European Union

[MRaverz]

Am I the only one who wouldn't really mind if Europe became a superstate?


To Eurosceptics, as it were, why would it be such a bad thing?

 

[Inferno]

What do you mean by a superstate? I'm guessing you mean this?
I would think that it's a fabulous idea, less divisions would be the result.

But then again, I'm an advocate of a world government, so any superstate would get closer to this idea.

 

[Prolescum]

I'd say that the EU's current political structure is an issue for many (me, certainly), although I doubt if that's at the forefront of a British Euro sceptic's thoughts, rather, the loss of sovereignty and subservience to a higher power seems to be the thing that gets many a goat. I recall discussions about various farming subsidies given to some Euro nations and not others, but it's a bit too late to read up on them; fishermen have regulatory issues too I think. Not sure about the unions' view on the topic.

Also, the British distrust of the French, its suspicion of the Germans (lol Saxe-Coberg and Gotha!) and longstanding (but now thankfully subtle) enmity with both probably has some bearing in peoples' minds.

This is speculation, really, I'm not certain that this is how it's perceived by the man on the Clapham omnibus, but some media outlets (News International most often) play on these factors more often than not so it's safe to presume their role is significant.

Personally, I wouldn't mind Europe becoming a federal state, but we would need to have very different government structure than exists today.

 

[Aught3]

The unified currency is already a bit of a problem for many European countries. not sure whether further unification would make the situation better or worse.

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

Yes the current EU bureaucracy seems to be overly bloated, especially considering the ridiculous split between Brussels and Strasbourg, but I'm not against a European government on principle. I think it's about how you balance diversity and regional autonomy with a centralised seat of power. There are definite advantages to being a large united power bloc and my gut reaction is that ideologies are all superficial anyway but people tend to place a high value on tradition and also like to feel they can make a difference to their conditions locally. To be fair I've not studied the question enough to come to a clear decision myself.

 

[MRaverz]

I should point out that I too feel that the EU needs improving, but also that to get it to improve - the UK needs to play a bigger part.


I should also say that I don't feel that the UK would be obeying a higher power, as they would be part of the power to begin with - if we played a more positive role.

Plus you have to love how the EU head-quarters is built like the Tower of Babylon.

 

[Doc.]

Well first of all absence of agreed and cooperative foreign policy makes EU weak, have to handle that first.

 

[MineMineMine]

Well first of all absence of agreed and cooperative foreign policy makes EU weak, have to handle that first.

oh we do i have in theory a post for that with a rather funny name (thanks britain )

i'm for a further unification. For example you need whole different* train models for different countries because of the laws.
or traffic light regulations are different everywhere.
There are a lot of little things that could be improved










*exaggeration

 

[Inferno]

Well first of all absence of agreed and cooperative foreign policy makes EU weak, have to handle that first.

Since the EU is not a state right now, policy actually forbids the EU to have a common foreign policy. So quite the contrary, before we can have a common foreign policy, we need to be one big state!

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I all for a single organized European Union. The problem is, each county is a different language and a different culture, doing that with US was easy, they only speaked english or spanish and the culture was prety much uniform from coast to coast. Not having a unifying language creates allot of barriers to this, and being so I don't see the European countries getting along joyfully any time soon.

 

[Giliell]

I would mind it very much
In its current state, the EU is very undemocratic.
It already bypasses national parliaments and assembleys and governments with laws and regulations made by burocrats without any democratic legitimation. I don't think that any "superstate" that came out of this would be much different. Also the big states can dominate the small ones. Let's face it, when the consensus is gone, if France and Germany manage to get the British aboard, they can more or less rule the thing all alone with blackmailing and influencing other small countries. divide et impera.
Also, there no common political culture/tradition. Although the MPs from different countries form groups within parliament, that is hardly a model for a common democracy. In short: how to make politics in such a situation.
Problems like the Euro already have been mentioned. The meassurements dictated by the EU have effectively killed the Greek economy and added directly to the wealth of billionaires. The Greek people had no say in this, more or less. It doesn't matter what they support or not, their opinion isn't relevant anymore.

