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Reading the comments here, and on previous EU-related threads, I can't understand the anti-EU sentiment on HN. Despite its flaws, which it surely has, I can't

• deleted 4y ago
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• rayiner 4y ago
  Look at the U.S. Do we have Iowa holding hands with California in a mutually respectful relationship of cooperation? No, it's just a fight to control the highest level of government that has all the power so that one group can impose its will on everyone else.
  • givemeethekeys 4y ago
    Haha. This is the dynamic of many a happy marriage :).
  • ericj5 4y ago
    yes. it’s literally called the united states of america. at the very least, iowa is much better off as part of the union than it would be on its own
    • thriftwy 4y ago
      California could do on its own, but any inner region if the USA (Brazil, Russia, China) would be super miserable as a sovereign state.
      • tristor 4y ago
        California would immediately become a failed state on its own, unable to meet even the most basic needs of its residents. California MASSIVELY relies on other states for two of the most essential needs for modern civilization: water and electricity. California, ecologically, is not capable of supporting its own population independently, and short of geo-engineering at continent scale nothing will ever change that. It has absolutely nothing to do with politics, economics, or any sort of issues like that, it's simply the geographic and ecological nature of the state. Los Angeles, for example, would be impossible for it to exist without modern technology and mass importation of water, most of which comes from outside of California (although some comes from Northern California where it actually rains). Anyone, like yourself, who seriously contends that California could survive on its own independent of the United States simply does not understand how anything works, water systems, electric systems, import/export economies, globalism, money movements between coasts, investment funding and how it is structured to take investments from the US heartland and VC companies in Californian tech. Your statement is not just a gross oversimplification of a LOT of complex topics, it's blatantly untrue in /every single/ one of those topics.
        • reducesuffering 4y ago
          SoCal will just use NorCal water along with access to ocean desalination. For residential use, there is plenty, without needing to ship out water in the form of half of the US's fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. Solar ramp-up is progressing well, already at 17% vs. 50% natural gas, with battery storage to eventually buffer the rest of the 15% nuclear + hydro.
          • tristor 4y ago
            Desalination will likely be required long term for SoCal no matter what, but currently California is not capable of supporting the energy requirements of desalination to replace the water it gets from out of state. The vast majority of California water comes from out of state, less than 30% comes from sources in-state.
  • vkou 4y ago
    Yes, let's look at the US. Despite all the bickering and backbiting and dysfunction in it, the overwhelming majority of its residents and polities do not want to see the union broken apart. The strongest argument against growth of the EU is, quite literally, inertia. It's not a perfect union, but it's much better for its participants than being marginalized outside it.
  • Dalewyn 4y ago
    As an American, I can tell you that most states generally consider each other rivals, and oftentimes bitter. Texas would like nothing to do with California other than to help knock them down some pegs, for example. But you know what? If some outsider were to pose a serious threat to any of the states, we're all going to band together and tell said outsider to get wrecked and go pound sand. That same Texas would be among the first to come to California's aid and defence. The only one who gets to dunk on Americans are fellow Americans, nobody else.
    • Eric_WVGG 4y ago
      fellow American here, re: "most states consider each other rivals," as a person who's lived all over the US, I strongly believe that feeling is in one direction. There is all this rhetoric in red-state politics, governors shipping immigrants to NYC, Texans obsessing over Nancy Pelosi, babble about "east coast values." That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling, but… they just don't obsess the same way. Mostly they just don't think about them at all.
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • rayiner 4y ago
        > That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling It certainly does exist when they think folks in red states are in a position to exert control over the national culture. Do you remember the Bush administration? Or the beginning of Trump’s presidency? People were pretty obsessive about him here in DC before he even did anything.
        • Eric_WVGG 4y ago
          I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about masses of people. Of course blue state people hated Bush, and Trump, and Reagan… I'm talking about this weird notion that I hear from southerners that people in the city "look down on them." They don't. They don't think about them at all. I'm not sure which is worse.
