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On November 19 2016 09:51 Sent. wrote:
Stronger parliament will not fix anything, MEPs will still prioritze their country over the union.
I do not think that this is the case right now most of the time. the framework of European parties does bind most MEPs to certain political directions. Obviously that is different for fun organizations like UKIP, but as long as real politicians are in the overwhelming majority the parliament does work quite well.
However, I do agree that that there will always have to be found a middle ground between national and European party interests. I do not perceive that as a problem, that is how the union works. So I guess in general I agree, that a structural reform cannot change a political reality, which is that we are and will be a diverse continent which has to learn to love itself to become strong from the inside.
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On November 19 2016 07:51 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't really see the deep historical connections, for the most part European history is one of continuously bashing each other's heads in. Bureaucratisation isn't bad, as Weber pointed out it's the most important feature of modernity. Bureaucratisation actually guarantees fairness, reasonable distribution of resources, impartial treatment and the rule of law. Whenever we were busy slaughtering each others bureaucracy was suspiciously absent.
There's unprecedented prosperity and peace on this continent ever since we've established the European institutions. The distinction between 'the people' and the 'the institutions' is one that essentially celebrates some kind of tribalism.
You know nothing jon snow ...
On November 19 2016 08:28 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2016 06:04 WhiteDog wrote:On November 19 2016 05:34 LegalLord wrote:On November 19 2016 05:31 WhiteDog wrote:On November 19 2016 05:08 RvB wrote:On November 18 2016 20:56 WhiteDog wrote:
Obama's interventions in europe are such a disappointement. This guy is intelligent, but never take a solid stance when it is needed. So before greeks he ask them not to pursue a capitalism "without soul", yeah suck like you had to tell that to greeks, and before germans he present Merkel like the best leader of them all, when she is basically the one responsible for the greek fiasco. What a joke, less hypocrisy please. What did you expect him to do? He's called for debt relief for a while now. He really doesn't have that much influence in European politics. Big J's discourse feel like he's stuck in the 90ies early 2000. In that it takes an idealistic, rather than pragmatic, approach to the EU, what it is, and how it functions? I'm sure we all did, at one time or another. It sounds like a great idea until you dig deeper and understand better what it stands for and represents. Then you will start to see where this deep distrust in the organization that led Britain to vote to leave comes from. I'm sure most europeans are europeans : they actually like the idea of europe, the solidarity between those countries that have such deep historical connexions. But in practice, we don't have the actual institutions to permit that solidarity to exist ; only competition. For exemple, Big J show dissatisfaction at the fact that our politician in europe are mostly neoliberal, but the main problem in europe is the absence of a real political debate on europe, as most europeans vote with national agenda in sight. There are no european syndicate (only a shell), no real opposition to bureaucrats, and the way the europe commission behave was even taylored to limit democracy to a certain extent. It's the institutions that are flawed so it's the institutions that needs to change drastically. But those institutions cannot change because there are no organized civil society to push for such change (see Varouflakis' incapacity to mobilize for his plan B). I would like to hear in what way the institutions would have to change in your opinion. From my point of view I would like to have a stronger parliament, with European parties and a weaker council. But that seems to me like the exact thing that would move Europe too fast forward. A step that many people would not want to take.
Stronger parliament, why not ? And the end of the council and the creation of a new institution that would be similar to an european government. But, more than that, a real solidarity in europe would need a common social security, common taxation and fiscal flow, common laws on labor, common debt, common education system, etc. All those are impossible to actually justify.
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On November 19 2016 16:53 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2016 09:51 Sent. wrote:
Stronger parliament will not fix anything, MEPs will still prioritze their country over the union. I do not think that this is the case right now most of the time. the framework of European parties does bind most MEPs to certain political directions. Obviously that is different for fun organizations like UKIP, but as long as real politicians are in the overwhelming majority the parliament does work quite well. However, I do agree that that there will always have to be found a middle ground between national and European party interests. I do not perceive that as a problem, that is how the union works. So I guess in general I agree, that a structural reform cannot change a political reality, which is that we are and will be a diverse continent which has to learn to love itself to become strong from the inside.
I mean it's not just the EU. That's the reality of pretty much every union whatever it may be. My local politicians who are in charge here are obviously prioritizing city interests over state interests at times as well so that we can get funds for a new water park or whatever. As long as it stays within reasonable levels that's fine.
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On November 19 2016 20:07 WhiteDog wrote:
You know nothing jon snow ...
It really is the case though, the last 70 years were pretty great, we've never done any better. Historical romanticism is terrible and especially the left shouldn't fall into the trap of using it to justify things.
