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The EU itself is becoming increasingly integrated with the free movement, common currency, aligned education system etc etc, but these things take a lot of time
by Epsilon_Tauri 17d ago
The EU itself is becoming increasingly integrated with the free movement, common currency, aligned education system etc etc, but these things take a lot of time, not the least identity-wise. For sure, my children feel more European than I did growing up in what was then a non-member state.
So outright membership is likely not the route for overseas friends, but it seems we are inexorably moving towards a closer cooperation between a group of democratic countries outside the sphere of non-democratic China and ever more erratic US. Hopefully this will be an association which is less dependent on one single member than the western world has been under US lead.
It seems very likely the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK would be part of this. Japan and Korea are still very US-dependent but given the lack of enthusiasm the US is showing its former allies, this may change quickly. I also expect growing cooperation with some of the south-American countries.
The world is definitely under realignment politically.
- illiac786 17d agoInexorably is not the word I would use. It’s hard work. UK is a good example of how fragile it remains, even after decades of membership.
- Sammi 17d agoEU got stronger when UK left. Brexit proved the value of EU.
- noir_lord 17d agoHonestly yes and I say that as a Brit who voted Remain who has an EU national missus. Our constant in/out wasn't great for the EU as a whole and it's now very hard to argue that pissing off your largest trading partner (by nearly a factor of 4 over the next one which is the US) was a catastrophic mistake. Still that's democracy, even when it doesn't go the way you wanted. Was/is the EU perfect, nope - it has all kinds of problems that are going to need addressing but was the UK in totality better off in the EU, yep.
- DeepSeaTortoise 16d agoI'd say yiu should not confuse politicians taking revenge on their citizens for having voted wrong with Brexit leaving the UK worse off than if it remained. The EU is one of the primary tools all these authoritarians use to push their agenda. In which functional democracy do parliaments have to vote AGAINST a bill? Which sane democracy establishes a literal ministry of truth? Which non-dystopian government introduces highly destructive laws (forcing every small online store to hire a legal representative in every single memberstate they want to ship to) and then telling desparate small business owners not to worry, because surely their countries wont enforce those laws? And all of those happened AFTER the British people saw the writing on the wall and forced their rulers to downgrade their rank in the new aristocracy. The decline is entirely by design.
- illiac786 17d agoHow can it be stronger with a significantly reduced GDP in total (UK GDP removed)? It was a loss for both sides in my view…
- braho 17d agoIt can be stronger if you consider more than economic terms. Both sides losing gdp has demonstrated the value of collaboration, which was too implicit, and every eurosceptic party on mainland eu has shifted from ‘we should leave’ to ‘we should reform from within’
- deleted 16d ago[deleted]
- Epsilon_Tauri 15d agoYes of course it's hard work, in many cases fragile, and nothing happens automatically. The 'inorexably' part was rather referring to the fact that we are in a phase of realignment post US leadership, where other democratic nations by necessity must find new ways to partner. Exactly how this will look is still uncertain.
- redberrytea 16d ago[dead]