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That's really interesting. We (people in the UK) have long been complaining that our Government stringently applies every single EU directive and human rights l

by kamjam 13y ago

That's really interesting. We (people in the UK) have long been complaining that our Government stringently applies every single EU directive and human rights law but other countries just seem to ignore them (rightfully so IMO, sometimes logic should prevail). I know it's probably not strictly true, but it's things like this which may eventually lead to the disbanding of the EU and such integration of the law.

sentenza 13y ago
But the UK opted out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and is not even part of Schengen. I personally, as a German, am much less forgiving towards the UK than towards the US for what has been revealed. The UK is a EU member, which is so much more than just an ally. It is now clear that the UK spies on all continental Europeans, gives that data to the US, and at the same time tries to opt out of the EU cooperation on police and criminal justice. No matter how you turn it, this cannot be interpreted as anything else than a "spit in your face" gesture towards the rest or Europe. We now get the uneasy feeling that the current and past governments of the UK more or less hate us.
- louthy 13y ago
  I think that's a bit harsh. The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for, so there's a constant mistrust of the overarching nature of the EU bureaucracy from the population at large, which the politicians who want votes reflect (and obviously stir up too). I think this clip from the classic comedy 'Yes, Minister' sums up Europe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI The UK doesn't hate the rest of Europe, but clearly each nation will play its hand for its own political reasons.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    You bring up an interesting point. I very often read that the UK joined for the single market but then afterwards the EU started taking away national sovereignty. I don't quite understand how this view of things is possible. From the very start, when the Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, loss of national sovereignty was, to a certain degree, built into the system. The primary goal of European cooperation was to take away the ability of European nations to go to war with one another. Also remember the "de fact solidarity" that Robert Schuman spoke of in his famous declaration in 1950: With all the horrors of WW2 fresh in mind, nobody could expect the people of Europe to show solidarity for another, so the framework of Europe must be set up to generate a "de facto solidarity". The whole system should be set up in such a way that the people of Europe cannot _not_ show solidarity. We learned this in school and it seems to be generally accepted by the general populace, at least in the "old" continental Western Europe. If you ask older Germans or French about European integration, they will talk about avoiding war, not about the single market. The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible? On a side note: I admit that what I wrote about hating Europe was harsh, but we (i.e., me and many others I've spoken to) do feel genuinely betrayed.
    - drucken 13y ago
      "The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible?" This is the correct interpretation, at least as far as public polls over EU prove time and again in the UK. If you actually combine the different responses to EU surveys, almost everyone in the UK across all factions of life, even today, mostly have interest in remaining in the EU solely for the common market, if that. It is probably not helped by the fact that the most respected or even revered UK political leaders of the last 50 years, i.e. Churchhill and Thatcher, were extremely lukewarm about the EU project. The difference compared to political attitudes of the public on the continent is very stark indeed. Note. As for the European Convention on Human Rights opt-out, that is mostly a UK Conservative government/conservative media issue that they want to force through and they have had very little actual broader public debate or support. Of course, that does not mean that it will not go through eventually regardless, especially when "terrorism" is used to justify just about anything these days...
      - rmc 13y ago
        "the most respected or even revered UK political leaders of the last 50 years ... Thatcher" Maybe in some quarters/communities. Definitely not revered or respected in some parts of the UK.
    - louthy 13y ago
      The problem is we're an ex-Imperialist island nation. That breeds a certain psyche of superiority and xenophobia that I think is very hard for us to shake off en-masse. I think there's a sense with the British that we brought 'civilisation' to a huge portion of the world, why do we need anybody else telling us what to do? Even as children we're constantly fed war movies about the plucky Brits fighting against the evil Germans, so therefore most Brits hate Germans, and we've been at odds with the French forever. There are many English terms/phrases which are derogatory about the French. French kiss, French letter, French disease etc. This is a very useful tool for the politician who wants to stir up a hornets nest of outrage or just shore up some votes by looking 'anti-Europe'. And it works. Even myself -- someone who has friends in many European countries (Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia - just quickly off the top of my head!) -- get caught up in it. It's pure xenophobia, and it's frankly disgusting. We don't have the English channel and the North Sea around us, we have a moat. However. There is always the argument for a greater say from the people of Europe. It certainly seems there is a huge bureaucracy with very little public oversight. And it seems incredibly inflexible. The impression many have is that they can't vote the bureaucrats out, and there's very little to stop them haemorrhaging money/rights/power. In an era where we have the technology to bring democratic decision making closer to the individual, the EU definitely seems to be moving in the opposite direction. (Then again, this could just be the years of 'conditioning' that make me think this!) </waffle>
  - lispm 13y ago
    Here in Germany we signed up exactly for that. A Europe with peace and democracy, without borders, countries with political integration, large enough to be heard outside of Europe, ... The 'common market' was a tool to achieve that. We were also certain that France (and some other countries) also wanted that. Something which was/is very important for us. Not sure what Britain was and is thinking... but if Britain says they did not know about these goals, then something else went wrong. But that sounds more like internal problems in Britain and has very little to do with the EU or Europe.
    - gregsq 13y ago