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On November 20 2016 06:35 Nyxisto wrote:It really is the case though, the last 70 years were pretty great, we've never done any better. Historical romanticism is terrible and especially the left shouldn't fall into the trap of using it to justify things.
It's untrue, we did great from 1950 to 1980, and since then inequality are rising, we have a low growth, rampant unemployment.
Next to that, in the last 70 years, we destroyed the earth like never before. So overall, the last 70 years were kinda great, until europe became bigger, until the european monetary system kinda fcked us up. And anyway our model was (and still is) not sustainable.
Coincidently, the XIXth century was also pretty ok in term of war : after the napoleonian war, only one rather small conflict (1870 - was over quickly, the french elite didn't really wanted to fight) happenned, and that's it.
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The 19th century argument would look very differently if WW 1 happened in 1899 instead of twenty years later. Lots of the tensions that destroyed everything where a result of 19th century nationalist alliances, especially German's alliance policies.
It's actually a good example because it looked nice on paper, everybody was sovereign and had happy partners until it didn't work at which point it crashed badly. European politics is more messy and conflicts with national interests more openly but it also resolves problems before they become insurmountable.
It's why I don't believe that pointing at flaws within the current EU system is really an argument. Yes it brings flaws out, that's the whole point. It creates productive tension.
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I don't understand your point : the XIXth century created the seeds for the 1rst WW. There are no real equilibrium when one country dominate the others (unless this country totally destroy its opponent).
The european union is such unstable equilibrium : a set of institution that are biased toward certain countries, unable to advance further, thus bound to regress. The problem is not really the flaws but the incapacity for the institutions we made to change for the better (making them part of the problem rather than a tool that you can adapt to the situation).
PS : countries were not sovereign in the XIXth century, we had the gold standard (lack of sovereignty on exchange rate, exactly like today btw). Polanyi even argue that the gold standard is at the source of WWI and WWII.
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But the EU is at least a place where such differences can be fought out openly and fairly under common rules and it's not just an institution where majority rules. That's why we have a commission and not just a sovereign parliament. It gives every country more or less a veto voice even if it is insanely small. We essentially have Wallonia blocking a trade agreement of the EU right now that everybody else wants to sign. Small regions in the EU can still influence the whole institution quite strongly.
And concerning the 19th century, sovereign in a political sense that many far-right parties want to have back, AfD leaders often tend to talk about it in that sense.
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"But the EU is at least a place where such differences can be fought out openly and fairly under common rules and it's not just an institution where majority rules."
It cannot be fought because the european civil society does not exist. Just technocrats, lobbyists and politicians : it's an incomplete democracy. A democracy is not just voting for someone and a separation of power (a separation that's actually incomplete in europe) ; you need more than that : people that feel they are part of a collective, that feel engaged in a shared destiny, that associate in syndicates, in political party, etc.
And concerning the 19th century, sovereign in a political sense that many far-right parties want to have back, AfD leaders often tend to talk about it in that sense.
And they want Bismarck back right ? lol
Here is my solution for europe : end the euro, create a small european group with germany france italy spain belgium portugal ; create a common education system, a common social security, common law on labor, progressive unification of min wage, a federal police and justice, a president and a federal budget dedicated to helping the poorest region. There you have the spine for a real unification of europe in a hundred years.
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Yes, they have a huge boner for Bismarck
'Core Europe' isn't a bad idea actually, problem is that going back on the Euro and the union will look like a huge defeat in the eyes of the voters and will probably empower far-right parties even further because they can claim that they were right all along. So that's a big political risk.
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Yeah but the economic disparities are too big. With the euro you can't fix europe right now unless the richest give like 10% of their income to the poor every year.
We need a political union before economic union.
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How exactly is the euro to blame for inequality? And how is it preventing Europe from fixing itself?
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well i don't agree that the EU is the main reason for the relative peace we have in europe since like 70 years ; you also have a relative major peace between biggest powers in eastern asia for one big reason : the predominance of US presence within the continent and globally in the world
once their grip is gonna go down, things are gonna get worse
you also the fact that economies are well more linked than before, and i don't think nations started to trade in europe the day EU was born
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On November 20 2016 07:44 Nyxisto wrote:
Yes, they have a huge boner for Bismarck
'Core Europe' isn't a bad idea actually, problem is that going back on the Euro and the union will look like a huge defeat in the eyes of the voters and will probably empower far-right parties even further because they can claim that they were right all along. So that's a big political risk.
