4 ms·

Yeah, but how sustainable is the EU really, in the long term? I’m still convinced it will either dissolve or devolve into a rump organization within my lifetime

by SllX 5y ago

Yeah, but how sustainable is the EU really, in the long term? I’m still convinced it will either dissolve or devolve into a rump organization within my lifetime.

thatguy0900 5y ago
Well, I'm assuming that's one of the things that total pervasive surveillance and control of communication is meant to address.
- SllX 5y ago
  Seems like acting with that intent with this power is an easy way to accelerate the EU’s own dissolution. The Warsaw Pact, the Cold War, the Iron Curtain across Europe and the Berlin Wall, as well as the communist surveillance States that still-living Europeans lived within and remember well enough was not that long ago.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    They probably make the argument to themselves that none of those people had anywhere near the amount of data they will have. I guess it remains to be seen how long an intelligence agency can hold a country together when they have access to a large portion of every private conversation between citizens.
rich_sasha 5y ago
EU gets a lot of stick but deep below, the boring stuff keeps it together. Brexit showed just the enormous depth of high quality glue keeping all remaining countries together. So I don’t think the EU will be collapsing any time soon, certainly not for rational reasons.
- SllX 5y ago
  Yeah, but how much of that boring stuff requires the full matter of what the EU has become? That’s why I could see a rump sticking around or getting folded into some other institutions, if full dissolution never quite happens.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Again, Brexit shows, imho, that you can’t have the boring stuff without the tight integration. There are no duties because taxes are harmonised. There are no import/export controls because norms are identical pan-EU. The UK wanted to drop the tight integration and acceptance of common goals, but keep all the tax and trade benefits. But the logical hurdles turned out to be insurmountable. Want to sell fish tax-free? Well let us fish in your waters. Want to sell frictionless to our markets? Accept our standards. So what should the common ground be for digital services? Initiatives like this, good or bad, represent the EU’s drive to combat big issues facing the world, and again need to be tackled for the EU to remain relevant; it can’t just stick to subsidising farming, that is so 1950s. I spoke once to a senior economist (can’t remember the name sadly) who made a good point: EU is often compared to national governments, and looks sluggish by comparison. But the real comparisons would be to other enormous bureaucracies: US federal government, China, UN etc. And when you make this comparison, it is in fact quite favourable for the EU. Basically, scaling is hard, and the EU is not bad at it.
    - krona 5y ago
      > Basically, scaling is hard, and the EU is not bad at it. It's not scaling economically though, is it?
      - engineeringwoke 5y ago
        What makes you say that? Mass media, especially English speaking mass media, have been EU polyannas since its inception. It's bad for their status quo.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      "Brexit shows, imho, that you can’t have the boring stuff without the tight integration" This is definitely not true. There are tons of 0-tarrif trade agreements in this world, and even those without border checks for commercial goods - all without political integration. NAFTA/USMCA have been doing this for 35 years and it's very effective. Brexit doesn't show 'how good the EU is' it shows the opposite: that UK, Switzerland and Norway well get along quite well outside of the political body. The EEC was entirely uncontentious - everyone wants some version of that. No arguments from anyone there. But the argument that the 'Political Layer over the EEC, i.e. the EU, is necessary' might have some merit, but it's probably more complicated, and it might not even be true. The real comparison is no between EU/US/China - but between the EU and a more comprehensive version of the EEC - i.e. some kind of 'deep trade integration' but without a political body, and without an ECJ with 'Legal Supremacy'. This surveillance issue highlights one of those areas where I'm not so sure the EU would be perfectly ideal for supranational laws. Treaty-based regulation - for sure. But laws under ECJ Supremacy ... I'm not so sure. It's going to be interesting to see how this jives with the German Basic Law and their de-facto opt-out over constitutional issues.
- filmfact 5y ago
  You are right, the Stasi would be so proud of what Europe is about to become.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    I’m not saying this is a good idea, only that it’s not in the brink of falling apart. And I reckon this is the last thing that would break it. Farming subsidies or carbon credits if anything. Again, the boring stuff.
    - fogihujy 5y ago
      Yeah, farming subsidies alone could keep the EU afloat for years - we simply can't get by without them.
- krona 5y ago
  It's all stick, no carrot. Unsustainable.
  - pcrh 5y ago
    The EU has a lot of carrot for countries like Poland or Lithuania. Even longer term members such as Belgium, etc, that don't have such history with the Soviets know they are better off being in the EU than splintered.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      What is the 'carrot' for Spain, France, Italy that goes beyond what the EEC provided? Why would a 'really great trade agreement' not provide 'most, if not all of the carrot' with respect to economic upsides? Does the EU political apparatus an ECJ, i.e. beyond comprehensive trade agreements, provide carrots?
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Well, one carrot for Spain was the assistance it received during the last financial crisis[0], and France probably likes being able to project its influence onto neighbouring countries through its position in the EU. Less reductively, I think that a major benefit of a political union is that it gives some degree of democratic legitimacy to decisions made about difficult region-wide issues like trade policy, consumer protection, immigration, the environment, and anti-trust law, to name but a few. All of those matters could in theory be settled via multi-lateral treaties, but they would probably be hard to reach flexible compromises over while still being overseen by representatives voted for by the public with a mandate for deciding on those supranational issues. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Spain
        jollybean 5y ago
        Those are not very good carrots. Why bother with barely a vaneer of legitimacy at the EU level which has a democratic deficit? Why not have an EEC that casts flexible treaties over immigration, environment and anti-trust on as as-needed basis, with actual elected represented 'regular' national MPs dedicated to those issues at the European level? i.e. Boris would have 5 Cabinet Ministers for major European level issues and a European ministry? That way have the benefits of some degree of coherence without the sovereignty problem.

by SllX 5y ago

Yeah, but how sustainable is the EU really, in the long term? I’m still convinced it will either dissolve or devolve into a rump organization within my lifetime.

thatguy0900 5y ago

Well, I'm assuming that's one of the things that total pervasive surveillance and control of communication is meant to address.