      Interesting. It has to be remembered that the UK and in fact all the allies, with the partial exception of the Soviet Union, were applying their war efforts to avert precisely this aggregation of nations during the Second World War. That war broke the back of the UK's economy, and the Marshall plan and the post war support of Germany was always intended to be a reintegration of the largest nation in continental Europe into an Anglo Saxon idea of a global economy. It was to avoid a repeat of the decimation of Germany after the First World War, which provided so much impetus to the events leading to the second. Far from being a mis sold notion to the British public, it was in fact a preferred popular view. The acquiescence of Chamberlain to notions of compromise were well remembered, and the effort and loss of treasure to overcome that mistake gave rise to caution and defensiveness. Viewed from the German and French perspectives, it appears very differently. But England has a very long history in needing to attend to other nations ideas of supra nationalism as it relates to the British Isles, and its own inclinations to state power inform its decisions as well. While not my view, to many 'middle englanders', the Franco German alliance is a continuance of historical european politics. The French compromise, with some resistance, and the Germans see Europe as a larger political entity, having the characteristic of land locked imperialists. Even recent diplomats have expressed this view. The decision to limit the European project to a trading agreement was in the first instance all that could be politically managed in the UK.
    - artumi-richard 13y ago
      I would go so far as to say that no politician in Britain puts forward the case for Europe in these terms. Any pro European argues that it is in our economic interest, and mentions no other advantage. The reason for this is, they could not sell the idea that the European project is decreasing the chances of European war. Indeed, lately, as the popularity of the European project has been diminishing across Europe it looks increasingly as though the main beneficiary of the European project is Germany. Due to the Mediterranean countries keeping the Euro exchange rate low, Germany has benefited from selling it's cheap exports, for years and years. Now that the wheels have fallen off Greece and Spain and Ireland and Portugal those populations look to Germany with envy. There is a British view, which I am unconvinced of, that the single currency, being done for political rather than economic reasons, has caused, and will continue to cause international European tension. In short, Britain is not convinced of the economic case, it is not convinced of the moral case, it is not convinced of any benefit whatsoever. If the Tories win power at the next election outright, which is possible, they have promised an in/out referendum on Europe. If that referendum takes place it is perfectly clear how Britain will vote, they will vote Out. Then we will be living in interesting times.
  - rmc 13y ago
    The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for This is a common meme in British politics/public. The idea that "this isn't what we agreed". But I haven't actually seen any evidence for that. It seems like backwards justification of the right wing british politics to explain why the Tories brought the UK into then EEC and to explain why the British public voted to stay in a few years later, and also to explain why many other countries (a) want to stay in it and (b) want to join.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      It's pretty much the poor countries that want to join. The rich countries like Switzerland are out and want to stay out.
      - rmc 13y ago
        Yes and no. Yes, Switzerland (and Norway) are not in the EU and don't want to offically join. However they have special trade deals with the EU, customs union, they have to implement EU law, they have to allow free movement of EU citizens to live and work there, they are in the Council of Europe and have to abide by the European Court of Human Rights, they're in Schengen. Switzerland and Norway are basically in EU in everything but name.
- kamjam 13y ago
  I think hate is a very harsh word. But I agree with your sentiments about the UK spying on everyone - esp given EU specific privacy laws and recent cases of EU law against Google, Facebook etc. Pretty disgusting really given all the rhetoric they spew, but EVERYONE has that uneasy feeling now. We've always said the UK gov't were just lap dogs for the US, this just proves it somewhat more. I'm actually surprised more hasn't been made of the UK involvement on this (but I'm currently not in Europe so difficult to gauge the reactions)
- sk00byd00 13y ago
  I think you are missing the scale of these data collection programmes. For instance, if you are in north Germany, some of your traffic will be routed through Sweden (because of Telia), Sweden has the FRA law[1] and the Titan Traffic Database[2] which means your traffic gets intercepted, stored and handed over to American authorities for analysis. Why aren't you as angry about Sweden doing the same thing to your communications? It was not even a secret matter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA-law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA-law [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_traffic_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_traffic_database
blumentopf 13y ago
The situation isn't really better in Germany. The Constitutional Court (and current Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger) is our last, best and only line of defense against the security hardliners in the conservative party (CDU/CSU). Since the ruling of the Constitutional Court, whenever there was some crime, there'd be the predictable knee-jerk reaction by Hans-Peter Uhl (CSU) that it wouldn't have happened if we had data retention. And equally predictable, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger from the liberal democrats (FDP) would say "Nein". There's even a website to look up whether Uhl has called for data retention (hatuhlschonvdsgefordert.de). Federal elections are coming up on September 22 and it's likely that we'll get a grand coalition again (CDU/CSU + SPD). That would mark the end of Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's tenure as Justice Minister and it would be a boon for the hardliners. Heaven forbid!
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Good lord, could this actually happen?
rsynnott 13y ago
> We (people in the UK) have long been complaining that our Government stringently applies every single EU directive and human rights law but other countries just seem to ignore them Er, but this is completely imaginary. The UK has derogations from more of the optional stuff than nearly any other member state, and has a poor record for implementing the mandatory stuff.
UVB-76 13y ago
I know it's not strictly related to the matter at hand, but the notion of the EU churning out absurd and illogical directives is largely a construct of the tabloid press. As someone who has had exposure to certain parts of EU human rights law, the coverage of the relevant issues in the British press is disgraceful. Unfortunately, respecting people's human rights is often difficult and costly, thus an easy target for sensationalist headlines.
rmc 13y ago
The majority of the British press often lies and misleads about EU law and how much of it the UK implements. The UK actually opts out of various EU things (Schengen, Euro, 48 hr max working week), and often implements the bare minimum of EU law (e.g. Working Time Directive). This idea, that EU-law-in-UK is somehow worse than EU-law-in-France (or -Germany, etc.) is used an excuse to explain why other countries don't want to leave. "Why don't Spain want to leave the EU if it's so bad?" "Oh! Well they don't implement all the laws!!". Unfortunately it's not true. France goes above and beyond the EU minimum (and beyond UK) in many EU-laws (e.g. Working Time Directive).

