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Discussions of the EU seem to me to omit its most important functions: 1. Prevent war. The EU was designed for this purpose, after centuries of European warfar

Discussions of the EU seem to me to omit its most important functions: 1. Prevent war. The EU was designed for this purpose, after centuries of European warfare, by the survivors of WWII. You can't overestimate the damage WWI and WWII did to Europe; the next one would utilize more powerful means of destruction. You can see the problem with European conflict in the news right now. 2. Power: In a world of giants, with power already in the relatively massive US (fortunately an ally to EU countries), and shifting to some degree to China and India, little Croatia (or UK, IMHO) is a tiny minnow. The EU is a major power - the world's largest economy, IIRC. #2 also impacts the US, and freedom and democracy, considerably. China's population relative to the US is about 4x, which is not far off the US relative to the UK. If China develops to even half the per capita productivity of the US, its economy will be ~twice as large. The same goes for India (which IMHO is a greater danger - people have their heads in the sand about Modi's openly aggressive nationalism). Without the EU as an ally, the US may be too small to compete.

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TulliusCicero 4y ago
The EU is the world's third largest economy in nominal terms.
- bitL 4y ago
  Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Calling it flat is a little misleading as Brexit removed a large chunk of EU’s total GDP. The reality is the countries within the current EU experienced real growth which is likely to continue.
    - BlueTankEngine 4y ago
      Between 2010 and 2018, no country in the Eurozone increased their GDP per capita by 1% or more annually. Finland and Italy both experienced negative GDP per capita growth. The actual reality is that Europe is the single most economically stagnant region in the world. Whether that is due to the EU or not is absolutely an open question though.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Romania experienced extreme per capita growth over that period ~51%, or 5.3% ish per year. But if you want to cherry pick a few years it’s worth understanding the details. Germany’s per capita income increased from 41,572$ in 2010 to 47,974$/year in 2018 that’s a 15.4% increase despite a 14.4% drop in 2015. Notably that 14.4% 2015 drop was was linked to over 1.1 million asylum seekers from the Syrian War and part of a huge wave of legal and illegal immigration. Exclude that 2015 and Germany saw roughly the same per capita growth rate as the US.
        bitL 4y ago
        Romania is not in the Eurozone. They don't use Euro.
        Retric 4y ago
        The thread was about the EU. > Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well. They are a member of the EU, but the seven non-eurozone members of the EU are Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. I also pointed out that BlueTankEngine‘s statements about the eurozone was also wrong.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
The EU should be an independent power standing on its own two feet, it has the size and strength for that, and should seek its own profitable relations with both the US and China, and other powers like India, equally. The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US because the goal really is to protect the US' position in the world. The EU should do what serves its interests best and that is not as hard a stance on China as the US would like.
- tick_tock_tick 4y ago
  > The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US. No, it implies a realistic view of the world. Until the EU can handle it's own self defense it's inherently an unbalanced power arrangement.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Europeans can defend themselves against all realistic threats. Through France they even have an independent nuclear deterrent. The claim that Europe needs the US is like an abusive relationship where the abuser keeps devaluing its victim to maintain dominance: "you need me, you're nothing without me, you can't look after yourself without me"... More generally, be it with the EU, China, or even India, the US need to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer the 'capo di tutti capi' and should treat others as equals. I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests. It's not in the interests of people who want to be free, and desire peace and prosperity. The subtext of these arguments is that there is no difference between China and the US, their vision, their goals, etc. It's demonstrably untrue. You can see it in the number of allies China has, even in their own neighborhood - they all much prefer the US.
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today. It's a large part of why they have so many issues they've basically created the problems we had with the articles of confederation. A federal power without enough authority to resolve a lot of issues.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today. This a very limited reading of History. The main purpose of the coal and steel community was to make war between France and Germany impossible by making both countries dependent on each other. Read the Schuman declaration and the first Rome treaties, they are not that complicated. It always was political.
  - gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
    both points can be right. the original impetus being to use trade to solve a political problem, but the original impetus was not federalism, although I imagine there were federalists around at the time. at some point it became about free trade. and then there was a realisation that free trade between unequal economies was not sustainable. And similarly that consumer rights in a world where infrastructure and technology barriers had been removed, were also not sustainable via the protectionism that public ownership and state control provided. There was then a need to control the excesses of free markets and the four freedoms in general, and the need to liberalise sectors that were not in the private space. Hence the need for political union.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      > both points can be right. Well, yes and no. What actually happened was that a united Europe was the desired outcome, with some discussion about the degree of unity. But they realised back in the 1950s that it would take some time, and they started doing it by steps, starting with the industry. So in that sense it was both. But that’s not what people mean when they moan about the EU being a perversion of the EEC which was supposed to be purely economic. It is usually followed by how the evil EU duped them and stole their sovereignty. It was not. The economic policies were tools to achieve a political goal. > but the original impetus was not federalism The original impetus was a political union to avoid war and an “ever-closer union”. While federalists were never the majority, the target was clearly integration. Again, this is in the preamble of the Rome treaty establishing the EEC. > Hence the need for political union. Again, this is backwards. Political union required economic union as a first step.
gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
I would suggest that NATO was the main reason for relative peace in Europe from 1945 up to 1991. After that things went very wrong, culminating in what we have today. Russia could have been part of the EU, as was certainly possible especially given the completely new dynamic that existed after the fall of the soviet union. That would truly have been a positive project. I don't know if we could ever have undone the mistakes that were made from 1991 onwards, plenty of people tried to include Russian nationalism into international politics, but by then it was far too late, we were dealing with a mess that we had created. For the last 10 years they have done the opposite and tried to legitimise themselves against this bogeyman i.e. implicitly stating that your only alternatives are a socially and economically liberal democracy that seems powerless to address systemic issues, or socially reactionary forces. But the later keeps becoming more prominent due to the failure of the former. Point 2 I agree with the sentiment.