• roenxi 4y ago
  If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity; I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards from when they came to power to today (even after the regressions of the Cultural Revolution). They have done a better job of preserving peace than almost any alternative superpower except maybe India. The CCP is still a disaster. The EU has the same nature - just because great things were achieved and the EU was the political organisation present doesn't mean the EU was good. It might be, I don't have any particular view. But it is interesting that the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance. These are points against it. HN has celebrated their redesigning the iPhone to use a more standard connector though so there are pro- and con-.
  • sebazzz 4y ago
    > I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards For a few, while the poor countryside has no money and toxic boosters raining down on them.
    • lanternfish 4y ago
      Empirically, it's mostly been rural communities that have had their living standards raised (by moving into cities). It's not very pretty, but on a purely numerical level the benefactors far outnumber the hurt (using a very specific framing of increased lived experience).
    • thriftwy 4y ago
      How much countryside is there anyway? On the map, China looks like a tightly-knit mesh of huge multi-million cities, all with high speed rail and subway systems, and huge malls. I doubt they're as poor as miserable as they should be according to the picture painted.
    • barry-cotter 4y ago
      I am not a fan of the CCP to put it mildly. China is the only country with poor Chinese people for a reason and the reason is the CCP. But in the 11 years I’ve lived in Shanghai things have quite visibly improved, in terms of infrastructure, quality of basically every consumer good, wages. Things have improved less here, relatively, than elsewhere. The countryside is emptying of people in China as in every other country, just starting later and moving faster. Being a peasant is no fun. That’s why people leave as soon as they can.
• gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  There are mixed views. I think that is healthy and normal. And as ever, hearing dissenting views helps one strengthen their own position. I'm not sure what the key is here, but maybe it is this. > Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? countries are still competing with each other inside the trading block, only they have had many of the advantages they used to have available to them - e.g. their currency and central bank, their deficit spending, the ability to control inputs to their economy - taken away. It's a trade off. It may be right, it may be wrong, but there's a lot of looking at the EU from one perspective only, it's nice to hear other perspectives. For me, I don't see how a EU that doesn't federalise, i.e. doesn't have a single economic policy, doesn't have a single demos, can survive. But even then, most of us live in countries that do have a single fiscal policy, a single demos, a freedom of movement of labour, goods, capital etc within our own country; and still it doesn't work without massive compensation to correct the inequalities that it brings. We have domestic governments trying (or most often not trying) and failing to deal with this imbalance even within a country. I don't see how this will ever be possible at a supernational scale.
  • ramesh31 4y ago
    The single reason the United States works is a unified monetary policy. With a common currency but no single monetary control, we will see endless replays of Greece 2015. It is fundamentally unfair for countries like Germany to enforce austerity on sovreign nations for their own fiscal issues, without a reciprocal ability to declare bankruptcy or expect financial assitance from a central bank.
    • gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
      but the US doesn't work. It has massive regional inequality, in addition to racial and generational. There is massive household debt. It can't function without massive amounts of undocumented labour. Nearly all economic activity is done in a few cities. Many places are over populated compared to the infrastructure (unaffordable housing prices) and many places have lost all their youth. Most companies are registered in a tax haven state. etc. It does have a single demos, which is something the EU doesn't currently have. People will accept in some way to see federal money directed (or debt guaranteed) at communities they are geographically distant to, yet feel solidarity with in some way. I personally feel the demos issue is the key rather than the monetary policy.
• papito 4y ago
  I think it might have to do with EU's "anti-business" tilt, as many might see it, but we can observe the effects of runaway wild-west Capitalism as well. There is something to be said for trying to keep basic civilizational order amidst uncontrollable greed and an ocean of dark money, with just a few men getting obnoxiously rich and then using the resources to "burn it all down" because they feel victimized. Or something.
