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I'm all for thinking and acting big on big issues. In my opinion however the EU as is is hopelessly underpowered to effectively address big issues. They just d

by simfoo 5y ago

I'm all for thinking and acting big on big issues. In my opinion however the EU as is is hopelessly underpowered to effectively address big issues. They just don't have the mandate to actually get all 27 states to act as one. The moment EU policies go against high member nation interests they are shut down. See Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, Malta, Luxemburg, etc for examples of this. Every single one has the power to basically veto all decisions.

Daishiman 5y ago
This is pointless cynical thinking. No government institution is going to be 100% effective at what it does, but the EU has shown that as far as large organizations go, it is remarkably effective at pushing certain actions that it's member states cannot do.
- simfoo 5y ago
  I don't disagree, the past years have made me cynical about all big EU proposals :( But time and time again it has shown that proposals that actually would change things get watered down hard or shut down completely
  - blooalien 5y ago
    I too have become more than a little cynical about all of this. Sadly, the problem you describe isn't limited to the EU. Seems like all major governments are either corporate owned subsidiaries or absolute dictatorships committed to "profit" and "growth" at literally any cost, with little to no concern for how it affects the larger population of Earth.
zpeti 5y ago
In fact this is a way for the EU to introduce eu wide taxation through the back door. This is power that countries have always had, and it’s now moving into the EU realm. It’s more centralization and more eu control. So it’s a step towards what you want.
- simfoo 5y ago
  Literally the first sentence: A dozen draft proposals, which still need to be approved by the bloc's 27 member states and the EU parliament, were announced on Wednesday. So not even approved by the member states yet :/
  - zpeti 5y ago
    I don’t see any countries objecting to it or threatening vetos, as has happened with some other things. Presumably this will pass. Since it’s a new form of taxation that everyone seems ok with. Perfect for any government.
paganel 5y ago
And for good reason, what the EU is asking here is deeply political (higher long-term taxes are always political) without any shade of legitimacy, for the simple reason that the EU was meant to be first and foremost an economical Union/treaty area, not a political one. As a EU citizen I do hope things won’t progress any further in this political regard because that will be the death of the Union (I know I’ll be among the many protesting deeper political integration), blowing up the economic union which while not perfect had its distinct advantages. Hope someone puts some common sense into today’s EU politicians/technocrats, they seem not to notice that they’te driving us all over a cliff (because apparently Brexit didn’t mean anything to them).
- Bayart 5y ago
  >for the simple reason that the EU was meant to be first and foremost an economical Union/treaty area, not a political one The EU was always meant to be a political union. The economical elements were introduced first because they're more palatable. It's an argument I often see repeated from people living in countries where the EU for sold as a trade tool (for example the Netherlands) when it was simply not the case.
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  > As a EU citizen I do hope things won’t progress any further in this political regard because that will be the death of the Union why would it be? The Union has evolved feom an agreement to coordinate coal and steel production to much more, and helped keep peace and bring wealth and integration. Globally the challenges are however not purely economic, economy and politics always mix - see China or Trump's arbitrary tariffs. Why would deeper integration be death of the Union? For me deeper integration is very much needed as plainly the EU countries are mostly too small to play any global role individually and will be bullied by China & co if they don't get more closely together.
- niemandhier 5y ago
  The EU was not conceived as an economic union, but as a tool to further the union of European nations via economics. France and Germany handed over a lot of control of their war critical industrial infrastructure to 'High Authority' which preceded the European Commission, not for trades sake but to prevent world war III and form an counter weight against the Warsaw Pact. Robert Schuman ( the French Foreign Minister at the time ) declared: " Through the consolidation of basic production and the institution of a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and the other countries that join, this proposal represents the first concrete step towards a European federation, imperative for the preservation of peace."[1] The only one to envision Europe purely as an economic union was Churchill, and since the UK left his visions hold even less importance. [1] https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration_en https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day...
ben_w 5y ago
Some EU powers require unanimous support, others require a qualified majority, which they define as: • Majority of countries: 55% (comprising at least 15 of them), or 72% if acting on a proposal from neither the Commission nor from the High Representative and • Majority of population: 65% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
krona 5y ago
> The moment EU policies go against high member nation interests they are shut down. Self interested cooperation among sovereign states is the only long term peaceful means of solving cross-border issues.
Someone 5y ago
The EU may move slowly, but it does move. Examples: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula... These were initially met with huge resistance, yet got approved, and triggered huge changes, not only inside the EU, but throughout the world. This one probably will see a zillion amendments and may eventually be either made powerless or be rejected. My money is on it being approved in a weaker form, with a future version tightening things, like what happened with RoHS. The trick is to get everybody commit to “we want to move to a climate-neutral economy. To get there, we need to do A”. If you can get that, everybody has committed to “we want to move to a climate-neutral economy”. If it turns out A isn’t sufficient to get there, extending that to “A, B, and C” is easier than going there in one step. The eventual extension to “A, B, …, Z” may be a long way off, but that doesn’t mean the EU won’t get there.
wolverine876 5y ago
> the EU as is is hopelessly underpowered to effectively address big issues. They just don't have the mandate to actually get all 27 states to act as one. The EU addresses privacy and many other issues better than the US. The EU has implemented actually changing the currency of every member, just as one example.