- tremon 4y ago
  Russia could have been part of the EU Not in the time frame you're implying. In 1991, the EU did not even exist in its current form (it was established in 1993). Eastwards expansion only started in 2004, when Poland and Czechia were among the first former iron-curtain countries to join. Putin became PM of Russia in 1999.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Russia deserves the most credit for Russia; let's stop blaming others. That is the first problem.
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ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> The same goes for India (which IMHO is a greater danger - people have their heads in the sand about Modi's openly aggressive nationalism). India is one of the fee upcoming real democracies. It does not get the attention or respect it shoiuld in western media. If 'the west' can't build out a good cooperative relationship with India, in the next 50 years we will loose relevance
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Modi and the BJP arrests opposition voices, limit free speech, and most of all promotes brutality against a religious minority. India is a declinining, less free country.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    I am not informed about spesifics of Modi's rule. I am just aware that, unlike Russia, they have real elections and the Western Media never talk about whats happening there.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      The NY Times as a long article today about India. Their election are less 'real' than in the past, as opposition media and other dissent is suppressed.
screye 4y ago
> Modi's openly aggressive nationalism I'd caution people against forming strong opinions about Indian politicians based on western coverage of them. It comes across as uninformed and politically motivated. I don't understand what you mean by nationalism here. Modi has made no attempt at expansionism or hawkish interference into other nations. Unlike the Congress, they have not sent in military to suppress political insurgencies in other nations (LTTE & Srilanka), and hasn't been putting opposition in prison (Indira Gandhi & Emergency). Modi has maintained a cordial relationship with Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh, send aid to Srilanka during their political implosion & has kept things generally quiet against Pakistan (a terror state). Each of the altercations against China have come after the CCP initiated aggression. On the economic front, he has opened the nation up to foreign investment in a way that rejects nationalism derived isolationism. India has also refused to engage in economic-warfare through sanctions like most countries in Europe. The only nations that can afford to not be nationalistic are nations with no real threats. European egalitarianism came from the knowledge that the US covered its defense and strict immigration protocols keep non-Europeans out rather effectively. Now that we have seen a wave of unforeseen immigration & Russian military activity, the dormant nationalism among these same nations that lectured the world has sprung into action once again. Name a country with real threats that is less nationalistic than India. It isn't a dirty word. There has been wide-spread bi=partisan agreement on this in India [1]. The only reason Modi appears nationalistic, is because of the wanton disregard Rahul Gandhi (and specifically him, less so than the party) shows towards the geopolitical interests of the nation. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-and-politics/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-...
- lokar 4y ago
  I read it as aggressive domestically, concentrating power, diminishing the power of other institutions, etc
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    There's no reason that behavior wouldn't translate to internationally.
- 4y ago
csomar 4y ago
1. We can’t know for sure if the EU is preventing war. Smaller countries might think the EU is not serving them well and revolt. Germany might flip and decide to invade the other countries again. These things happened in a cascading and fast fashion in the past. There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again. Of course, people who sells the EU will try to convince you of this, but they offer no detailed explanation of why it’s the case. 2. This is over-generalizing. A country like croatia might benefit more from being not into the EU. As an EU country they have to play by EU rules and standards. As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring). > Without the EU as an ally, the US may be too small to compete. The EU needs the US more than the US needs the EU. People who think the US is an ally to the EU are delusional. The US is undermining the EU to reduce its power and to reduce its dependency to it. The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo. Of course, there is the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU. But they are working on that (at the expense of the EU of course).
- lispm 4y ago
  > There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again What we have seen is that EU-Europe has after hundreds of years of war now has a long period of stability. We see that it also has an effective EU-wide political moderation system for common values. > As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring). Taxes are not generally EU-wide regulated. Near-shoring is much easier INSIDE the EU - being a near-shore offering company is inside the common market MASSIVELY simpler. That's for example why many German companies build factories in neighboring countries. Countries geographically/economically next to the EU, but not inside the EU, are still under massive influence. Before the EU, most European countries synchronized their currency with the German DM (Deutsche Mark). There was also a monetary mechanism to do that. Basically the German central bank dictated much of the currency policy in EU, more or less indirectly. Nowadays that power has been delegated to the European central bank, where the German influence is reduced. > The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo. Not at all. Maybe the populist right of the republicans. Other than those, both Republicans and Democrats see the EU and its member states as allies. The EU provides stability and that is in the interest of everyone. > the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU The Russian threat justifies the existence of NATO. The EU has an independent justification of its existence. The existence of the EU is also a 'threat' to the Russian political system, since it exposes its lack of freedom, lack of democracy and the lack of prosperity of its people. Russia has nothing comparable to offer to its people and also not to the countries it tries to control.
Duplo 4y ago
> The EU is a major power - the world's largest economy, IIRC Incorrect. When UK left the EU economy became smaller than USA. Despite EU having 100+ million bigger population than USA!
- lispm 4y ago
  > Despite EU having 100+ million bigger population than USA! Because it took in a lot of poorer nations after the fall of the wall. Especially those who were in the Soviet block. The USA had nothing like that. The USA has a single market and the leading currency. Without the single market Europe would be much further behind. Part of the attraction of the EU for those countries was and is that trade and economic development is easier for those nations inside the EU.
philippejara 4y ago
Is only the US allowed to be nationalistic? India isn't actively destabilizing the middle-east since the 2000's, but they are the ones being agressively nationalistic?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > India isn’t actively destabilizing the middle-east since the 2000’s, Correct, that’s not the region it actively destabilizes. > but they are the ones being aggressively nationalistic? No one ever said they the one being aggressively nationalistic; its quite possible for many states to do that simultaneously.

