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Skeleton Jelly posted:Yeah I don't think you've got anywhere in the world where things are actually going uphill. Where it's not already a neoliberal free-for-all shitfest, it sure is on its way there. If current trends continue, within some decades even the Nordic model is likely to be in the shitter. Pretty much, I'm not naive, I know Canada isn't Utopia, but it's probably still going to be a hell of a lot better than Western Europe in a few years. I'm not saying I'm going to move (or that I even can, considering my medical situation and the fact that I'm a lowly undergraduate student), but things are going so bad that I can't help but contemplate it. 
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Mar 24, 2014 22:38
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Kurtofan posted:Pretty much, I'm not naive, I know Canada isn't Utopia, but it's probably still going to be a hell of a lot better than Western Europe in a few years.
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Mar 24, 2014 23:16
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Kurtofan posted:Pretty much, I'm not naive, I know Canada isn't Utopia, but it's probably still going to be a hell of a lot better than Western Europe in a few years. This seems overdramatic unless you live in Spain or Greece. Why do you think French society is going to collapse within the next few years?
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Mar 25, 2014 06:55
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Phlegmish posted:This seems overdramatic unless you live in Spain or Greece. Why do you think French society is going to collapse within the next few years? Because right-wing liberals are in power apparently for the first time ever in European history and therefore everything is going to collapse into a fascist orgy for reasons.
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Mar 25, 2014 07:07
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Because Europe turning further to the right either means more neoliberal policy, austerity and decision making in Brussels overriding democratic wishes in EU states or nationalist, xenophobic euro-skepticism that will replace the former's problems with something worse. Or possibly, if the left in Portugal, Greece or the Czech Republic to name a few starts to grow too much, a healthy mixture of all of the above to make sure nothing changes in the economic policy of the Eurozone.Fojar38 posted:Because right-wing liberals are in power apparently for the first time ever in European history and therefore everything is going to collapse into a fascist orgy for reasons.
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Mar 25, 2014 07:29
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Right, I just don't understand the logic. Anyone moving out of Europe to get away from right-wing policies is in for a very rude awakening,
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Mar 25, 2014 07:56
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Mans posted:Because Europe turning further to the right either means more neoliberal policy, austerity and decision making in Brussels overriding democratic wishes in EU states or nationalist, xenophobic euro-skepticism that will replace the former's problems with something worse. Or possibly, if the left in Portugal, Greece or the Czech Republic to name a few starts to grow too much, a healthy mixture of all of the above to make sure nothing changes in the economic policy of the Eurozone. I wonder about the EU-is-anti-democratic attitude. When there is a European Parliament that is elected in fair and free elections, which also elects the European Commission, then that seems pretty democratic to me. If they are overriding the wishes of some EU states, it is no different to the US federal government enacting a policy that is against the wishes of certain governors and the population of certain states. And even the Front National got only 7%! of the votes in France. Meaning the mainstream party still had the support of over 90% of the electorate, hardly the sign of a second coming of the Nazis.
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Mar 25, 2014 08:19
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Torrannor posted:I wonder about the EU-is-anti-democratic attitude. When there is a European Parliament that is elected in fair and free elections, which also elects the European Commission, then that seems pretty democratic to me. If they are overriding the wishes of some EU states, it is no different to the US federal government enacting a policy that is against the wishes of certain governors and the population of certain states. You cannot compare individual, sovereign states with states that are within a bigger (federal) union, like the USA. In the EU, only MEPs are elected. Commission members? Appointed. EU Presidency? Appointed. And what is the European parliament for the most part? A collection of (fanatical) pro-EU Martin Schulz clones; the opposition is either (far-)right nationalists, Nigel Farage and sometimes a random soundbite from someone nobody's ever heard of. And by the way, the European Parliament is a great way to get rid of uppity/stupid national politicians; send 'em off to Brussels and you can safely ignore them.
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Mar 25, 2014 09:56
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:You cannot compare individual, sovereign states with states that are within a bigger (federal) union, like the USA. In the EU, only MEPs are elected. Commission members? Appointed. EU Presidency? Appointed. And what is the European parliament for the most part? A collection of (fanatical) pro-EU Martin Schulz clones; the opposition is either (far-)right nationalists, Nigel Farage and sometimes a random soundbite from someone nobody's ever heard of. And by the way, the European Parliament is a great way to get rid of uppity/stupid national politicians; send 'em off to Brussels and you can safely ignore them. I don't understand. The Commission is the executive. It is proposed by the council and elected by the Parliament. And here in Germany, the Chancellor and her cabinet are appointed by the Bundestag (German parliament), which was elected by the people. In fact, neither the German president nor the Chancellor and her cabinet are elected directly. The British executive comes from parliament and is not directly elected. The Italian president proposed a prime minister and both houses of parliament must approve him. None of these governments were elected directly by the people, yet nobody says these countries are not democracies. They are just normal parliamentary democracies. EU presidency? Chosen by the members of the European council, i.e. the (democratically elected) heads of the member states. That is not as democratic as it could be, but there is some accountability through the national governments. And anyway, the guy has no power. Has Van Rompuy done anything important since he got the post? And you complaining about the makeup of the EU parliament is probably a good sign. You are free to vote for other candidates, but the fact that pro-European politicians captured most of the seats in free and fair elections is quite nice, isn't it?