And I can really do with less of that.
Not that I think small national states to be an ideal solution, but if I want a United European Republic then it's not the one we're heading towards right now.

 

[Inferno]

I would mind it very much
In its current state, the EU is very undemocratic.
It already bypasses national parliaments and assembleys and governments with laws and regulations made by burocrats without any democratic legitimation. I don't think that any "superstate" that came out of this would be much different. Also the big states can dominate the small ones. Let's face it, when the consensus is gone, if France and Germany manage to get the British aboard, they can more or less rule the thing all alone with blackmailing and influencing other small countries. divide et impera.

Not quite true. While it is true that the EU is not as democratic as one might want it to be, the small states have an incredible amount of power.
First of all, you forget to include Italy into the "large countries", maybe even Spain and Poland.
I'll be generous to you so I'll consider them all "large countries". They have a total of 170 seats in the Council of the European Union. All small countries together have 151. So they'd have to have all of the six large countries on their side to overpower the small ones. (Ignoring the 2007 addition btw!)
But it gets worse for the large countries. The council can only ratify laws, never propose them. That's the job of the Commission. How many seats for each country? One. So here the large countries are heavily underrepresented. No new law can be proposed if the small countries are against it.
So no, no blackmailing and influencing would help here.

 

[Giliell]

Not quite true. While it is true that the EU is not as democratic as one might want it to be, the small states have an incredible amount of power.
First of all, you forget to include Italy into the "large countries", maybe even Spain and Poland.
I'll be generous to you so I'll consider them all "large countries". They have a total of 170 seats in the Council of the European Union. All small countries together have 151. So they'd have to have all of the six large countries on their side to overpower the small ones. (Ignoring the 2007 addition btw!)
But it gets worse for the large countries. The council can only ratify laws, never propose them. That's the job of the Commission. How many seats for each country? One. So here the large countries are heavily underrepresented. No new law can be proposed if the small countries are against it.
So no, no blackmailing and influencing would help here.

Which is why I wrote "once the consensus is gone"
And I never said that it would always be a small vs large. Things are never easy in politics, no black and white. Luxembourg is probably always more likely to agree with France and Germany than with Cyprus.
But that's the whole dilemma: Either you have a system like the current one, where Luxembourg can block everything, or some kind of majority vote, where Luxembourg hasn't got a fuck to say (just to use Lux as an example). Don't see how a single federal state would change anything for the better here, if anything, it would make things worse because any checks and balances currently in place to protect Luxembourg's interests would be removed.

 

[Doc.]

Actually, as Lisbon agreement says, votes concerning foreign policy and defense are now held according to the majority principle.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

I encourage this development as a viable backup in case America fails utterly.

Someone needs to carry the tourch of Western Civilization; and it would be nice if they had the economic and military strength to compete with China.

But only on the condition that you let the Turks come too, they're fun.

 

[Inferno]

Actually, as Lisbon agreement says, votes concerning foreign policy and defense are now held according to the majority principle.

Agreed, my bad. I just checked with two officials of the EU and they cleared up quite a bit.

But that's the whole dilemma: Either you have a system like the current one, where Luxembourg can block everything, or some kind of majority vote, where Luxembourg hasn't got a fuck to say (just to use Lux as an example). Don't see how a single federal state would change anything for the better here, if anything, it would make things worse because any checks and balances currently in place to protect Luxembourg's interests would be removed.

They can't. They've (They being the EU) actually changed this after the Lisbon agreement because they argued that it would stall innovation if one country were to oppose it. We now have what Doc. correctly described as a majority vote. That is to say that the representatives in the EU Council have to form not a majority (as in 50%+) but rather a percentage that I have yet to find out. (The official is probably asleep now so I can't ask him nor her. If you want that percentage, I'll get back to you tomorrow.)
He did explain though that even if all the large states combined, they wouldn't be able to overpower the small ones and vice versa. It's an extremely delicate balancing act.