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TulliusCicero 4y ago

The EU is the world's third largest economy in nominal terms.

bitL 4y ago
Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well.
- Retric 4y ago
  Calling it flat is a little misleading as Brexit removed a large chunk of EU’s total GDP. The reality is the countries within the current EU experienced real growth which is likely to continue.
  - BlueTankEngine 4y ago
    Between 2010 and 2018, no country in the Eurozone increased their GDP per capita by 1% or more annually. Finland and Italy both experienced negative GDP per capita growth. The actual reality is that Europe is the single most economically stagnant region in the world. Whether that is due to the EU or not is absolutely an open question though.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Romania experienced extreme per capita growth over that period ~51%, or 5.3% ish per year. But if you want to cherry pick a few years it’s worth understanding the details. Germany’s per capita income increased from 41,572$ in 2010 to 47,974$/year in 2018 that’s a 15.4% increase despite a 14.4% drop in 2015. Notably that 14.4% 2015 drop was was linked to over 1.1 million asylum seekers from the Syrian War and part of a huge wave of legal and illegal immigration. Exclude that 2015 and Germany saw roughly the same per capita growth rate as the US.
      - bitL 4y ago
        Romania is not in the Eurozone. They don't use Euro.
        Retric 4y ago
        The thread was about the EU. > Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well. They are a member of the EU, but the seven non-eurozone members of the EU are Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. I also pointed out that BlueTankEngine‘s statements about the eurozone was also wrong.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

The EU should be an independent power standing on its own two feet, it has the size and strength for that, and should seek its own profitable relations with both the US and China, and other powers like India, equally. The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US because the goal really is to protect the US' position in the world. The EU should do what serves its interests best and that is not as hard a stance on China as the US would like.