by simfoo 5y ago

Daishiman 5y ago

This is pointless cynical thinking. No government institution is going to be 100% effective at what it does, but the EU has shown that as far as large organizations go, it is remarkably effective at pushing certain actions that it's member states cannot do.

simfoo 5y ago
I don't disagree, the past years have made me cynical about all big EU proposals :( But time and time again it has shown that proposals that actually would change things get watered down hard or shut down completely
- blooalien 5y ago
  I too have become more than a little cynical about all of this. Sadly, the problem you describe isn't limited to the EU. Seems like all major governments are either corporate owned subsidiaries or absolute dictatorships committed to "profit" and "growth" at literally any cost, with little to no concern for how it affects the larger population of Earth.

zpeti 5y ago

In fact this is a way for the EU to introduce eu wide taxation through the back door. This is power that countries have always had, and it’s now moving into the EU realm. It’s more centralization and more eu control. So it’s a step towards what you want.

simfoo 5y ago
Literally the first sentence: A dozen draft proposals, which still need to be approved by the bloc's 27 member states and the EU parliament, were announced on Wednesday. So not even approved by the member states yet :/
- zpeti 5y ago
  I don’t see any countries objecting to it or threatening vetos, as has happened with some other things. Presumably this will pass. Since it’s a new form of taxation that everyone seems ok with. Perfect for any government.

paganel 5y ago

And for good reason, what the EU is asking here is deeply political (higher long-term taxes are always political) without any shade of legitimacy, for the simple reason that the EU was meant to be first and foremost an economical Union/treaty area, not a political one. As a EU citizen I do hope things won’t progress any further in this political regard because that will be the death of the Union (I know I’ll be among the many protesting deeper political integration), blowing up the economic union which while not perfect had its distinct advantages. Hope someone puts some common sense into today’s EU politicians/technocrats, they seem not to notice that they’te driving us all over a cliff (because apparently Brexit didn’t mean anything to them).

Bayart 5y ago
>for the simple reason that the EU was meant to be first and foremost an economical Union/treaty area, not a political one The EU was always meant to be a political union. The economical elements were introduced first because they're more palatable. It's an argument I often see repeated from people living in countries where the EU for sold as a trade tool (for example the Netherlands) when it was simply not the case.
estaseuropano 5y ago
> As a EU citizen I do hope things won’t progress any further in this political regard because that will be the death of the Union why would it be? The Union has evolved feom an agreement to coordinate coal and steel production to much more, and helped keep peace and bring wealth and integration. Globally the challenges are however not purely economic, economy and politics always mix - see China or Trump's arbitrary tariffs. Why would deeper integration be death of the Union? For me deeper integration is very much needed as plainly the EU countries are mostly too small to play any global role individually and will be bullied by China & co if they don't get more closely together.
niemandhier 5y ago
The EU was not conceived as an economic union, but as a tool to further the union of European nations via economics. France and Germany handed over a lot of control of their war critical industrial infrastructure to 'High Authority' which preceded the European Commission, not for trades sake but to prevent world war III and form an counter weight against the Warsaw Pact. Robert Schuman ( the French Foreign Minister at the time ) declared: " Through the consolidation of basic production and the institution of a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and the other countries that join, this proposal represents the first concrete step towards a European federation, imperative for the preservation of peace."[1] The only one to envision Europe purely as an economic union was Churchill, and since the UK left his visions hold even less importance. [1] https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration_en https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day...

ben_w 5y ago

Some EU powers require unanimous support, others require a qualified majority, which they define as: • Majority of countries: 55% (comprising at least 15 of them), or 72% if acting on a proposal from neither the Commission nor from the High Representative and • Majority of population: 65% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...

krona 5y ago

> The moment EU policies go against high member nation interests they are shut down. Self interested cooperation among sovereign states is the only long term peaceful means of solving cross-border issues.

Someone 5y ago

The EU may move slowly, but it does move. Examples: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula... These were initially met with huge resistance, yet got approved, and triggered huge changes, not only inside the EU, but throughout the world. This one probably will see a zillion amendments and may eventually be either made powerless or be rejected. My money is on it being approved in a weaker form, with a future version tightening things, like what happened with RoHS. The trick is to get everybody commit to “we want to move to a climate-neutral economy. To get there, we need to do A”. If you can get that, everybody has committed to “we want to move to a climate-neutral economy”. If it turns out A isn’t sufficient to get there, extending that to “A, B, and C” is easier than going there in one step. The eventual extension to “A, B, …, Z” may be a long way off, but that doesn’t mean the EU won’t get there.

wolverine876 5y ago

> the EU as is is hopelessly underpowered to effectively address big issues. They just don't have the mandate to actually get all 27 states to act as one. The EU addresses privacy and many other issues better than the US. The EU has implemented actually changing the currency of every member, just as one example.