  • troad 4y ago
    Being an Anglophone who spent most of 2022 criss-crossing Europe, please direct me to where this European Wild West capitalism is. European elites enrich themselves by legislative capture. In any true Wild West capitalism, European elites would fail immediately, because they’re so utterly uncompetitive. That’s why no such “Wild West” capitalism exists anywhere near Europe. But there’s no shortage of invented horrors about “Wild West” capitalism in Europe - this, in the same countries you need a government license to be self employed, where starting a business is next to impossible, and God forbid you use this word for your wine unless it was produced in these precise ten square metres of France - the same ten square metres conveniently owned by the same families who send their sons and daughters to write this legislation. Europe is a corporatist, aristocratic economy that keeps its people in check by keeping the prosperity and freedom of actual capitalist societies from them, and by inventing capitalistic boogeymen to maintain the legislative moat built around its elites.
• lr4444lr 4y ago
  > Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? How on earth are the small EU countries supposed to compete? By devaluing their currency to make their exports competitive and improve their unemployment. The European Union's currency umbrella is precisely why the PIGS countries have been suffering ever since the 2011 Euro debt crisis with general economic stagnation, and why the UK could escape it. Nothing stops countries from making trade agreements with one another and still maintaining their economic sovereignty.
• happyjack 4y ago
  I think the largest issues with the EU is that it is fundamentally flawed for one main reason: all these countries are tied to the hip to each other due to the currency and singe market, but cannot control the others economies or spending. It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law. For a common central bank and currency union, each country de facto has to give into a federalism of central debt issuance and budgetary powers. We have this in the United States: the federal government can run a deficit and print money, individual states cannot. We have a republic and California (most populous state) gets more representation than Wyoming (least populous). For the EU to work long term, every country is going to have to give up more and more power / fiscal autonomy to Brussels each year for the currency to work. What happened when Greece was going to default on its debt? Germany stepped in, bailed them out, and started stealing their assets (airports, ports) because they weren't going to let the currency tank. Granted, Greece has some issues but whether they like it or not Greece defaulting on their debt affects the whole currency block. Greece issued its own debt. The reality of the eurozone is that it has made rich countries exports cheaper (Germany, France) and made marginal countries poorer (Italy, Spain, Portugal). If you grew up in Croatia speaking Croat and possibly English, do you really think the Greek labor market is open to you? Could you in all practicality relocate to Belgium and start a business? Anti globalism sentiments are in every country these days. I personally don't see euro countries giving any more power to the European Commission, and I see the project ultimately failing. My 2 cents. I don't have a dog in this race, and don't really think the EU is "good" or "bad."
  • viraptor 4y ago
    > It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law. I don't think that's a great comparison. It's not just a choice for now, but a multi-generation plan. If we don't share now, we're just going to end up with the possibility of poorer countries getting into more extreme governments as requested by suffering population and eventually waves of refugees. It's more of a choice of supporting a neighbour in development with the prospect of better trade in the future, or saying "not my problem, let my grandchild deal with the fallout".
    • happyjack 4y ago
• INTPenis 4y ago
  I'm Swedish and Croatian, I split my time between the two countries. So yeah, in the short term this is great. But in the long term, any centralization of systems such as the EU, or NATO, is dangerous. Because if you consider that everything in the world is a system, and all systems have flaws, then global systems have global flaws and will be exploited on a global level. We peasants just don't have the resources to monitor how the plutocrats of the world exploit the world's systems to remain in power over us.
  • batter 4y ago
    NATO is so dangerous. That's why Finland and Sweden so eager to join it.
  • kzrdude 4y ago
    Europe has many prosperous countries that are well managed. It looks like small scale countries (let's say Finland, Estonia) can have better governance. With the right design, EU can be a benefit to all of them without centralizing too much. That's what I hope for. Avoid the inefficiency and corruption of bigger empire-like states, while using the size of the EU to be able to survive in the global market.
