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Because the EU is not a national government. It issues no passports. It has no citizens. It levies no taxes. It has no army. It's an organisation that coordinat

Because the EU is not a national government. It issues no passports. It has no citizens. It levies no taxes. It has no army. It's an organisation that coordinates sovereign states. Often it doesn't even set the law directly but establishes a framework that allows it to specify some requirements that national legislative bodies then have to turn into actual legislation. Frameworks for how to talk about things is very apropos for what the EU is and for how it came about. I am not defending this state of affairs. Simply pointing out that it's a category error to compare it to national governments. I think it would be good if we had more of an EU state. It seemed to be heading there 25ish years ago. But the nation states do have little appetite to cede authority to the central institutions, so that's probably not on the table. And it's also undeniable that as a coordination mechanism the EU has been spectacularly successful. The fact that people treat it as a national government is proof of that.

effie 2y ago
> it's also undeniable that as a coordination mechanism the EU has been spectacularly successful. I get you like the EU, but "spectacularly sucessful" isn't something many people would use. See covid response, and Ukraine war response. I would describe EU's mechanisms as moderately successful, i.e. somewhat better if states did everything on their own and bilaterally. > The fact that people treat it as a national government is proof of that. People with triste knowledge of how EU works do that. I do not think having most people in dark about how EU works is "spectacularly successful".
- admdly 2y ago
  It all depends on what (or when) you’re comparing coordination between European nations to. Having a less than ideal response to COVID or the war in Ukraine is vastly different than the openly hostile relations between European nations experienced prior to the foundation of the CoE/EEC/EU.
shiroiushi 2y ago
It's amazing the EU has lasted this long really. The USA tried something somewhat similar back in 1781, and it was a complete failure: they organized a bunch of sovereign states (formerly colonies, but they became sovereign states after the Revolutionary War just before) into a confederation, where the central government had no real power at all. The resulting country couldn't even defend itself against pirates. They finally got sick of it in 1789 and threw out this form of government in favor of a constitutional republic with a much stronger federalized government. Over 235 years later, that form of government still persists, though it's really showing its warts and the Constitution really needs a rewrite IMO, but despite its enormous flaws in the modern age it's still a lot better than the decentralized mess that is the EU. If you want real economic power in the face of competing superpowers, you need centralized policy and authority, not a bunch of semi-sovereign states all squabbling with each other and no one able to make a decision.
- nosianu 2y ago
  Having lived and worked in the US for a decade, as a German, and having had time to think about many things: I think a key difference between how the US works and how Europe works lies in the private sector and the people. When you build a new company in the US, you have a lot of private infrastructure and people to be active in all of the states. In Europe, this does not exist in that form. Here, all the investors are focused on their own country. Sure we have plenty of firms active in many EU countries, but the level of support especially for new firms is orders of magnitude lower than in the US. From languages to social issues to attitude and expectations of common people, the EU is much more compartmentalized and it is significantly harder to have EU scale. So there are two issues, and the side of the government is only one. The private sector and the investors have to do their job too and provide their own side of the EU wide infrastructure. We also don't have EU-wide media that needs to support the development of a shared EU identity, and many other things that unite the US population as one people. Much of that has to come from the private sector, from the rich, from investors. But apparently they don't think big enough here in the EU?
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Perhaps, but I wonder how much having so many different languages contributes to that. In the US, most people all speak English (though there's a growing Spanish-speaking population, but even here most younger ones probably end up being bilingual), so there's not that much to do for your company to do business in all 50 states, depending on just how much interaction with state governments you require. And state laws are all pretty similar usually. Not so in the EU.
    - another2another 2y ago
      Lack of a common language must be a factor in scaling - the amount of effort printing required information in different languages is already an overhead (e..g instructions on medications). Also in the US, somebody in California can give telephone support to somebody in Rhode Island; not so easy to get somebody in Sweden to give telephone support to somebody in Italy though.

effie 2y ago

> it's also undeniable that as a coordination mechanism the EU has been spectacularly successful. I get you like the EU, but "spectacularly sucessful" isn't something many people would use. See covid response, and Ukraine war response. I would describe EU's mechanisms as moderately successful, i.e. somewhat better if states did everything on their own and bilaterally. > The fact that people treat it as a national government is proof of that. People with triste knowledge of how EU works do that. I do not think having most people in dark about how EU works is "spectacularly successful".

admdly 2y ago
It all depends on what (or when) you’re comparing coordination between European nations to. Having a less than ideal response to COVID or the war in Ukraine is vastly different than the openly hostile relations between European nations experienced prior to the foundation of the CoE/EEC/EU.

shiroiushi 2y ago

It's amazing the EU has lasted this long really. The USA tried something somewhat similar back in 1781, and it was a complete failure: they organized a bunch of sovereign states (formerly colonies, but they became sovereign states after the Revolutionary War just before) into a confederation, where the central government had no real power at all. The resulting country couldn't even defend itself against pirates. They finally got sick of it in 1789 and threw out this form of government in favor of a constitutional republic with a much stronger federalized government. Over 235 years later, that form of government still persists, though it's really showing its warts and the Constitution really needs a rewrite IMO, but despite its enormous flaws in the modern age it's still a lot better than the decentralized mess that is the EU. If you want real economic power in the face of competing superpowers, you need centralized policy and authority, not a bunch of semi-sovereign states all squabbling with each other and no one able to make a decision.

nosianu 2y ago
Having lived and worked in the US for a decade, as a German, and having had time to think about many things: I think a key difference between how the US works and how Europe works lies in the private sector and the people. When you build a new company in the US, you have a lot of private infrastructure and people to be active in all of the states. In Europe, this does not exist in that form. Here, all the investors are focused on their own country. Sure we have plenty of firms active in many EU countries, but the level of support especially for new firms is orders of magnitude lower than in the US. From languages to social issues to attitude and expectations of common people, the EU is much more compartmentalized and it is significantly harder to have EU scale. So there are two issues, and the side of the government is only one. The private sector and the investors have to do their job too and provide their own side of the EU wide infrastructure. We also don't have EU-wide media that needs to support the development of a shared EU identity, and many other things that unite the US population as one people. Much of that has to come from the private sector, from the rich, from investors. But apparently they don't think big enough here in the EU?
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Perhaps, but I wonder how much having so many different languages contributes to that. In the US, most people all speak English (though there's a growing Spanish-speaking population, but even here most younger ones probably end up being bilingual), so there's not that much to do for your company to do business in all 50 states, depending on just how much interaction with state governments you require. And state laws are all pretty similar usually. Not so in the EU.
  - another2another 2y ago
    Lack of a common language must be a factor in scaling - the amount of effort printing required information in different languages is already an overhead (e..g instructions on medications). Also in the US, somebody in California can give telephone support to somebody in Rhode Island; not so easy to get somebody in Sweden to give telephone support to somebody in Italy though.