by kamjam 13y ago

sentenza 13y ago

But the UK opted out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and is not even part of Schengen. I personally, as a German, am much less forgiving towards the UK than towards the US for what has been revealed. The UK is a EU member, which is so much more than just an ally. It is now clear that the UK spies on all continental Europeans, gives that data to the US, and at the same time tries to opt out of the EU cooperation on police and criminal justice. No matter how you turn it, this cannot be interpreted as anything else than a "spit in your face" gesture towards the rest or Europe. We now get the uneasy feeling that the current and past governments of the UK more or less hate us.

louthy 13y ago
I think that's a bit harsh. The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for, so there's a constant mistrust of the overarching nature of the EU bureaucracy from the population at large, which the politicians who want votes reflect (and obviously stir up too). I think this clip from the classic comedy 'Yes, Minister' sums up Europe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI The UK doesn't hate the rest of Europe, but clearly each nation will play its hand for its own political reasons.
- sentenza 13y ago
  You bring up an interesting point. I very often read that the UK joined for the single market but then afterwards the EU started taking away national sovereignty. I don't quite understand how this view of things is possible. From the very start, when the Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, loss of national sovereignty was, to a certain degree, built into the system. The primary goal of European cooperation was to take away the ability of European nations to go to war with one another. Also remember the "de fact solidarity" that Robert Schuman spoke of in his famous declaration in 1950: With all the horrors of WW2 fresh in mind, nobody could expect the people of Europe to show solidarity for another, so the framework of Europe must be set up to generate a "de facto solidarity". The whole system should be set up in such a way that the people of Europe cannot _not_ show solidarity. We learned this in school and it seems to be generally accepted by the general populace, at least in the "old" continental Western Europe. If you ask older Germans or French about European integration, they will talk about avoiding war, not about the single market. The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible? On a side note: I admit that what I wrote about hating Europe was harsh, but we (i.e., me and many others I've spoken to) do feel genuinely betrayed.
  - drucken 13y ago
    "The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible?" This is the correct interpretation, at least as far as public polls over EU prove time and again in the UK. If you actually combine the different responses to EU surveys, almost everyone in the UK across all factions of life, even today, mostly have interest in remaining in the EU solely for the common market, if that. It is probably not helped by the fact that the most respected or even revered UK political leaders of the last 50 years, i.e. Churchhill and Thatcher, were extremely lukewarm about the EU project. The difference compared to political attitudes of the public on the continent is very stark indeed. Note. As for the European Convention on Human Rights opt-out, that is mostly a UK Conservative government/conservative media issue that they want to force through and they have had very little actual broader public debate or support. Of course, that does not mean that it will not go through eventually regardless, especially when "terrorism" is used to justify just about anything these days...
    - rmc 13y ago
      "the most respected or even revered UK political leaders of the last 50 years ... Thatcher" Maybe in some quarters/communities. Definitely not revered or respected in some parts of the UK.
  - louthy 13y ago
    The problem is we're an ex-Imperialist island nation. That breeds a certain psyche of superiority and xenophobia that I think is very hard for us to shake off en-masse. I think there's a sense with the British that we brought 'civilisation' to a huge portion of the world, why do we need anybody else telling us what to do? Even as children we're constantly fed war movies about the plucky Brits fighting against the evil Germans, so therefore most Brits hate Germans, and we've been at odds with the French forever. There are many English terms/phrases which are derogatory about the French. French kiss, French letter, French disease etc. This is a very useful tool for the politician who wants to stir up a hornets nest of outrage or just shore up some votes by looking 'anti-Europe'. And it works. Even myself -- someone who has friends in many European countries (Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia - just quickly off the top of my head!) -- get caught up in it. It's pure xenophobia, and it's frankly disgusting. We don't have the English channel and the North Sea around us, we have a moat. However. There is always the argument for a greater say from the people of Europe. It certainly seems there is a huge bureaucracy with very little public oversight. And it seems incredibly inflexible. The impression many have is that they can't vote the bureaucrats out, and there's very little to stop them haemorrhaging money/rights/power. In an era where we have the technology to bring democratic decision making closer to the individual, the EU definitely seems to be moving in the opposite direction. (Then again, this could just be the years of 'conditioning' that make me think this!) </waffle>
- lispm 13y ago