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Mar 25, 2014 10:19
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Torrannor posted:I don't understand. The Commission is the executive. It is proposed by the council and elected by the Parliament. Torrannor posted:And here in Germany, the Chancellor and her cabinet are appointed by the Bundestag (German parliament), which was elected by the people. In fact, neither the German president nor the Chancellor and her cabinet are elected directly. The British executive comes from parliament and is not directly elected. The Italian president proposed a prime minister and both houses of parliament must approve him. None of these governments were elected directly by the people, yet nobody says these countries are not democracies. They are just normal parliamentary democracies. One of the problems with the council is that not every member is equal. Since the beginning of the euro crisis the council has has been ruled by queen merkel (and king Sarkozy when he was still around). Those two (and later merkel alone) punked the rest of europe to a surprising degree when fighting for german/french interest and for their way of managing the euro crisis. For example by pushing through bailout packages and blocking debt haircuts for private investors in countries where german and french banks were deeply engaged - only to do a 180 on that a few months later when the crisis reached cyprus. Since cyprus mainly contained russian money it was perfectly fine to just make an example of them. I can totally understand that all the people in the other (not germany) euro countries are pissed off about poo poo like that - especially when you consider the humanitarian catastrophy their policies caused. Not that merkozy did not have (or think to have) some good reasons for the poo poo they did. Most of the text above is based on Europas Strippenzieher by Gammelin, Löw. Those two were able to evaluate primary sources on the council's work (minutes taken during the meetings), mostly concentrated on the timeframe from the beginning of the euro crisis up to the beginning of 2014. Since you seem speak german, read that book. And everybody else should too once the international edition is out. Torrannor posted:And you complaining about the makeup of the EU parliament is probably a good sign. You are free to vote for other candidates, but the fact that pro-European politicians captured most of the seats in free and fair elections is quite nice, isn't it? Nektu fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 10:51
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Torrannor posted:I wonder about the EU-is-anti-democratic attitude. When there is a European Parliament that is elected in fair and free elections, which also elects the European Commission, then that seems pretty democratic to me. If they are overriding the wishes of some EU states, it is no different to the US federal government enacting a policy that is against the wishes of certain governors and the population of certain states. The majority of Europeans, have no idea what the EU actually does or how it works. In here the example of Portugal. 60% of Portuguese can't name a single Portuguese Euro-depute. 75% doesn't know or fails to answer correctly how many deputes Portugal has in Parliament. The most common answer is 12. The actual number is 22.(21 now that Croatia has entered) 57% believe that the average mandate is 4 years. The correct answer is 5. 9% known that the only way for Parliament to fall is trough a vote of no confidence. So what do the majority of Portuguese know about the EU? They know the name of the President of the European Commission(most likely because he is Portuguese), that there's a Parliament, and there's 28 nations in the Union. (http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?id_news=691008) These are just simple questions, start asking what it actually does, and if you find one person that can properly answer you can count yourself lucky. And I bet most folk on this forum, even the ones that are more aware of the EU, will struggle to explain what the EU actually does or how it operates. Now to the actual free and fair elections. The last elections(2009) the average turnout was 43%, down from 45% in 2004. In Slovakia barely 20% of people showed up. That the elections are free and fair is most likely true, but that completely ignores that the last three parliaments were voted in by less than 50% people. Voting shouldn't be the barometer of how Democratic something is. That the workings of the EU is beyond most it's citizens is a major problem, that reflects not only on the quality, but the validity of these free and fair elections. But these are just elections, let's see the actions of the EU itself, and it's member states. During the eurocrisis the EU had no qualms about appointing(or "suggesting") un-elected technocratic governments both in Greece and Italy, so they could comply to austerity programs, arranged by the IMF and the EU(backed by Germany) that in no way, shape, or form, served these countries situations. Italy is already on it's third un-elected government. This is a good thing according to the EU. We also have the case of the Treaty of Lisbon, which the Irish people voted against, but the treaty was sent back so the Irish could correct their mistake.(credit where due, the treaty was changed, but only for Irish tastes) The treaty of Lisbon is also famous for being a piece of legislation that the people who wrote it don't know what it actually does. There's also how the parliament works. It's useless. Bills and reports can be kept from ever arriving to the parliament floor, and voting is hidden, or under-reported, to member states, with zero effort done to change any of this. You have the recent example of Edite Estrela and her report on women's rights in Europe. This was a report proposed to the parliament to make the EU study the impacts of better women's health care, and sexual education(abortions, contraceptions, etc), and open a path in the future for the EU to adopt similar measures. The actual report was non-binding, meaning nothing could actual come from this, from their the EU or it's member states. However a right wing, and extreme wing coalition voted against the report from even being voted on the parliament floor, and instead this issue was thrown to a national level where little or nothing will ever be done. The campaign was a thing of beauty too. It claimed the report was "tyrannical and dehumanising" and that it would "teach homosexuality and masturbation in kindergartens".(link in Portuguese) Estrela was then called a "democrat by circumstance" when she had the gall(!) to complain about how the vote came down. But don't worry Edite Estrela got an award for being a good scout. In Portugal the TROIKA program is coming to an end, the question now remains; will Portugal have a clean exit(like Ireland) or will need an assistance program? The answer is a clean exit. Not because Portugal did okay, or is better, but because it's what the politicians in Northern Europe want. There's elections(fair and free), and northern Europe politicians don't want to explain to their electors that they might have to give more money to lazy moocher southern Europe, so pressure is put on Portugal to do a clean exit regardless of it's economic and financial condition.(Condition status:Abysmal) What's more convenient to the German politician, is worth more than lives of 10 million. The current state that the EU is in serves nobody. The eurocrisis was handled in the worst possible way, and the answer to the Ukranian crisis was tepid at best. In both occasions the EU itself allowed to be overshadowed by the interests of one of it's member states, Germany. The EU needs to change. Be much more open and clear to the citizens of the member states, and be much more active and participant in their lives. The Eurozone also needs to seriously move into a proper monetary union, and have the ECB support the Euro the same way the american Federal bank supports the dollar. If this union was already in place much grief could've been spared in these last 5 years. Even a single EU army would go a long way. However this will never happen cause there isn't a single country of these 28 that will allow lost of any kind of sovereignty. But we get to vote I guess. Nobody knowns what for, and only a handful show up, but we can. Everything is good.
