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This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future?

Sharlin 18d ago
>> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than full integration if you're eligible to both. Indeed from the UK's perspective it would be exactly the opposite to what they wanted: free labor and movement but no representation.
- fidotron 18d ago
  This makes being involved as little as possible but no more far more attractive than being bound too tightly together though. Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.
  - Sharlin 18d ago
    How so? Many EU states have benefited enormously from being on the receiving side of EU subsidies, which obviously would be out of the question without full integration. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have rejected membership, which essentially means that as EEA members they have to observe all the EU regulations and agreements when it comes to trade, without having any say about them. They have their reasons, but those reasons don't apply generally. "Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.
    - fidotron 18d ago
      It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside. Which many people inside the EU would observe seems completely consistent with EU behaviour. Edit to add: "Being misled" would refer to the way the EU was sold to many participants in earlier decades as an economic union, and not an all encompassing political one, with it simply ratcheting that way. Whenever objections occurred referenda would simply be repeated until the populations complied. It's far from the exercise in democracy that proponents promote. (This is distinct from saying it is _all bad_).
      - Sharlin 18d ago
        Your position seems so astonishingly alien that I don't even know how to start replying. It seems biased against the entire concept of how human cooperation works.
        fidotron 18d ago
        My position is hardly rare. Iceland didn't join at least partly because they were suspicious of intentions regarding fishing. Human cooperation does not mean misleading your compatriots into deals that you then ratchet up ever further until it becomes completely intolerable. There are reasons that in the long run flexibility wins.
      - rsynnott 18d ago
        > It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside. Mostly, like, the right to have, say, your own standards on chemical safety, tho. That is generally not something that most people would _want_; it basically just means you lose your job because import/export becomes, if not impossible, at least bureaucratically expensive enough that people will just buy from elsewhere.
johannes1234321 18d ago
There is always the debate around "Europe of two speeds" - where there is a deeply integrated core of nations, maybe even going towards "United States of Europe" and the others tightly associated, but not fully integrated. Of course the set of countries and level of integration depends on whom you ask
- gizajob 18d ago
  It would be towards “The United States of Germany”, not Europe.
rsynnott 18d ago
Maybe, and that might actually be okay from the EC’s pov. There’s a fairly old proposal for a ‘two speed EU’; a core that accelerates towards near-federalism with a more eurosceptic periphery.
- fidotron 18d ago
  Right. The oddity now is the euroscepticism is rooted in the countries previously considered the core. I am of the view the UK should never have joined as a full member, and it would have been better to establish the two speed membership way back then, allowing France and Germany particularly to engage in further integration without mutual interference involving the UK.
  - soco 18d ago
    Let's face it, UK never was "full member", for all means. But that's beside the actual point: the German/French euro-skeptics see their countries paying the eastern block a lot of money, sees that same block totally ungrateful about it (ooga booga colonialism), but at the same time don't notice their own employers happy to have such markets at their fingertips - because said markets grab also jobs at their expense, again something the eastern block actively ignores. At the same times the ruling parties everywhere won't touch a running system (even when it's barely running) to not lose their hard won privileges, and the rightwing grows claiming imaginary but heartwarming solutions.
lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago
> This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future? Presumably by "half of the EU" you mean (sometimes) euro-sceptic states like Hungary or Poland? Well, these are not in EU because some illuminati/lizard people tricked them into joining and now won't allow them to leave, like some of their politicians would like you to believe, but because they enjoy billions of subsidies per year.
- 740273730191 18d ago
  [dead]
- fidotron 18d ago
  There is a strong case that much of the eastern bloc were tricked into joining, by the UK, in order to weaken the Franco-German efforts for ever closer union. This was even a joke in the UK at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
  - lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago
    Could you elaborate regarding how exactly were eastern bloc countries "tricked" into joining by the UK? And what prevents them from leaving now that the tricksters from UK have long since left themselves?
    - fidotron 18d ago
      I refer you to the video as to the why and how, keeping in mind that's before the Berlin Wall came down. The Brits have a habit of only telling you the precise truth when they think you think they're joking.
      - lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago
        A clip from a comedic fiction TV series? So much for a "strong case to be made"...