  Here in Germany we signed up exactly for that. A Europe with peace and democracy, without borders, countries with political integration, large enough to be heard outside of Europe, ... The 'common market' was a tool to achieve that. We were also certain that France (and some other countries) also wanted that. Something which was/is very important for us. Not sure what Britain was and is thinking... but if Britain says they did not know about these goals, then something else went wrong. But that sounds more like internal problems in Britain and has very little to do with the EU or Europe.
  - gregsq 13y ago
    Interesting. It has to be remembered that the UK and in fact all the allies, with the partial exception of the Soviet Union, were applying their war efforts to avert precisely this aggregation of nations during the Second World War. That war broke the back of the UK's economy, and the Marshall plan and the post war support of Germany was always intended to be a reintegration of the largest nation in continental Europe into an Anglo Saxon idea of a global economy. It was to avoid a repeat of the decimation of Germany after the First World War, which provided so much impetus to the events leading to the second. Far from being a mis sold notion to the British public, it was in fact a preferred popular view. The acquiescence of Chamberlain to notions of compromise were well remembered, and the effort and loss of treasure to overcome that mistake gave rise to caution and defensiveness. Viewed from the German and French perspectives, it appears very differently. But England has a very long history in needing to attend to other nations ideas of supra nationalism as it relates to the British Isles, and its own inclinations to state power inform its decisions as well. While not my view, to many 'middle englanders', the Franco German alliance is a continuance of historical european politics. The French compromise, with some resistance, and the Germans see Europe as a larger political entity, having the characteristic of land locked imperialists. Even recent diplomats have expressed this view. The decision to limit the European project to a trading agreement was in the first instance all that could be politically managed in the UK.
  - artumi-richard 13y ago
    I would go so far as to say that no politician in Britain puts forward the case for Europe in these terms. Any pro European argues that it is in our economic interest, and mentions no other advantage. The reason for this is, they could not sell the idea that the European project is decreasing the chances of European war. Indeed, lately, as the popularity of the European project has been diminishing across Europe it looks increasingly as though the main beneficiary of the European project is Germany. Due to the Mediterranean countries keeping the Euro exchange rate low, Germany has benefited from selling it's cheap exports, for years and years. Now that the wheels have fallen off Greece and Spain and Ireland and Portugal those populations look to Germany with envy. There is a British view, which I am unconvinced of, that the single currency, being done for political rather than economic reasons, has caused, and will continue to cause international European tension. In short, Britain is not convinced of the economic case, it is not convinced of the moral case, it is not convinced of any benefit whatsoever. If the Tories win power at the next election outright, which is possible, they have promised an in/out referendum on Europe. If that referendum takes place it is perfectly clear how Britain will vote, they will vote Out. Then we will be living in interesting times.
- rmc 13y ago
  The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for This is a common meme in British politics/public. The idea that "this isn't what we agreed". But I haven't actually seen any evidence for that. It seems like backwards justification of the right wing british politics to explain why the Tories brought the UK into then EEC and to explain why the British public voted to stay in a few years later, and also to explain why many other countries (a) want to stay in it and (b) want to join.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    It's pretty much the poor countries that want to join. The rich countries like Switzerland are out and want to stay out.
    - rmc 13y ago
      Yes and no. Yes, Switzerland (and Norway) are not in the EU and don't want to offically join. However they have special trade deals with the EU, customs union, they have to implement EU law, they have to allow free movement of EU citizens to live and work there, they are in the Council of Europe and have to abide by the European Court of Human Rights, they're in Schengen. Switzerland and Norway are basically in EU in everything but name.
kamjam 13y ago
I think hate is a very harsh word. But I agree with your sentiments about the UK spying on everyone - esp given EU specific privacy laws and recent cases of EU law against Google, Facebook etc. Pretty disgusting really given all the rhetoric they spew, but EVERYONE has that uneasy feeling now. We've always said the UK gov't were just lap dogs for the US, this just proves it somewhat more. I'm actually surprised more hasn't been made of the UK involvement on this (but I'm currently not in Europe so difficult to gauge the reactions)
sk00byd00 13y ago
I think you are missing the scale of these data collection programmes. For instance, if you are in north Germany, some of your traffic will be routed through Sweden (because of Telia), Sweden has the FRA law[1] and the Titan Traffic Database[2] which means your traffic gets intercepted, stored and handed over to American authorities for analysis. Why aren't you as angry about Sweden doing the same thing to your communications? It was not even a secret matter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA-law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA-law [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_traffic_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_traffic_database