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Mar 25, 2014 12:22
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Torrannor posted:I wonder about the EU-is-anti-democratic attitude. When there is a European Parliament that is elected in fair and free elections, which also elects the European Commission, then that seems pretty democratic to me. If they are overriding the wishes of some EU states, it is no different to the US federal government enacting a policy that is against the wishes of certain governors and the population of certain states. The European Parliament has pretty much no actual power, and the elections to it are pretty much shams where very few people know what they're actually voting for. Furthermore, it is completely obvious that the EU as it is now exists to push a right-wing neoliberal agenda throughout all of the EU, regardless of what the people of any member state actually wants. All the actions of the EU during the past six years should be ample proof of this. Still the problem here, as usual, isn't the EU per se, it's capitalism. The EU as it exists now is a wonderful tool for the capitalist class to give a veneer of legitimacy to wrecking welfare states across Europe and loving over the common man.
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Mar 25, 2014 12:43
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Cerebral Bore posted:Furthermore, it is completely obvious that the EU as it is now exists to push a right-wing neoliberal agenda throughout all of the EU, regardless of what the people of any member state actually wants. All the actions of the EU during the past six years should be ample proof of this. But yea, it seems that brussels is trying to emulate america first and foremost (down to partly privatizing important government organizations like the new European Financial Supervisory Authority). Nektu fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 13:11
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Torrannor posted:And you complaining about the makeup of the EU parliament is probably a good sign. You are free to vote for other candidates, but the fact that pro-European politicians captured most of the seats in free and fair elections is quite nice, isn't it? It's bad sign because EU "elections" are basically an illusion of free choice. Even leftist parties are pro-EU and EU criticism comes, almost exclusively, from nationalist parties. The only notable exception I know is the Greek far-left SYRIZA party, but don't think a few parties that are moderate and EU skeptical have any real say in policy.
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Mar 25, 2014 14:10
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Nektu posted:One could make the point that all organizations that would push a more social agenda (foremost the unions) have failed to establish a european organization that could establish a prescense in bruessels and lobby their agenda. Lobbying is kinda hard to do when the other side got to set up the organization in the first place and write the rules. Oh, and they also have more money to buy people off with. The sad thing is that the EU is working exactly like intended. The only silver lining of all this bullshit we're currently going through is that it might force some change in how the EU operates, but I'm not holding out much hope for that.
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Mar 25, 2014 14:15
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The European Parliament fails at being democratically legitimized for the simple fact that there is a huge discrepancy with how "valuable" a single vote is. When the amounts of seats per capita varies between the countries by an order of magnitude it's hard to still consider it a democratic election procedure. The only reason this is somewhat acceptable is because the European Union still is more of an international organization than a federation of states, but if they ever want to deepen the EU, they'd probably have to come up with a new system if they want to be democratic. That said I don't think fascism or right-wing extremism is what the future holds for Europe. Neither from a European level nor from the extreme rights in the European countries. Right-wing parties had smaller successes for years now and have consistently failed to leverage their election successes into a position of dominant political power. (Hell, mainstream news media have speculated of the mystical "New Right Wing" since the late 90s.)