Sharlin 18d ago

>> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than full integration if you're eligible to both. Indeed from the UK's perspective it would be exactly the opposite to what they wanted: free labor and movement but no representation.

fidotron 18d ago
This makes being involved as little as possible but no more far more attractive than being bound too tightly together though. Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.
- Sharlin 18d ago
  How so? Many EU states have benefited enormously from being on the receiving side of EU subsidies, which obviously would be out of the question without full integration. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have rejected membership, which essentially means that as EEA members they have to observe all the EU regulations and agreements when it comes to trade, without having any say about them. They have their reasons, but those reasons don't apply generally. "Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.
  - fidotron 18d ago
    It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside. Which many people inside the EU would observe seems completely consistent with EU behaviour. Edit to add: "Being misled" would refer to the way the EU was sold to many participants in earlier decades as an economic union, and not an all encompassing political one, with it simply ratcheting that way. Whenever objections occurred referenda would simply be repeated until the populations complied. It's far from the exercise in democracy that proponents promote. (This is distinct from saying it is _all bad_).
    - Sharlin 18d ago
      Your position seems so astonishingly alien that I don't even know how to start replying. It seems biased against the entire concept of how human cooperation works.
      - fidotron 18d ago
        My position is hardly rare. Iceland didn't join at least partly because they were suspicious of intentions regarding fishing. Human cooperation does not mean misleading your compatriots into deals that you then ratchet up ever further until it becomes completely intolerable. There are reasons that in the long run flexibility wins.
    - rsynnott 18d ago
      > It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside. Mostly, like, the right to have, say, your own standards on chemical safety, tho. That is generally not something that most people would _want_; it basically just means you lose your job because import/export becomes, if not impossible, at least bureaucratically expensive enough that people will just buy from elsewhere.

johannes1234321 18d ago

There is always the debate around "Europe of two speeds" - where there is a deeply integrated core of nations, maybe even going towards "United States of Europe" and the others tightly associated, but not fully integrated. Of course the set of countries and level of integration depends on whom you ask

gizajob 18d ago
It would be towards “The United States of Germany”, not Europe.

rsynnott 18d ago

Maybe, and that might actually be okay from the EC’s pov. There’s a fairly old proposal for a ‘two speed EU’; a core that accelerates towards near-federalism with a more eurosceptic periphery.

fidotron 18d ago
Right. The oddity now is the euroscepticism is rooted in the countries previously considered the core. I am of the view the UK should never have joined as a full member, and it would have been better to establish the two speed membership way back then, allowing France and Germany particularly to engage in further integration without mutual interference involving the UK.
- soco 18d ago
  Let's face it, UK never was "full member", for all means. But that's beside the actual point: the German/French euro-skeptics see their countries paying the eastern block a lot of money, sees that same block totally ungrateful about it (ooga booga colonialism), but at the same time don't notice their own employers happy to have such markets at their fingertips - because said markets grab also jobs at their expense, again something the eastern block actively ignores. At the same times the ruling parties everywhere won't touch a running system (even when it's barely running) to not lose their hard won privileges, and the rightwing grows claiming imaginary but heartwarming solutions.

lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago

> This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future? Presumably by "half of the EU" you mean (sometimes) euro-sceptic states like Hungary or Poland? Well, these are not in EU because some illuminati/lizard people tricked them into joining and now won't allow them to leave, like some of their politicians would like you to believe, but because they enjoy billions of subsidies per year.

740273730191 18d ago
[dead]
fidotron 18d ago
There is a strong case that much of the eastern bloc were tricked into joining, by the UK, in order to weaken the Franco-German efforts for ever closer union. This was even a joke in the UK at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
- lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago
  Could you elaborate regarding how exactly were eastern bloc countries "tricked" into joining by the UK? And what prevents them from leaving now that the tricksters from UK have long since left themselves?
  - fidotron 18d ago
    I refer you to the video as to the why and how, keeping in mind that's before the Berlin Wall came down. The Brits have a habit of only telling you the precise truth when they think you think they're joking.
    - lII1lIlI11ll 18d ago
      A clip from a comedic fiction TV series? So much for a "strong case to be made"...