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    On the other hand, it's not like divided Europe has such a glorious and glamorous history filled with freedom and liberty. To what degree the EU improves on that in the long term (i.e. the next 50-100 years, proper long-term) is an open question, but I'm cautiously hopeful. The EU is a fairly "weak" power and individual member states retain a high degree of autonomy; it would be significantly harder to truly "exploit" the EU in the same way a country's parliament can be corrupted: chances are a significant number of member states would put a halt to it, and/or the EU would simply break up or split. NATO doesn't really centralize power IMO; it's a very short and straight-forward treaty; the entire thing is 2 or 3 pages of text. NATO countries co-operate of course, but so do many non-NATO countries, and it's decided on a case-by-case basis by the countries themselves. There is no "NATO organisation" that can tell anyone to do anything. In practice, the US is the "leader" of NATO, but even their power is very limited in practice. You may recall that little kerfuffle in Iraq where half of NATO basically told the US to go fuck themselves and their stupid war (leading to hilarities such as "French fries" being rebranded as "freedom fries").
• ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  The problem with EU is (in my opinion) that a rich minority in Brussles dictates everything that has to be applied also for poor countries, such as romania, bolgaria and also now croatia. Eg sanctions regarding gas/oil imports from russia affect the heating (and electricity and transport) costs for all eu citizens, but while house and apartment sizes may be the same (and amount of heat needed too) paying 200eur, 300eur more per month is relatively easier for an average belgian citizen than for someone living in a smaller, poorer country. EU has changed from an open market with very little reglation (relative to now), to an organization which dictates many more things than people would take for granted. On the other hand, this is offset by smaller and poorer countries getting more of the EU money, but if you're not the direct recipient, you just get the regulation and higher prices with zero benefits... well, until the germans get fed up with working and paying high taxes for poor countries to get the money. As someone from a country which has been in EU for almost 20 years, it's hard to predict anything, but we're probably better off being a part of eu (compared to if we stayed out), but there is a large anti EU sentiment growing, especially in the last few years, and even more hate concentrated against individuals, such as Ursula von der Leyen etc.
• Dalewyn 4y ago
  Speaking as an American, my chief problem with the EU is that it's too big with wanton disregard for the histories of its constituent member nations. EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations. Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected. The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more. I feel part of the reason Brexit ultimately came to be is because British pride could not allow EU encroachment to continue any further, and the EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed. A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages. There are less obstacles for such a union to overcome to be successful. The EU's member nations are wildly different by comparison and it is foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that.
  • mavelikara 4y ago
    You should check out Indian history.
  • lispm 4y ago
    > hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history lots of wars incl. the 1st, second and the cold war. The EU has helped to create a larger Europe with much less conflicts. Having a single currency is a great advantage, borders are no longer necessary and, yes, nations are still responsible for their fiscal and economic policies. > even destroying the identities of those member nations the EU doesn't do that. > EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity, etc. The negative effects and the lack of positive effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit. The disintegration of the EU after the Brexit was always propaganda. If one read the British press, the EU was always collapsing the next day and the Eurozone would disappear. Nothing like that has happened, not even remotely. > foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that The EU is already a huge success.
• csomar 4y ago
  This is complete propaganda BS. The EU has broke smaller countries. Greece for example, might never recover. Worse, because of the freedom of movement, most of the youth are moving to the west (Germany, Netherlands, etc…) and this had made greece actually lose workers and population. Greece unemployment went down not because there are more jobs, but because there are less job’s seekers.
  • ergocoder 4y ago
    > most of the youth are moving to the west That's a win, not a loss. Holding people hostage is not a good thing...
  • strich 4y ago
    Your representative problem strikes me as very weird. Greeces own citizens are benefiting immensely as you say because now they can follow their preferred careers within the EU and enrich themselves and their family. Surely it's the failure of their own government to provide a high value internal export and not the EU?
  • zymhan 4y ago
    Greece has 10 million people. It seems ridiculous to expect every profession could be maximally employed there, especially given the geography. It's like an American expecting no one to ever leave the US state of Georgia to look for a job.