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Mar 25, 2014 14:30
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:It's bad sign because EU "elections" are basically an illusion of free choice. Even leftist parties are pro-EU and EU criticism comes, almost exclusively, from nationalist parties. The only notable exception I know is the Greek far-left SYRIZA party, but don't think a few parties that are moderate and EU skeptical have any real say in policy. Yeah, "illusion of choice" is nice. If there was such a big demand for a left wing anti-european party, it would have gained seats anyway. I cannot vote for anti-European left wing parties in my national elections, are they also only offering an "illusion of choice"? Electronico6 posted:The majority of Europeans, have no idea what the EU actually does or how it works. In here the example of Portugal. Of course there are still problems in the EU. European Parliament elections should get much more attention from the media, since they could in theory be quite important for all of Europe. But it seems it is easier to ignore them and blame all problems on Brussels. Remember when the EP voted down the first SWIFT agreement? Or that they are one of the stumbling blocks for the current EU-USA free trade deal? They are not powerless, but they do reflect the attitudes of the countries that they are from. Considering that the European Council can only nominate Commission presidents, which have to be approved by parliament, I would hardly call them powerless. And I still wonder how the EU can be such a bad capitalist institution when the British Tories desperately want to exempt Britain from EU labor laws for being to onerous on business... The situation with Italy and Greece is also more complex than EU = bad. You say that Italy is now on it's third unelected government, but that is just not true. It is a fact that the executive serves at the pleasure of the legislature in a parliamentary system, and so it is it's legitimate right to fire it's current government and install a new one. It is a procedure that is explicitly allowed in parliamentary systems. Something similar happened in Germany in the 80s, when the liberals ended their coalition with the social democrats and instead formed one with the conservatives, dismissing the social democrat chancellor and electing a conservative one, without any intervening elections. I can only count two "unelected" governments in Italy (Berlusconi -> Mario Monti and Enrico Letta -> Matteo Renzi), and it is a bit worrying that they are changing governments, but this is Italy. I thought went through about one government per year since WW2? In any way, it is not primarily the fault of the EU. Greece had adopted a technocrat government after heavy pressure from the EU, and the conditions for emergency loans were also incredibly harsh, but again the situation is more complex. The real problem was and is the Euro. If Greece was not a part of the Euro-zone, it would have three options to deal with it's financial crisis: 1. Print money to pay off debtors, massively increasing inflation. That option would only be available if their debts were in Drachmas, which is unlikely. Their currency was never seen as all too stable, which is why they wanted to join the Euro in the first place. So their debts would most likely be in Euros, Dollars or D-Marks, which eliminates the printing press as an option. 2. Default on their loans. That may have been better than the current option, but it would not have been without costs as well. Greece had a structural deficit, they would have to cut services and fire people employed by the state anyway, because they would have been unable to pay them, and they would be unable to make new debt to finance it. Not to mention that there are quite a few Greeks who hold/held Greek government debt, and Greek banks, which would all have been hurt by a default. Still a bad option. 3. Go cap in hand to the IMF and receive loans in exchange for similar obligations as they got now. And I would bet that they got a marginally better deal from their EU partners than they would have gotten from the IMF alone. That's not really an alternative to the current scenario. So Greece was hosed anyway. Of course if they had never adopted the Euro they might not be in the mess they currently are, but that is very difficult to tell. Still I agree that the richer Union states should have helped the struggling members much more than they currently are, but it is not that easy. Take this sentence: quote:What's more convenient to the German politician, is worth more than lives of 10 million. That is completely divorced from reality. If Merkel and co. had helped Portugal by sending billions of German Euros to prop up their economy they would have lost last fall's elections. The sad truth is that the heads of the rich EU countries have the backing of their voters in refusing to pay for the debts of the struggling EU members. The balance of power in the EU is skewed, but in a pretty "natural" way. The rich creditor countries have power over the poor debtor countries, it doesn't matter if they are in the EU or not. The EU itself is fine, it is the Euro that's a mess. There should have been much more economical and financial integration in the Euro-zone, with a robust financial transfer. But it didn't happen, and there was no support for it in both the people and the politicians. You said it yourself: quote:The EU needs to change. Be much more open and clear to the citizens of the member states, and be much more active and participant in their lives. The Eurozone also needs to seriously move into a proper monetary union, and have the ECB support the Euro the same way the american Federal bank supports the dollar. If this union was already in place much grief could've been spared in these last 5 years. Even a single EU army would go a long way. This is true. It can be better, it HAS to be better. But I just get tired of people blaming everything on the EU.
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Mar 25, 2014 14:57
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Torrannor posted:That is completely divorced from reality. If Merkel and co. had helped Portugal by sending billions of German Euros to prop up their economy they would have lost last fall's elections. The sad truth is that the heads of the rich EU countries have the backing of their voters in refusing to pay for the debts of the struggling EU members. But nah, taking a stance is not merkel. If you make a commitment to one course of action, less voters will like you, so just never take a stance at all and everybody can project his own opinion into your actions. Torrannor posted:The EU itself is fine, it is the Euro that's a mess. The problem is: that distinction is largely academical right now - today the euro IS europe. Or do you really think that the EU would survive a breaking apart of the eurozone, a monentary reform (probably accompanied by an economic desaster) caused by some upcoming crisis that cannot be "solved" by throwing money at it (which they have been doing since 2008 over and over again)? Nektu fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 15:07
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Nektu posted:While I wouldnt agree all that readily to the first half of that sentence, the second half is very true: without the devastations caused by the euro the EU would never have moved into the center of attention like it is now. They could have happily continued their thing in bruessels without anybody minding them all that much. That depends on what you mean with the EU "surviving". I cannot really see the common market going away anytime soon. It is just too beneficial, the EFTA nations even accept to implement certain EU regulations that they cannot influence in any way just to get access to it. The deeper political integration on the other hand probably won't survive an Euro breakup, and EU regulations will certainly go away with the Euro. But speaking of Euro devastations, it's not like it was not beneficial for those now struggling members when they adopted it. They enjoyed cheaper credits, lower inflation and in most cases higher growth than before they adopted it. You can argue that they would have been better off with lower growth and higher inflation if they could have been spared the Euro crisis in exchange, but it is not quite that clear cut.