That list is supposed to be core Europe? A core Europe of Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands and if they ask nicely Hungary and the UK would be the only union that could survive.
The Union suggested by Whitedog would be suicide for Germany. A union full of economically and socially weak countries that are subsidised by a Germany? It would be a large Italy with a almost comically backward south leeching of its northern countrymen.
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You can probably add or remove countries in that hypothetical scenario but I don't think that Italy or France are economically or socially weak at all. They've got a highly educated workforce and there's probably nothing wrong that can't be fixed. The political rift between Eastern Europe and Western Europe is much stronger and much more fundamental because they've repeatedly made clear that they'll not cooperate on some issues or even start electing guys like Orban.
It's more about which countries are committed to the liberal/democratic post war order and nations who want to drift into a fundamentally authoritarian direction. Poland doesn't exactly seem to be drifting into a great direction either.
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On November 20 2016 06:44 WhiteDog wrote:
[Coincidently, the XIXth century was also pretty ok in term of war : after the napoleonian war, only one rather small conflict (1870 - was over quickly, the french elite didn't really wanted to fight) happenned, and that's it.
You forgot what in my opinion was the most important conflict in the 19th century. Inspired by the French revolution the idea of liberty and equality for all people spread across Europe. It was no war in the sense that countries fight against each other but it was civil war building up during the 1820s to 1850. For example the greater Polish uprising of 1846 or the German revolution in March of 1848-1849. After the revolutions were crushed many revolutionaries fled to the U.S. Others continued to fight on for their ideals.
In German and I'm sure also in other languages there are many songs about this time to help spread the ideas and tell the tale. I put some in the spoiler if you want to listen to them:
+ Show Spoiler +
In the beginning of the 19th century Germany was just a lose confederation of states. For example during the Napoleonic wars some German states were fighting together with Napoleon (some smaller states) and some others were fighting against him (Prussia/Austria and allied states). The buildup to the German revolution in 1848 was also used to spread the idea of a bond between all German nations. Though the revolution ended in defeat with the Prussian victory over the revolutionary army of Baden (which was supported by a French legion and was led by Ludwik Mierosławski who also participated in the Polish uprisings) the ideas of the revolution lived on. And for Germany this also included a united Germany which was established after the 1870s war against France - a common enemy to unite the German states. A war that was never forgiven in France at that time and sparked the desire for revenge (y penser toujours. n'en parler jamais.) that led to the harsh Versailles treaty after the first world war.
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i'd split EU based on people(germanic people, romance people, slavic people + minorities) being totally oblivious to the economic realities:
- group germans with nordics(Denmark, Norway and so on);
- France with Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Greece (because of Thracia); (lol, i mean seriously, look at that whole romance lineage being totally fucked now; France maybe not economically but more socially and politically);
- then you'd have the slavs grouped with the russians;
(bulgarians = minorities, go to greeks/vlachs(eastern romance); magyars = minorities, go to germans, slavs, romance; Poland split between germans and slavs; Ukraine dissolved);
- tatars, turkick and other minorities based on local/regional communities.
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On November 20 2016 17:58 xM(Z wrote:
i'd split EU based on people(germanic people, romance people, slavic people + minorities) being totally oblivious to the economic realities:
- group germans with nordics(Denmark, Norway and so on);
- France with Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Greece (because of Thracia); (lol, i mean seriously, look at that whole romance lineage being totally fucked now; France maybe not economically but more socially and politically);
- then you'd have the slavs grouped with the russians;
(bulgarians = minorities, go to greeks/vlachs(eastern romance); magyars = minorities, go to germans, slavs, romance; Poland split between germans and slavs; Ukraine dissolved);
- tatars, turkick and other minorities based on local/regional communities.
Please tell me you are joking, please tell me you are joking, please, please, please...
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sorry only in german but I'll give you a short tl;dr:
Umfrage - Merheit wünscht sich weitere Amtszeit Merkels
Die Mehrheit der Deutschen wünscht sich einer Umfrage zufolge eine weitere Amtszeit von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel.
55 Prozent der Befragten hätten sich entsprechend geäußert, 39 Prozent würden sich allerdings nicht wünschen, dass Merkel nach der Wahl 2017 Kanzlerin bleibe, berichtete "Bild am Sonntag" vorab unter Berufung auf eine Emnid-Umfrage. Gegenüber August habe sich die Zustimmung für die CDU-Chefin damit deutlich verbessert. Damals seien noch 50 Prozent gegen eine weitere Amtszeit gewesen und nur 42 Prozent dafür.