blumentopf 13y ago

The situation isn't really better in Germany. The Constitutional Court (and current Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger) is our last, best and only line of defense against the security hardliners in the conservative party (CDU/CSU). Since the ruling of the Constitutional Court, whenever there was some crime, there'd be the predictable knee-jerk reaction by Hans-Peter Uhl (CSU) that it wouldn't have happened if we had data retention. And equally predictable, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger from the liberal democrats (FDP) would say "Nein". There's even a website to look up whether Uhl has called for data retention (hatuhlschonvdsgefordert.de). Federal elections are coming up on September 22 and it's likely that we'll get a grand coalition again (CDU/CSU + SPD). That would mark the end of Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's tenure as Justice Minister and it would be a boon for the hardliners. Heaven forbid!

flyinRyan 13y ago
Good lord, could this actually happen?

rsynnott 13y ago

> We (people in the UK) have long been complaining that our Government stringently applies every single EU directive and human rights law but other countries just seem to ignore them Er, but this is completely imaginary. The UK has derogations from more of the optional stuff than nearly any other member state, and has a poor record for implementing the mandatory stuff.

UVB-76 13y ago

I know it's not strictly related to the matter at hand, but the notion of the EU churning out absurd and illogical directives is largely a construct of the tabloid press. As someone who has had exposure to certain parts of EU human rights law, the coverage of the relevant issues in the British press is disgraceful. Unfortunately, respecting people's human rights is often difficult and costly, thus an easy target for sensationalist headlines.

rmc 13y ago

The majority of the British press often lies and misleads about EU law and how much of it the UK implements. The UK actually opts out of various EU things (Schengen, Euro, 48 hr max working week), and often implements the bare minimum of EU law (e.g. Working Time Directive). This idea, that EU-law-in-UK is somehow worse than EU-law-in-France (or -Germany, etc.) is used an excuse to explain why other countries don't want to leave. "Why don't Spain want to leave the EU if it's so bad?" "Oh! Well they don't implement all the laws!!". Unfortunately it's not true. France goes above and beyond the EU minimum (and beyond UK) in many EU-laws (e.g. Working Time Directive).