  • boudin 4y ago
    Not saying that there was no mistake done when Greece joined the EU (actually I don't think Greece should have been allowed to join) but claiming that none of this would have happened if it were not for the EU is just bullshit. Greece was already corrupted, with really unhealthy economics.
    • csomar 4y ago
      I’m not saying it was bad for the greek (the people) but for the Greece (the country). Also, if you think long-term, it might not be that beneficial for the greek. Moving to another country incur extra costs, which could be avoided on your own country. Greeks might have been more well-off if their own country developed instead.
• mnky9800n 4y ago
  Also, the United States works the same way. Only a few states produce most of the taxes that pay for the grifters like Mississippi. But it's good to do it because those people in the poor states wouldn't be able to survive by themselves. Everyone deserves a chance. It's sad the whole world doesn't get the same chance as those in rich big countries and unions.
  • cultofmetatron 4y ago
    Until those grifter states cough west virginia cough keep voting for bad faith actors who systematically dismantle progressive reform and critical infrastructure spending at every opportunity.
  • loeg 4y ago
    > Only a few states produce most of the taxes that pay for the grifters like Mississippi. That is a gross oversimplification of the US. To the point of being essentially untrue.
    • ejstronge 4y ago
      What makes the GP statement untrue? I can imagine that cash flows between the US and states are dissimilar from those between nations that originate from trade - is this your qualm?
      • pirate787 4y ago
        These "donor" state analyses are dishonest because they use % of state budget that's from the federal government as a key metric. This metric unfairly penalizes states that run lean governments. Further, most of this federal money is entitlement spending that's following poor citizens, like the impoverished people of the Mississippi Delta, and would accrue to them no matter what state they lived in.
        • mikeyouse 4y ago
          Imagine describing states at the bottom of education and public health standards with horrible racial disparities as running “lean” governments.
• jokethrowaway 4y ago
  The EU countries could have simply cooperated and agreed not to charge extra fees on trading among them or having each other citizens visiting (or why not extend that to the entire world) without giving away their monetary freedom and allow bureaucrats in other countries to dictate their laws
  • lispm 4y ago
    Bureaucrats in other countries don't dictate our law. That's a gross misrepresentation of how the EU works.
• yrgulation 4y ago
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• _8j50 4y ago
  I think EU is missing a balance. Economic and immigration agreements are great I think but EU leadership should be more democratic and EU itself should not be interfering with sovreignity of members and what laws that don't pertain to commece or immigration exist. The primary benefit of the union is economic. Either it scales back to that state and expand or move to be more like the US with EU countries resembling a state or province. EU should really focus on its economic power, other things are weakening it. Already both EU and NAFTA are not competing well outside their regional economy, not just with China but with other developing countries hungry for thr euro and dollar so they can be consumers instead of low wage producers only, yet they are being forced to depend on each other instead because EU like the US is interested in politics more than commerce. The more state-like evolution is also causing economies like Germany and France to dominate and be burdened with many things. A commerce first union would dynamically adjust incentives to allow all members to improve and bear economic burdens more fairly. Lastly, commercr can't be maintained without military+intel. This means seriously considering booting members friendly to hostiles like Hungary with russia and have a mutual aid agreements like with NATO where members can fight of agressord like russia or china as a united force.
• johannes1234321 4y ago
  > Maybe you'll say that the EU is great for small countries and not so much for larger ones, who are sponsoring the EU's success with their citizens tax money. It's not that easy. Germany sponsors quite a lot of EU, however due to Germany's economic position the EU enables a lot of business across Europe with low friction. If Germany still had its own currency it would be too expensive for other countries, not to mention customs and common regulation. For the citizen however it is mostly noticable by foreign workers migrating here, while going to Spain (Mallorca) or Italy for vacation is easy.
  • lokar 4y ago
    Also, consider the cost (in just economic terms) vs a major war every 30 to 50 years
• tinus_hn 4y ago
  The great success of the EU is that it has stopped the member countries from going to war with each other. Apart from that it is an expensive, overreaching institute of busybodies with very little democratic control. Some of the policies the EU pushes are good, some are bad. But the people have no say either way.
  • dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
    That's utter nonsense. The people who elect EU leaders, shape EU law make and decisions on it are the members of the governments of the EU states, who are duly elected by their constituents. The less powerful EU parliament is also democratically elected by EU citizens.
    • tinus_hn 4y ago
      So, as you describe, the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy, the public has no way to hold them responsible for their actions and they are elected in politicized back room deals. In turn, the people that the public gets to vote for are the ‘less powerful’, they are never on the news and it is totally unclear what they are even doing. All that is on the news are the undemocratically chosen people. It’s really not surprising that most people don’t bother voting for the EU and that a lot of them would vote to leave immediately given the chance.
      • dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
        > the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy What are you talking about? Members of EU member governments are directly elected by citizens, they're the ones making the decisions at the EU. The administrators of the EU elected by governments, but they do no vote on, and have no power over legislation. All voting power comes from members governments, just like they vote for their own national legislation. Give it up, you just have no idea how the EU works.
        • tinus_hn 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• nimbius 4y ago
  German economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck has written on the issue numerous times and considers the EU is an untenable house of cards that subsidizes poorly performing states and in doing so strong-arms them into capitulation with neoliberal reforms that erode safety nets and lower the standard of living in these countries in an arguably noble goal of elevating GDP and trade in a trickle-down fantasy. by making these countries tangibly worse, they drive immigration to population centers in the north like Germany and contribute to brain-drain and stagnation in the very countries they ostensibly seek to improve. the alternative is to impose stricter controls on Germany such that it cannot use EU membership as an altruistic cudgel to march the continent into neufeudalist technocratic hell. its my prediction the children of the shengen generation in Croatia will look back on the moment with indifference or scorn.
  • lispm 4y ago
    > lower the standard of living in these countries Where? > Germany such that it cannot use EU membership Germany is in a minority position. Not even 20% of the EU population and small member states have larger voting power.
  • pavlov 4y ago
    So which exactly are the countries that are “tangibly worse” after joining the EU? Let’s look at the past 40 years. Spain and Portugal have obviously gained immensely from membership. Sweden and Finland are better positioned inside the union than Norway which remained outside and became a rule-taker (implements EU law but gets no say). Former Soviet states like Estonia are very happy to be part of the West European community. Etc. If you say “Greece,” then you’ll have to point to concrete evidence that the country would have somehow fared better outside the EU because it was such a basket case all along.
    • SergeAx 4y ago
      What about Bulgaria? Population decline, depressing cities except those by the sea. Mediocre airline carrier, surrendered to RyanAir and WizzAir. Talented youngster are taking off getting job in Germany or France. Only recent COVID-induced lockdowns and rise of WfH made some of them to return.
• brightball 4y ago
  My biggest concern about the EU is that it is too early to judge. The US is a similar experiment but over time we've seen great political and regional divides. The moment that countries begin to feel EU rules are stepping too far is the moment that things will start to break down. If you avoid the issues of federal overreach that exist in the US and ensure each country fully maintains its own sovereignty then IMO everything will be fine. When the freedom to disagree goes away, tensions will rise though.
• BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  I am French and I am against the current EU. The EU was built with the core aim to get Germany and France closer after WWII. This is a glaring success, it is enough to see how the current generation of ~18 yo see the past history of our countries (they do not care, not have any resentment). The EU today is extremely unevenly distributed and I would seriously love to read why France should pay xMM€ to the EU (what do we gain, exactly, in terms of money). And then there are countries such as Poland that gets a great net income of money, but has a government that hates the EU. And buys weapons from the US or South Korea. Sorry, but this is for me a leech. Some countries such as Portugal also were (and still are) net receivers, but do not shit on the hand that brings the money. I understand common culture and what not, but ultimately we have problems with paying hospitals and doctors so the high level considerations are for another day.