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studien/Report/... (PDF)
rayiner 6y ago
The idea of a competent super government encompassing 700 million people is a fantasy. Instead, as the EU heads toward more integration you’ll see more of the debilitating infighting that makes the US government so dysfunctional. Once Germany and France start chipping into the common tax base, your politics will become preoccupied with telling Poland it has to have abortion or something similar. When you’re subsidizing someone else you feel entitled to tell them how to live.

nirv 6y ago

Visa and borders won't stop capable people from migrating out of the country that you are amusingly planning to fix by isolation. It didn't before you joined the bloc, it won't after you "deconstruct the EU" — and you know it well. As long as you have precisely pinpointed the issue with supplying EP with incompetent MEPs (a common problem among most members of the bloc today, arguably including the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen), you've resorted to a completely destructive resolution of deconstructing the EU. As a punishment for the failures of your homeland, I suppose? "Bad EU did it, not our fault" is such a common trope among local politicians (hallo Österreich[1] from the latest news) and some citizens. The solution is in fixing your domestic politics, not dragging your capable citizens and fellow European neighbors down. It's solely thanks to the European Union's common approach[2] that the small/poor members of the bloc have truly equal access to vaccines. Otherwise small countries would have never been able to outbid rich Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and other power states on the free market. As you understand, there are no benefits for Germany, France et al. in this collective decision, they're literally paying with the lives of their citizens for the idea of the EU. A little gratitude. By being in the same boat, we will together overcome pandemic, poverty and political incompetence. You're free to disagree, just don't pretend that your local brexit will go swimmingly — it isn't rosy even for such a developed country as the UK. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-on-official-for-vaccination-missteps/ https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-o... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralised-eu-approach_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralis...

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>A little gratitude Oh please, rich EU countries haven't accepted the eastern block countries in the EU out of charity, they did it because it benefited them massively. Big French and German businesses could now export their products to millions more people without tariffs and relocate production there lowering the cost and making insane profits. Danish, French, Dutch and Austrian banks took over the banking business in the eastern block offering the citizens there much higher fees and interests than they would in their home countries, again, making massive profits which got funneled back "home". IKEA, German and Austrian furniture and logging companies are heavily involved in illegal deforestation in Romania via bribes and corruption. Austrian construction companies are often involved in corruption scandals for shitty and massively overpriced infrastructure projects in the Eastern Block, some with EU money even. And not to mention the workforce and 'brain drain' that moved to the west benefiting the businesses, both white collar and especially agriculture, and also the landlords there on a huge scale. The EU expansion has been a massive wealth transfer project of taxpayer money from rich countries to the big businesses and asset owners of the same rich countries, funneled through the newer poorer members in form of various EU projects. And of course the poorer members then get the blame by the populist politicians in the richer countries because they're "stealing your tax Euros and your jobs" even though their policies directly enabled and supported this wealth and job transfer in the first place as it benefited the big and well connected businesses in their countries.
- nirv 6y ago
  > Oh please, rich EU countries haven't accepted the eastern block countries in the EU out of charity, they did it because it benefited them massively. Oh, you know perfectly well which paragraph you pulled this sentence from. Nothing will sell the idea of exchanging tens of thousands of lives for some kind of commercial benefits for some large companies to the citizens of advanced European countries, if the citizens themselves didn't believe in the European Union. It just doesn't work like that in Europe. > Big French and German businesses could now export their products to millions more people without tariffs and relocate production there lowering the cost and making insane profits. Yeah, these pesky businesses optimize costs and seek profits, who would have thought. They do it while developing the industry and create a pool of high-grade (Germany and Western Europe is known for quality goods) specialists in regions where such competencies have often never existed. It's all obvious, the same thing is repeated again and again. You know who else benefits? Competitive companies from the poorer/newer members of the bloc, which now have a massive open market to compete due to the lower OpEx/labor costs, and essentially pushing stagnant players out of their home markets. E.g. my customers are a small factory supplying manufactured goods and high quality services all over the EU, especially Sweden, Germany and Switzerland—for a much lower price. My company is able to provide SWE solutions for companies in France and Finland just like to local businesses. Some of my partners run a 3-employees SWE consulting company from home offices in Estonia, providing services for a particular Spanish fintech enterprise as if it were across the street. It wouldn't be possible without the EU, the market is truly open and transparent without red taping. > Austrian construction companies are often involved in corruption scandals for shitty and massively overpriced infrastructure projects in the Eastern Block, some with EU money even. I don't get it, this is just ridiculous. You do realize that corrupt governments and institutions are exploited by foreign forces all the time, it doesn't have to be European? China[1][2] and Russia[3] are heavily involved in such activities, both are outside the EU. What's your point? It's not EU's fault that some Eastern politicians/institutions are corrupt, but this is its prospect problem and responsibility[4], I'd agree with that. > The EU expansion has been a massive wealth transfer project of taxpayer money from rich countries to the bg businesses and asset owners of the same rich countries, funneled through the newer poorer members in form of various EU projects. These allegations run counter to the economic growth charts of almost all countries that have joined the European Union. This definitely contradicts the economic situation in Estonia (again, Eastern Europe); also below is a reply by an Irish citizen, country which got richer after joining the bloc. You're clearly reaching the anti-EU narrative with your exploitation/corruption claims, and you do it quite lazily. As I said, start by putting things in order in your home country, and then threaten or moan at the "oppressive" European Union. If you don’t change your mind by then. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868102620963134 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/18681026209631... [2] https://www.amo.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AMO_central-europe-for-sale-the-politics-of-chinese-influence.pdf https://www.amo.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AMO_central-eu... (PDF) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Laundromat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Laundromat [4] https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studien/Report/PDF/2018/IW-Report_2018-44_Democratic_Support_and_Corruption.pdf https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studien/Report/... (PDF)

rayiner 6y ago

The idea of a competent super government encompassing 700 million people is a fantasy. Instead, as the EU heads toward more integration you’ll see more of the debilitating infighting that makes the US government so dysfunctional. Once Germany and France start chipping into the common tax base, your politics will become preoccupied with telling Poland it has to have abortion or something similar. When you’re subsidizing someone else you feel entitled to tell them how to live.