tick_tock_tick 4y ago
> The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US. No, it implies a realistic view of the world. Until the EU can handle it's own self defense it's inherently an unbalanced power arrangement.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Europeans can defend themselves against all realistic threats. Through France they even have an independent nuclear deterrent. The claim that Europe needs the US is like an abusive relationship where the abuser keeps devaluing its victim to maintain dominance: "you need me, you're nothing without me, you can't look after yourself without me"... More generally, be it with the EU, China, or even India, the US need to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer the 'capo di tutti capi' and should treat others as equals. I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests. It's not in the interests of people who want to be free, and desire peace and prosperity. The subtext of these arguments is that there is no difference between China and the US, their vision, their goals, etc. It's demonstrably untrue. You can see it in the number of allies China has, even in their own neighborhood - they all much prefer the US.

tick_tock_tick 4y ago

No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today. It's a large part of why they have so many issues they've basically created the problems we had with the articles of confederation. A federal power without enough authority to resolve a lot of issues.

kergonath 4y ago
> No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today. This a very limited reading of History. The main purpose of the coal and steel community was to make war between France and Germany impossible by making both countries dependent on each other. Read the Schuman declaration and the first Rome treaties, they are not that complicated. It always was political.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  both points can be right. the original impetus being to use trade to solve a political problem, but the original impetus was not federalism, although I imagine there were federalists around at the time. at some point it became about free trade. and then there was a realisation that free trade between unequal economies was not sustainable. And similarly that consumer rights in a world where infrastructure and technology barriers had been removed, were also not sustainable via the protectionism that public ownership and state control provided. There was then a need to control the excesses of free markets and the four freedoms in general, and the need to liberalise sectors that were not in the private space. Hence the need for political union.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > both points can be right. Well, yes and no. What actually happened was that a united Europe was the desired outcome, with some discussion about the degree of unity. But they realised back in the 1950s that it would take some time, and they started doing it by steps, starting with the industry. So in that sense it was both. But that’s not what people mean when they moan about the EU being a perversion of the EEC which was supposed to be purely economic. It is usually followed by how the evil EU duped them and stole their sovereignty. It was not. The economic policies were tools to achieve a political goal. > but the original impetus was not federalism The original impetus was a political union to avoid war and an “ever-closer union”. While federalists were never the majority, the target was clearly integration. Again, this is in the preamble of the Rome treaty establishing the EEC. > Hence the need for political union. Again, this is backwards. Political union required economic union as a first step.

gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago

I would suggest that NATO was the main reason for relative peace in Europe from 1945 up to 1991. After that things went very wrong, culminating in what we have today. Russia could have been part of the EU, as was certainly possible especially given the completely new dynamic that existed after the fall of the soviet union. That would truly have been a positive project. I don't know if we could ever have undone the mistakes that were made from 1991 onwards, plenty of people tried to include Russian nationalism into international politics, but by then it was far too late, we were dealing with a mess that we had created. For the last 10 years they have done the opposite and tried to legitimise themselves against this bogeyman i.e. implicitly stating that your only alternatives are a socially and economically liberal democracy that seems powerless to address systemic issues, or socially reactionary forces. But the later keeps becoming more prominent due to the failure of the former. Point 2 I agree with the sentiment.

tremon 4y ago
Russia could have been part of the EU Not in the time frame you're implying. In 1991, the EU did not even exist in its current form (it was established in 1993). Eastwards expansion only started in 2004, when Poland and Czechia were among the first former iron-curtain countries to join. Putin became PM of Russia in 1999.
wolverine876 4y ago
Russia deserves the most credit for Russia; let's stop blaming others. That is the first problem.

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ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> The same goes for India (which IMHO is a greater danger - people have their heads in the sand about Modi's openly aggressive nationalism). India is one of the fee upcoming real democracies. It does not get the attention or respect it shoiuld in western media. If 'the west' can't build out a good cooperative relationship with India, in the next 50 years we will loose relevance

wolverine876 4y ago
Modi and the BJP arrests opposition voices, limit free speech, and most of all promotes brutality against a religious minority. India is a declinining, less free country.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  I am not informed about spesifics of Modi's rule. I am just aware that, unlike Russia, they have real elections and the Western Media never talk about whats happening there.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    The NY Times as a long article today about India. Their election are less 'real' than in the past, as opposition media and other dissent is suppressed.