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Mar 25, 2014 15:21
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Torrannor posted:Yeah, "illusion of choice" is nice. If there was such a big demand for a left wing anti-european party, it would have gained seats anyway. I cannot vote for anti-European left wing parties in my national elections, are they also only offering an "illusion of choice"? Even if these parties did exist in the European parliament, they'd be marginalized anyways by a vast majority of pro-EU MPs. That is the illusion of choice: if even if you vote them in, they'll be ignored. A majority in the EP is not interested in listening to the voice of many Europeans who dislike the European project for whatever reason... The year 2005 comes to mind
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Mar 25, 2014 15:44
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Torrannor posted:But speaking of Euro devastations, it's not like it was not beneficial for those now struggling members when they adopted it. They enjoyed cheaper credits, lower inflation and in most cases higher growth than before they adopted it. You can argue that they would have been better off with lower growth and higher inflation if they could have been spared the Euro crisis in exchange, but it is not quite that clear cut. As far as I know there were two schools of though: the one side advised to push the political integration of the eurozone and introduce the euro as the crown piece after that was done. The second one advised to adopt the euro early in order to hasten the political union. It seems they chose the wrong side. gently caress us 
Nektu fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 15:47
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Even if these parties did exist in the European parliament, they'd be marginalized anyways by a vast majority of pro-EU MPs. That is the illusion of choice: if even if you vote them in, they'll be ignored. A majority in the EP is not interested in listening to the voice of many Europeans who dislike the European project for whatever reason... The year 2005 comes to mind Isn't that the point of democracy though? I mean, we don't decry marginalizing other less popular positions people take, why should EU membership be any different?
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Mar 25, 2014 15:49
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Torrannor posted:And I still wonder how the EU can be such a bad capitalist institution when the British Tories desperately want to exempt Britain from EU labor laws for being to onerous on business... Britain has more issues with the free movement of workers than regulations. The real problem that Britain has with the EU is that France-Germany never wanted Britain in the union, and Britain never wanted to be in a union with France-Germany. They still don't. Torrannor posted:The situation with Italy and Greece is also more complex than EU = bad. It is indeed, but no matter how complex they are, the sole root problem is still within the EU and their role in EU. Italy and Greece, and by extension, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, have had their roles in this Union reduced to nothing but client states, and protectorates. Spain and Italy get away with looking better, largely due to how massive they are, the others don't have the same fate. Last week Portuguese prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho went to Berlin, in a manner which can only be described as, he went to Berlin to beg Mother Merkel to decide what's to happen to Portugal. For most Portuguese the concept of democracy in Portugal has turned into a joke, especially on the 40th anniversary of the revolution. Our fate lies in Berlin and not Lisbon, our votes and voice are worthless. What matters is what the German wants. That Merkel & Co. have to safeguard the German elector from sending more money to the periphery is a bad thing. That the European periphery is failing, should be a concern to the German electorate. But it really isn't. A failing periphery should be the sign that there's something wrong with the euro project, but it was transformed that there's something wrong with southern europe. That we are seeing rise in xenophobia in Europe is once again a failure that rests on the doorstep of the EU. Though I do want to clear something the Euro and the EU is the same thing, but that's largely that for me, as a Portuguese. I'm sure that a British or a Swedish might feel different, but both the Euro and the EU have the same central failure. One is a monetary union failure, the other a cultural and political union failure. The 28 states should've come together to fix this problem, or at minimum the eurozone should've come together. (Edit: Also notice what you wrote. German Euros. The concept that all these states are separate and independent in each other is helping nobody. This isn't the problem of Germany, or Portugal, but something the EU should be working on. Going back to your original example, the USA, there is no such thing as Ohio dollars.) But this isn't to say say that these countries are free of blame for being in this mess. I'm mostly blaming the EU because it failed in trying to make things better, and instead made everything spectacularly worse. Portugal should've never been allowed to enter the Euro, hell, even being allowed to enter the EU is debatable. When Portugal finally did enter in '86 it got massive amounts of capital in the forms of subsidies. The goal here was that Portugal was still a poor economy, mainly based on agriculture and fishing, it's industry was dying, and suffered from poor infrastructure. The money was to be used to modernize the country. The catch being that Portugal also had to stop relying on agriculture and fishing, so today, Portugal has thousands of acres of fields and something like 250 thousand farmers getting paid to do nothing. Tempo das vacas gordas(The days of the fat cows). Everyone in Portugal knows where this money went. We also know where it didn't went. When the Euro came, there was a lot of good things, one can't avoid that. Cheap capital and all that poo poo. But it also brought the current state of affairs, of which Portugal can't solve out of his own initiative and volition. The various government in Portugal for the last 40 years have been largely incompetent, and at worst insanely corrupt, and many of it's current aches are due to that. But we never had an economy that could support the Euro, and yet here we are. The government of Portugal wanted it, and the EU didn't care if the economy could sustain it. But at this point that Portugal, and Greece, are "lazy and live on the beach" is entirely irrelevant, the EU should be doing more. It isn't, and the little it did only aggravated the problem. Portugal is getting more money from the EU this year. We know where that money is going to. We also know where it won't go. But nobody, neither on the Portuguese parliament, or the European parliament is going to do something about it. Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 16:19
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rkajdi posted:Isn't that the point of democracy though? I mean, we don't decry marginalizing other less popular positions people take, why should EU membership be any different? If it were 90 against 10, then yes, you'd have a point. EU skepticism is significantly larger than 10% of the population in many countries and ignoring those votes (and voices) is further evidence how the EU only seeks to expand itself, continues to see democracy as a convenient tool to legitimate themselves, regardless of what Europeans think of the EU. The leftist love of the EU is really strange, since it's quite clear that the EU only cares about big businesses while the European people can foot the bill for whatever extravaganza Brussels comes up with.