Merkel hat für Sonntagabend eine Pressekonferenz angekündigt. Es wird erwartet, dass sie sich dazu erklären wird, ob sie sich zum vierten Mal um die Kanzlerschaft bewirbt. In der Union wird inzwischen damit gerechnet, dass die 62-Jährige eine erneute Kandidatur anstrebt.
de.reuters.com
posting as we had some questions lately, especially from LegalLord about how Merkel is doing. So long story short apparently 55% of people asked want Merkel to have another term while 39% don't want that. I don't know exactly what the question was but I expect some shady stuff à la "do you want her to have another go at it or not" rather than asking about all candidates but it's still pretty impressive. A week ago she supposedly was at only 42% with the same question (whatever that question is).
This comes as Merkel is supposed to announce either today or tomorrow wether she will run yet again for the office or not. People are strongly expecting her to announce that she will but who knows. Been a weird year~
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On November 20 2016 13:57 Banaora wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2016 06:44 WhiteDog wrote:
[Coincidently, the XIXth century was also pretty ok in term of war : after the napoleonian war, only one rather small conflict (1870 - was over quickly, the french elite didn't really wanted to fight) happenned, and that's it. You forgot what in my opinion was the most important conflict in the 19th century. Inspired by the French revolution the idea of liberty and equality for all people spread across Europe. It was no war in the sense that countries fight against each other but it was civil war building up during the 1820s to 1850. For example the greater Polish uprising of 1846 or the German revolution in March of 1848-1849. After the revolutions were crushed many revolutionaries fled to the U.S. Others continued to fight on for their ideals. In German and I'm sure also in other languages there are many songs about this time to help spread the ideas and tell the tale. I put some in the spoiler if you want to listen to them: + Show Spoiler +In the beginning of the 19th century Germany was just a lose confederation of states. For example during the Napoleonic wars some German states were fighting together with Napoleon (some smaller states) and some others were fighting against him (Prussia/Austria and allied states). The buildup to the German revolution in 1848 was also used to spread the idea of a bond between all German nations. Though the revolution ended in defeat with the Prussian victory over the revolutionary army of Baden (which was supported by a French legion and was led by Ludwik Mierosławski who also participated in the Polish uprisings) the ideas of the revolution lived on. And for Germany this also included a united Germany which was established after the 1870s war against France - a common enemy to unite the German states. A war that was never forgiven in France at that time and sparked the desire for revenge (y penser toujours. n'en parler jamais.) that led to the harsh Versailles treaty after the first world war.
The Versailles treaty was just the replica of the war reparation demanded by Bismarck after 1870.
Nothing that you said actually contredict what I was saying. I didn't argue that the XIXth century was perfect, just that it was quite close to the era we lived - you talk about civil war in europe, are you telling me it's not the case today ? There are memo from the french secret services that talk about a possible civil war (or civil retribution) if the terrorists attack continue. You have far right parties everywhere, even neo nazi party in Greece ...
The main difference is that we are more pacifist, states are much more developped and can control the population better. The terrorists attack that happened in France lately would have created massive backlash from the population in XIXth century France (same for Germany actually). Heck, in France in Lyon some french even beat down hundreds of Italian for just booing the national anthem like two hundred years ago.
On November 20 2016 10:49 Yuljan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2016 07:44 Nyxisto wrote:
Yes, they have a huge boner for Bismarck
'Core Europe' isn't a bad idea actually, problem is that going back on the Euro and the union will look like a huge defeat in the eyes of the voters and will probably empower far-right parties even further because they can claim that they were right all along. So that's a big political risk. That list is supposed to be core Europe? A core Europe of Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands and if they ask nicely Hungary and the UK would be the only union that could survive. The Union suggested by Whitedog would be suicide for Germany. A union full of economically and socially weak countries that are subsidised by a Germany? It would be a large Italy with a almost comically backward south leeching of its northern countrymen.
I think you didn't read me : the european union should not be economical - it just would not work. The end of the euro is necessary to permit Germany to continue dominate economically without actually preventing the growth of the poorest (because it does under the same currency).
Your list seems entirely economical but : you put Poland and the Czech Republic in your group like they're somehow close economically (they actually benefit a lot from the european union in various aspects) and you put countries that do not even have the euro (Sweden, Denmark) ... You pointing out countries that are at the top (Germany) or either benefit from not being in the euro or benefit of the euro by keeping their wage and labor rules lower than other european countries (social dumping) ...
By the way, any union with Poland would not work, those guys just don't want to unify, they want to make money.
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EPT