SllX 5y ago
Seems like acting with that intent with this power is an easy way to accelerate the EU’s own dissolution. The Warsaw Pact, the Cold War, the Iron Curtain across Europe and the Berlin Wall, as well as the communist surveillance States that still-living Europeans lived within and remember well enough was not that long ago.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  They probably make the argument to themselves that none of those people had anywhere near the amount of data they will have. I guess it remains to be seen how long an intelligence agency can hold a country together when they have access to a large portion of every private conversation between citizens.

rich_sasha 5y ago

EU gets a lot of stick but deep below, the boring stuff keeps it together. Brexit showed just the enormous depth of high quality glue keeping all remaining countries together. So I don’t think the EU will be collapsing any time soon, certainly not for rational reasons.

SllX 5y ago
Yeah, but how much of that boring stuff requires the full matter of what the EU has become? That’s why I could see a rump sticking around or getting folded into some other institutions, if full dissolution never quite happens.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Again, Brexit shows, imho, that you can’t have the boring stuff without the tight integration. There are no duties because taxes are harmonised. There are no import/export controls because norms are identical pan-EU. The UK wanted to drop the tight integration and acceptance of common goals, but keep all the tax and trade benefits. But the logical hurdles turned out to be insurmountable. Want to sell fish tax-free? Well let us fish in your waters. Want to sell frictionless to our markets? Accept our standards. So what should the common ground be for digital services? Initiatives like this, good or bad, represent the EU’s drive to combat big issues facing the world, and again need to be tackled for the EU to remain relevant; it can’t just stick to subsidising farming, that is so 1950s. I spoke once to a senior economist (can’t remember the name sadly) who made a good point: EU is often compared to national governments, and looks sluggish by comparison. But the real comparisons would be to other enormous bureaucracies: US federal government, China, UN etc. And when you make this comparison, it is in fact quite favourable for the EU. Basically, scaling is hard, and the EU is not bad at it.
  - krona 5y ago
    > Basically, scaling is hard, and the EU is not bad at it. It's not scaling economically though, is it?
    - engineeringwoke 5y ago
      What makes you say that? Mass media, especially English speaking mass media, have been EU polyannas since its inception. It's bad for their status quo.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "Brexit shows, imho, that you can’t have the boring stuff without the tight integration" This is definitely not true. There are tons of 0-tarrif trade agreements in this world, and even those without border checks for commercial goods - all without political integration. NAFTA/USMCA have been doing this for 35 years and it's very effective. Brexit doesn't show 'how good the EU is' it shows the opposite: that UK, Switzerland and Norway well get along quite well outside of the political body. The EEC was entirely uncontentious - everyone wants some version of that. No arguments from anyone there. But the argument that the 'Political Layer over the EEC, i.e. the EU, is necessary' might have some merit, but it's probably more complicated, and it might not even be true. The real comparison is no between EU/US/China - but between the EU and a more comprehensive version of the EEC - i.e. some kind of 'deep trade integration' but without a political body, and without an ECJ with 'Legal Supremacy'. This surveillance issue highlights one of those areas where I'm not so sure the EU would be perfectly ideal for supranational laws. Treaty-based regulation - for sure. But laws under ECJ Supremacy ... I'm not so sure. It's going to be interesting to see how this jives with the German Basic Law and their de-facto opt-out over constitutional issues.
filmfact 5y ago
You are right, the Stasi would be so proud of what Europe is about to become.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I’m not saying this is a good idea, only that it’s not in the brink of falling apart. And I reckon this is the last thing that would break it. Farming subsidies or carbon credits if anything. Again, the boring stuff.
  - fogihujy 5y ago
    Yeah, farming subsidies alone could keep the EU afloat for years - we simply can't get by without them.
krona 5y ago
It's all stick, no carrot. Unsustainable.
- pcrh 5y ago
  The EU has a lot of carrot for countries like Poland or Lithuania. Even longer term members such as Belgium, etc, that don't have such history with the Soviets know they are better off being in the EU than splintered.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    What is the 'carrot' for Spain, France, Italy that goes beyond what the EEC provided? Why would a 'really great trade agreement' not provide 'most, if not all of the carrot' with respect to economic upsides? Does the EU political apparatus an ECJ, i.e. beyond comprehensive trade agreements, provide carrots?
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Well, one carrot for Spain was the assistance it received during the last financial crisis[0], and France probably likes being able to project its influence onto neighbouring countries through its position in the EU. Less reductively, I think that a major benefit of a political union is that it gives some degree of democratic legitimacy to decisions made about difficult region-wide issues like trade policy, consumer protection, immigration, the environment, and anti-trust law, to name but a few. All of those matters could in theory be settled via multi-lateral treaties, but they would probably be hard to reach flexible compromises over while still being overseen by representatives voted for by the public with a mandate for deciding on those supranational issues. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Spain
      - jollybean 5y ago
        Those are not very good carrots. Why bother with barely a vaneer of legitimacy at the EU level which has a democratic deficit? Why not have an EEC that casts flexible treaties over immigration, environment and anti-trust on as as-needed basis, with actual elected represented 'regular' national MPs dedicated to those issues at the European level? i.e. Boris would have 5 Cabinet Ministers for major European level issues and a European ministry? That way have the benefits of some degree of coherence without the sovereignty problem.