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Mar 26, 2014 09:17
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:If it were 90 against 10, then yes, you'd have a point. EU skepticism is significantly larger than 10% of the population in many countries and ignoring those votes (and voices) is further evidence how the EU only seeks to expand itself, continues to see democracy as a convenient tool to legitimate themselves, regardless of what Europeans think of the EU. The leftist love of the EU is really strange, since it's quite clear that the EU only cares about big businesses while the European people can foot the bill for whatever extravaganza Brussels comes up with. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about democracy. Here in Germany we have the anti-Euro (as being against the currency) party AfD, which represents a position shared by quite a number of Germans. But they still only got slightly less than 5% of all votes, even though about 27% of all Germans want to go back to the D-Mark (at least that was the number in the last poll I read). Most people are not single issue voters and thus the AfD got only 20% of the votes it "should" have gotten. So maybe there are many people unhappy about the EU, but it is not the EU's fault if these people don't decide to vote for Euroskeptic parties.
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Mar 26, 2014 10:23
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Torrannor posted:So maybe there are many people unhappy about the EU, but it is not the EU's fault if these people don't decide to vote for Euroskeptic parties. If the EU didn't marginalize EU-skeptic parties then perhaps maybe, maybe people would actually care to vote. Many people actually think "it doesn't matter who we vote for", which undermines democracy and I think the EU can be assigned some blame for that.
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Mar 26, 2014 10:44
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Electronico6 posted:(Edit: Also notice what you wrote. German Euros. The concept that all these states are separate and independent in each other is helping nobody. This isn't the problem of Germany, or Portugal, but something the EU should be working on. Going back to your original example, the USA, there is no such thing as Ohio dollars.) I'm sure it's a misunderstanding of language, "German Euros" vs Portugese Euros vs. Ohio Dollars, but you're wrong any way you look at it. Depending on your meaning, both in that money is printed in federal reserve banks various states so there are literally Ohio (Cleveland) Dollars and also Illinois (Chicago) Dollars (although their actual worth is the same, regardless of the economic conditions of either state/district), and in that Ohio collects its own revenue, manages its own budget, and has its own banks and businesses separate from Pennsylvania banks and businesses, and can as a State choose to give or not to give money to needier states (or take loans from other richer states/the Federal Government). The U.S. States are absolutely mini-independent countries. There are certain things that the U.S. Federal Government goes that the EU doesn't, but "States Rights" is more than a dog-whistle for racism. There is such thing as "Ohio" Dollars. What they do in their own borders, including how they spend their money, how they raise money, and whether they borrow or lend money is absolutely up to them. Check all of these states refusing federal money for ACA/Medicaid/Medicare because OBAMA! Check especially Bobby Jindall refusing Federal Reconstruction funds because reasons. What he meant is not that German Euros are worth more, but Euros owned and held by German people, German Government, and German companies. Their worth is the same, they're just held by Germans. New York Dollars are not worth more than Ohio Dollars, but NY sure has a butt-load more of them, and Ohio has no say in their use. Also, the pro-D-mark crowd might be substantial, but from what I've seen, it's largest advocates are libertarians and isolationists (and carnies), generally the German Equivalent of the Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Ron Paul "Gold Certificates" audience.
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Mar 26, 2014 11:31
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Torrannor posted:This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about democracy. Here in Germany we have the anti-Euro (as being against the currency) party AfD, which represents a position shared by quite a number of Germans. But they still only got slightly less than 5% of all votes, even though about 27% of all Germans want to go back to the D-Mark (at least that was the number in the last poll I read). Most people are not single issue voters and thus the AfD got only 20% of the votes it "should" have gotten. No, this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about democracy. What you're describing in the textbook example of managed democracy where the voice of the people is selectively shut out on key issues by the political establishment. As you note, most people aren't single-issue voters, or even can be single issue-voters. However, this doesn't chance the fact that their democratic will isn't being represented, and this is deliberate. In fact, there is a sizeable minority in the case that you describe and in other places there may even be a majority that support certain policies that no establishment party does, because this managed democracy of ours has decoupled the establishment political parties from having to listen to the will of the people. Political entrenchment and propaganda are muddling the issues even more and are further protecting the establishment consensus on key issues. The economic crisis has just brought this poo poo into the open in a more obvious way, but this is nothing new.