screye 4y ago

> Modi's openly aggressive nationalism I'd caution people against forming strong opinions about Indian politicians based on western coverage of them. It comes across as uninformed and politically motivated. I don't understand what you mean by nationalism here. Modi has made no attempt at expansionism or hawkish interference into other nations. Unlike the Congress, they have not sent in military to suppress political insurgencies in other nations (LTTE & Srilanka), and hasn't been putting opposition in prison (Indira Gandhi & Emergency). Modi has maintained a cordial relationship with Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh, send aid to Srilanka during their political implosion & has kept things generally quiet against Pakistan (a terror state). Each of the altercations against China have come after the CCP initiated aggression. On the economic front, he has opened the nation up to foreign investment in a way that rejects nationalism derived isolationism. India has also refused to engage in economic-warfare through sanctions like most countries in Europe. The only nations that can afford to not be nationalistic are nations with no real threats. European egalitarianism came from the knowledge that the US covered its defense and strict immigration protocols keep non-Europeans out rather effectively. Now that we have seen a wave of unforeseen immigration & Russian military activity, the dormant nationalism among these same nations that lectured the world has sprung into action once again. Name a country with real threats that is less nationalistic than India. It isn't a dirty word. There has been wide-spread bi=partisan agreement on this in India [1]. The only reason Modi appears nationalistic, is because of the wanton disregard Rahul Gandhi (and specifically him, less so than the party) shows towards the geopolitical interests of the nation. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-and-politics/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-...

lokar 4y ago
I read it as aggressive domestically, concentrating power, diminishing the power of other institutions, etc
- wolverine876 4y ago
  There's no reason that behavior wouldn't translate to internationally.
4y ago

csomar 4y ago

1. We can’t know for sure if the EU is preventing war. Smaller countries might think the EU is not serving them well and revolt. Germany might flip and decide to invade the other countries again. These things happened in a cascading and fast fashion in the past. There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again. Of course, people who sells the EU will try to convince you of this, but they offer no detailed explanation of why it’s the case. 2. This is over-generalizing. A country like croatia might benefit more from being not into the EU. As an EU country they have to play by EU rules and standards. As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring). > Without the EU as an ally, the US may be too small to compete. The EU needs the US more than the US needs the EU. People who think the US is an ally to the EU are delusional. The US is undermining the EU to reduce its power and to reduce its dependency to it. The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo. Of course, there is the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU. But they are working on that (at the expense of the EU of course).

lispm 4y ago
> There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again What we have seen is that EU-Europe has after hundreds of years of war now has a long period of stability. We see that it also has an effective EU-wide political moderation system for common values. > As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring). Taxes are not generally EU-wide regulated. Near-shoring is much easier INSIDE the EU - being a near-shore offering company is inside the common market MASSIVELY simpler. That's for example why many German companies build factories in neighboring countries. Countries geographically/economically next to the EU, but not inside the EU, are still under massive influence. Before the EU, most European countries synchronized their currency with the German DM (Deutsche Mark). There was also a monetary mechanism to do that. Basically the German central bank dictated much of the currency policy in EU, more or less indirectly. Nowadays that power has been delegated to the European central bank, where the German influence is reduced. > The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo. Not at all. Maybe the populist right of the republicans. Other than those, both Republicans and Democrats see the EU and its member states as allies. The EU provides stability and that is in the interest of everyone. > the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU The Russian threat justifies the existence of NATO. The EU has an independent justification of its existence. The existence of the EU is also a 'threat' to the Russian political system, since it exposes its lack of freedom, lack of democracy and the lack of prosperity of its people. Russia has nothing comparable to offer to its people and also not to the countries it tries to control.

Duplo 4y ago

> The EU is a major power - the world's largest economy, IIRC Incorrect. When UK left the EU economy became smaller than USA. Despite EU having 100+ million bigger population than USA!

lispm 4y ago
> Despite EU having 100+ million bigger population than USA! Because it took in a lot of poorer nations after the fall of the wall. Especially those who were in the Soviet block. The USA had nothing like that. The USA has a single market and the leading currency. Without the single market Europe would be much further behind. Part of the attraction of the EU for those countries was and is that trade and economic development is easier for those nations inside the EU.

philippejara 4y ago

Is only the US allowed to be nationalistic? India isn't actively destabilizing the middle-east since the 2000's, but they are the ones being agressively nationalistic?

dragonwriter 4y ago
> India isn’t actively destabilizing the middle-east since the 2000’s, Correct, that’s not the region it actively destabilizes. > but they are the ones being aggressively nationalistic? No one ever said they the one being aggressively nationalistic; its quite possible for many states to do that simultaneously.