The best diagram I can find to explain this is in German, so if you're willing to spend some time translating it, here you go. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordentliches_Gesetzgebungsverfahren The English article on the subject is sadly quite out of date and inaccurate.
This is a PDF from the EU explaining the whole process. Click me and my 52 pages!

 

[Giliell]

The best diagram I can find to explain this is in German, so if you're willing to spend some time translating it, here you go. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordentliches_Gesetzgebungsverfahren

No, I'm not willing to spend some time translating it into English, not even for the sake of the nice people here on the LoR forum :lol:
You made my day

And I carefully explained that I don't consider those matters to be easy and simply big vs small. Is the majority vote already set for all areas? I don't think it is. Genuine question from ignorance.

I still consider the whole thing to be rather undemocratic
When they wanted to shove that "European Constitution" down our throats, they had hold referendums people in some countries where the current constitution requires such a thing. Most of them said "no thanx". So what happened was that we got quite a large proportion of that "constitution" repacked as the Lissabon Treaty and since that was only a treaty, the only people they had to ask where the Irish. They said "no thanxs". So they had to return to the ballots again. This time they agreed. I don't think it would have made a difference if they'd said "no" again. Just like Denmark before, they would have had to vote until they voted "right" Of course, if they agree, there is never any talk of repeating a referendum to see whether people have changed their minds. If they agree it's a great day for democracy.

 

[Inferno]

You made my day

Glad I did. Doc. just explained that you're German. Lucky you.

Is the majority vote already set for all areas? I don't think it is.

In all but one area.
The only time ever when all countries need to vote a unanimous "YES" is when it comes to "changing the rules the Commission set in place for itself", as my official put it. In other words, only when they're trying to change the constitution.

One example is the recent suggestion of Frau Merkel, (I'm sure you've been following) basically saying that the stability pact of the Euro should be put in question, since a collapse of one country (like Greece) could put the whole Euro-sector in a crisis. (That's because the Euro is tied to the economy of all the countries, so the collapse of one economy pulls down the whole Euro.)
This is a FUNDAMENTAL change in the policy of the EU, so ALL countries would have to vote a unanimous "YES".

All every-day laws are however passed with the majority vote.

When they wanted to shove that "European Constitution" down our throats, they had hold referendums people in some countries where the current constitution requires such a thing. Most of them said "no thanx". So what happened was that we got quite a large proportion of that "constitution" repacked as the Lissabon Treaty and since that was only a treaty, the only people they had to ask where the Irish. They said "no thanxs". So they had to return to the ballots again. This time they agreed. I don't think it would have made a difference if they'd said "no" again. Just like Denmark before, they would have had to vote until they voted "right" Of course, if they agree, there is never any talk of repeating a referendum to see whether people have changed their minds. If they agree it's a great day for democracy.

Not quite. What actually happened is that all countries had to let their people vote and the Irish said no. So they changed the parts that the Irish didn't like and put it to the vote again. This time, it was passed.

EDIT: This is exactly why the law was changed. If you'd always do it this way, you wouldn't get anything done!

However, you're quite right in that it's not a democracy. We don't get to vote who's in the Council (siehe EU Rat), the Commission or basically any other "Organ". The only place we can vote people into is the Parliament.
The representatives DO however represent their states and the wants of their states.
And when I see how badly we vote in some countries, (Mine is the best example. The extreme right got 27% when we voted for the Mayor of our Capital. Everybody EXCEPT Doc. can now take a guess where I come from. ) this isn't even such a bad thing. At least this way, we only get idiots inside, not complete idiots and assholes.

 

[Pulsar]

Quick quiz question for everyone: what's his name? No wiki cheating!

 

[Prolescum]

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