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Mar 26, 2014 12:06
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Electronico6 posted:We also have the case of the Treaty of Lisbon, which the Irish people voted against, but the treaty was sent back so the Irish could correct their mistake.(credit where due, the treaty was changed, but only for Irish tastes) This was a while back but I often think this gets purely represented as the evil machinations of the EU, to me it says more about Irish politics and the flaws of the Irish Constitution and political system in general. The Irish Constitution has pretty rigid definitions of powers and any treaty that would cede any of these powers to an international body requires an amendment, the only way to amend the constitution is by popular referendum. These referendums are viewed within the Irish political system as an unfortunate necessity when it comes to international treaties and anything short of a popular rubber stamping of government policy would lead to another referendum - for example a referendum on the Nice treaty similarly failed back in 2001 and was then re-ran to secure a yes result (and would have been continually re-ran until a yes result was secured). The actual build-up to the first referendum was one of the most woeful displays in Irish politics I have ever seen, the yes camp had no idea what the treaty was actually for and could barely explain the basics while the no camp blatantly made things up while appealing to good old fashioned nationalism (while glossing over the huge sums of money being flooded into the coffers of the main no-vote group from foreign donors).
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Mar 26, 2014 12:28
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^^ Edit: I don't even get it, if you propose a deal to somebody and he rejects it, are you forever barred from trying to form a similar deal again or can you improve your offer and see if he agrees? That the EU asked the Irish again after they made changes to the treaty is not evil  Cerebral Bore posted:No, this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about democracy. What you're describing in the textbook example of managed democracy where the voice of the people is selectively shut out on key issues by the political establishment. As you note, most people aren't single-issue voters, or even can be single issue-voters. However, this doesn't chance the fact that their democratic will isn't being represented, and this is deliberate. No, you don't get it. Not all political positions need to be represented in politics. In fact, it is sometimes impossible. Have you seen the polls in the USA where the people want less taxes, more social spending AND a balanced budget? How are politicians supposed to achieve this miracle? What about people that want more environmental/consumer protection AND less regulations/bureaucracy? To go back to the D-Mark fans in Germany, how much do I need to worry that no establishment party represents the minority position? A position that would not get a majority if there was a referendum about it? You can found a new party if you want to. Nobody cared about those protesting against nuclear power in Germany until the Greens founded their own party, and now they are part of the establishment. If your issue is important enough then it is possible to challenge the old parties for votes. But don't complain if people that agree with your main policy in principle still vote for other parties that they prefer for other reasons. Torrannor fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 12:34
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Torrannor posted:No, you don't get it. Not all political positions need to be represented in politics. In fact, it is sometimes impossible. Have you seen the polls in the USA where the people want less taxes, more social spending AND a balanced budget? How are politicians supposed to achieve this miracle? What about people that want more environmental/consumer protection AND less regulations/bureaucracy? Yeah, this sort of a fundamental flaw of polling is that support for a position can be derived without the implications that the pollster wants to imply. For example, people (at least in the US) would probably say yes to helping the elderly by expanding Social Security, but a lot of them would probably say no if you phrased it "do you support helping the elderly by raising taxes?".
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Mar 26, 2014 12:37
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kustomkarkommando posted:This was a while back but I often think this gets purely represented as the evil machinations of the EU, to me it says more about Irish politics and the flaws of the Irish Constitution and political system in general. People forget that only Ireland held a referendum about the Treaty of Lisbon. The rest ratified the treaty in parliament, where it was pretty safe.(it still ran into problems in Czech and German courts) Remember also that in 2004(5?) France held a referendum over a proposed European Constitution and the French voted "No", and that was the end of the European Constitution.(The EU didn't send it back. Hard to get your way with bigger countries) The treaty of Lisbon and how it would be ratified came in large part out of this situation. For the treaty of Lisbon there would be no referendums, only parliaments. Except for Ireland, in due part to a quirk in their constitution. Was it "evil" to send back the referendum after the first answer was a negative? Probably not. Was it evil to send it back, because of one country constitutional law was preventing a treaty going through? A treaty of which main function is to award power and privileges to incredible dubious legislative bodies.(Mainly the Commission) Well, it's certainly not the finest moment in EU free and fair democracy. Maybe the correct attitude should've been a referendum in all (the then) 27 nations. Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 13:09
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Torrannor posted:^^ Edit: I don't even get it, if you propose a deal to somebody and he rejects it, are you forever barred from trying to form a similar deal again or can you improve your offer and see if he agrees? That the EU asked the Irish again after they made changes to the treaty is not evil I don't actually think it was evil or anything, I think the rhetoric about Lisbon often goes a bit overboard at times and froths at the mouth about popular sovereignty by citing the Irish referendum - while glossing over how referendums in Ireland can (and have) been rerun under the exact same circumstances for similar international treaties. I still get annoyed about people who wax lyrical about the will of the Irish people being denied while refusing to acknowledge that the No camp was funded and assisted by other European groups who wanted to sink Lisbon, the No campaign was a glossy machine that did some pretty lovely stuff to try to whip up a debate on the issue. EDIT: I'm specifically referring to Libertas by the way, SF and the various Socialist groups opposed the Treaty but it was Libertas' campaign that secured the No Vote kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 13:44
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Electronico6 posted:People forget that only Ireland held a referendum about the Treaty of Lisbon. Even more people forget that the first form of the Lissabon treaty (the TCE) was firmly rejected by referendum in 2005 by both France and The Netherlands, after which they purposely chose not to even put the Lissabon treaty up for referendum because it would have been rejected again. That's EU democracy in action for you.
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Mar 26, 2014 16:40
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My Q-Face posted:I'm sure it's a misunderstanding of language, "German Euros" vs Portugese Euros vs. Ohio Dollars, but you're wrong any way you look at it. Depending on your meaning, both in that money is printed in federal reserve banks various states so there are literally Ohio (Cleveland) Dollars and also Illinois (Chicago) Dollars (although their actual worth is the same, regardless of the economic conditions of either state/district), and in that Ohio collects its own revenue, manages its own budget, and has its own banks and businesses separate from Pennsylvania banks and businesses, and can as a State choose to give or not to give money to needier states (or take loans from other richer states/the Federal Government). You're more than a bit off here, Ohio doesn't have any control over the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland (whose territory incidentally covers a third of PA and about half of Kentucky) and that bank also does not print its own currency, none of the Federal Reserve Banks do. Most currency is printed in Washington DC by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, with the remainder printed in Fort Worth, TX's BEP branch facility.
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Mar 26, 2014 17:52
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Electronico6 posted:The various government in Portugal for the last 40 years have been largely incompetent, and at worst insanely corrupt, and many of it's current aches are due to that. But we never had an economy that could support the Euro, and yet here we are. The government of Portugal wanted it, and the EU didn't care if the economy could sustain it. But at this point that Portugal, and Greece, are "lazy and live on the beach" is entirely irrelevant, the EU should be doing more. It isn't, and the little it did only aggravated the problem. Your criticism is basically that the EU isn't strong enough. I agree but after decades of failed referendums and member states adopting their own individual exceptions to treaties we have to accept that a stronger EU is just not a very popular project. In some ways what you are advocating is a union stronger than the American one in that - and correct me if I'm wrong - even US states have the right to drive their economies off the road ie California without the federal government stepping in to cover a deficit or prevent austerity in that state.
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Mar 26, 2014 19:50
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Lagotto posted:Even more people forget that the first form of the Lissabon treaty (the TCE) was firmly rejected by referendum in 2005 by both France and The Netherlands, after which they purposely chose not to even put the Lissabon treaty up for referendum because it would have been rejected again. Ah yes, the Netherlands where voters were told the EU doesn't help animal rights enough, and France, where the media told the voters the EU is meddling too much in poo poo like animal rights. They didn't do the referendum again because they removed the most controversial articles. Also of course all of this had to be approved by your democratically elected parliaments and governments, but I guess they get a free pass because reasons.
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Mar 26, 2014 23:51
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Anosmoman posted:Your criticism is basically that the EU isn't strong enough. I agree but after decades of failed referendums and member states adopting their own individual exceptions to treaties we have to accept that a stronger EU is just not a very popular project. In some ways what you are advocating is a union stronger than the American one in that - and correct me if I'm wrong - even US states have the right to drive their economies off the road ie California without the federal government stepping in to cover a deficit or prevent austerity in that state.  Which means it can make this happen:  Those red and slightly lighter red states are the Greeces of the US, except they get a whole lot of money from the federal government to make up for being kinda awful. That's the kind of policies you need if you want a currency union to work, instead of wrecking countries.
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Mar 27, 2014 01:27
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Deltasquid posted:They didn't do the referendum again because they removed the most controversial articles. I hope this is some meta irony I'm not getting, but yes, that was b/s they used as a justification. Or to use the words of one of the co authors, the former president of the convention on the future of Europe; Valéry Giscard d'Estaing posted:Dans le traité de Lisbonne, rédigé exclusivement à partir du projet de traité constitutionnel, les outils sont exactement les mêmes. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing posted:Quel est l'intérêt de cette subtile manœuvre ? Or to summarise, the tools in the treaties are exactly the same, and the only reason it was presented slightly different is to avoid referendums. Here is the entire open letter if the above quotes are insufficient for you. http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2007/10/26/vge-sur-le-traite-europeen-les-outils-sont-exactement-les-memes_971315_3214.html Deltasquid posted:Also of course all of this had to be approved by your democratically elected parliaments and governments, but I guess they get a free pass because reasons. Of course they don't, but the EU has become completely institutionalised. All the major parties are heavily invested in it. Their (political) friends and the allies and nestors of their parties have the cushiest jobs in the parliament and the commission. There is no way they are going to vote against their own retirement plan. So you are stuck with having to vote for extreme fringe parties like the PVV or Front National, which I simply can not do, vote for the status quo or stay home. The latter being what most people are doing.
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Mar 27, 2014 07:33
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Deltasquid posted:Ah yes, the Netherlands where voters were told the EU doesn't help animal rights enough, and France, where the media told the voters the EU is meddling too much in poo poo like animal rights. The No vote in the Netherlands had little if anything to do with animal rights. There was the usual debate about immigration, loss of national sovereignty and the fear of being dominated by much larger countries like Germany. The No vote was for a large part also backlash against an unpopular government and the adoption of the euro. The government who campaigned in favor also acted like major shitlords, I'm gonna be lazy and C&P Wikipedia here for some great stuff: The Minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner, warned that a rejection would raise the chances of war and stated that "the C in CDA [for 'Christian'] implies that you vote in favour of the constitution." The Minister for Economic Affairs, Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, said that "the lights would go off" in the case of a rejection and that The Netherlands would become "the Switzerland of Europe." The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy withdrew a controversial television broadcast, in which rejection was connected with the Holocaust, the genocide in Srebrenica and the terrorist attacks on March 11, 2004 in Madrid.
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Mar 28, 2014 09:13
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