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Germany is not the obstructing party this time though.
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Feb 26, 2023 15:07
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A lot of people in Finland seem to agree with the typical german sentiment to debt and that the EU shouldn't do anything so bad again like the covid stimulus package. Our Money! To the lazy perfidious southerners! etc etc etc. There seems to be no understanding of the need for an EU based equivalent to what the americans are doing, and fast.
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Feb 26, 2023 15:15
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MiddleOne posted:Germany is not the obstructing party this time though. The reason for reaching after Germany's complicated relationship with a common monetary policy for Europe is the highlighted part: His Divine Shadow posted:Looks like the US inflation reduction act is having a big effect on the behavior of investors and looks like the europeans are still too dumb to catch on. Since the BFC, Germany has been by far the most difficult EU stakeholder to appease when figuring out milestone investments policies of different kinds, notwithstanding the dogmatism often exhibited by their Dutch or Scandinavian counterparts. Back to what's happening here presently, though, you're right that Germany is not the obstructing party here, since the key problem is that responding in kind to the IRA may run foul of the EU rules for state aid. The opposition seems to be happening on two primary tracks – the first is a debate on relaxing the state aid rules in general, which is partly a concern that Germany and France will benefit the most from the relaxation, and partly a matter of some member states still having not finished their IRA impact assessment, and not knowing what the gently caress they're talking about; whereas the second is a demand to have more money printed/borrowed (which is where Germany may return to the role we've all seen it take before). I think these two groups broadly, overlap, in that all of this (including the ongoing EC copypasting of the Franco-German paper on Green policy from last December) is basically France+Germany vs the following group: quote:Eleven European Union countries urged “great caution” in relaxing the bloc’s state aid rules in a bid to support Europe’s green industry in a global race, saying that risked damaging competition inside the bloc, a document showed. As far as pure money is concerned, we have at least EUR 200bn remaining from all the COVID stuff to simply yeet into this without further deliberation. And then watch how it actually gets spent (totally not calling out Italy here).
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Feb 26, 2023 15:35
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If some decision makers haven't cottoned up to the need of something as fundamental as automatic transfers between regions within a common currency area after the last 15 years then I hold zero hope that they will wake up and do a stimulus bill or infrastructure bill. Black zero will be the death of us all.
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Feb 26, 2023 15:36
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His Divine Shadow posted:There seems to be no understanding of the need for an EU based equivalent to what the americans are doing, and fast. Yeah, it's a bit frustrating to see how poorly the timelines on IRA are being communicated (they lock down the majority of subsidized supply chains to be U.S. centric by 2026-2028). Given the amount of money, public companies' will be basically forced to leave the market if this goes for long enough without market confidence in the EU response. Don't even get me started on Critical Raw Materials Act.
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Feb 26, 2023 15:41
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Oh great, my country being a roadblock to progress again. loving awesome.
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Feb 26, 2023 15:45
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An insane mind posted:Oh great, my country being a roadblock to progress again. loving awesome. Same, bottom of every loving list club. 
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Feb 26, 2023 15:50
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Same, bottom of every loving list club. Well, not every list . https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-consumption-by-country
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Feb 26, 2023 16:25
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the EU probably could agree to some kind of industrial subsidy to compete with the US, but afaik they're busy trying to secure an alternative, politically acceptable energy source to replace russia and a lot of the relevant resources may be occupied with that - also, there's a big issue of diverging regulatory contexts and a number of interests with effective vetoes on this kind of active political move, which is of course by design, but i do think that the resources to handle one serious challenge are available. it's just that the Union is now facing at least two. really as an institution it just isn't well set up to deal with big, sudden changes, because it's so wedded to a peculiar ordoliberal governing ideology from which i really don't see any escape e; the point being, there are so many vetoes and roadblocks because - drastically oversimplifying - the EU has tried to expand and integrate more polities under the idea that economic and political homogenisation would result in elite concordance, so it wouldn't be a big deal. this has not turned out to be the case, and has led to a very strong pressure towards doing things by bureaucracy rather than through active politics, since political consensus is so difficult to achieve. that in turn means that changing circumstances pose a huge challenge. V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Feb 26, 2023 |
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Feb 26, 2023 16:34
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cinci zoo sniper posted:And then watch how it actually gets spent (totally not calling out Italy here). Don't worry about it, the supposed project milestones to ask for funds are being failed left and right (like the requests for entering in the highway electric charge points project are late by two or more years), so Italy will have to drop a sizeable part of the supposed wasteful spending.
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Feb 26, 2023 16:35
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It's just funny to me, we (euros in general) where a couple of years ago making GBS threads on the americans for their reshoring goals which admittedly started with Trump, but got moving with Biden and also for them being a bunch of backwards looking cavemen hooked on fossil fuels and the glorious EU (with China) was gonna lead the world into the green revolution and america was gonna get left behind. Then covid showed everyone the dangers of long global logistical chains and letting bean counters run everything (JIT). Then russia invades and pokes a hole in the EUs energy and foreign policy (which wasn't looking great before either) which also undermined our ability to accomplish our own green revolution. Then with a few pen strokes the americans (and it all seems like it hinged on Manchin coming around) manage to leapfrog us all and the whole playing field has changed and they seem to be in the lead and poised for decades of good growth and reshoring while we're trying to get our heads out of our asses and smell the roses.
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Feb 26, 2023 16:43
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It turns out letting a bunch of end of history dickheads write all the EU laws to prevent socialism rearing its ugly head again ends up loving everyone over the moment the idea that "maybe governments should actually do something about things being poo poo" becomes pertinent.
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Feb 26, 2023 16:56
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I have some sympathy for the EU bureaucrats griping that the IRA technically may run afoul WTO rules, meaning that a response in kind could as well. However, what remains besides the “easy” options of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. or just finally federalising is to hurry the gently caress up. I'll try to dig the detailed reasoning of our national representatives later, as I'm starting to be increasingly curious about the technical argument they're making against free money for infrastructure projects in a 20% inflation environment, but I'm not spending my Sunday on that.
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Feb 26, 2023 17:53
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Tesseraction posted:It turns out letting a bunch of end of history dickheads write all the EU laws to prevent socialism rearing its ugly head again ends up loving everyone over the moment the idea that "maybe governments should actually do something about things being poo poo" becomes pertinent. loving fukuyamaists  I would agree that they're part of the problem since they set up the structures, but the EU is also a fundamentally flawed political project in the sense that there is absolutely no way all the member states can agree on long-term policy visions. And on top of that we have all the "hilarious" old (racist) stereotypes to which His Divine Shadow alluded to: Those money-wasting southerners, the dumb and authoritarianism-loving Eastern Europeans, elitist Scandinavians, etc. So the general voting public in any given nation is at a general risk of not really thinking about things but going with their "gut feeling", and therefore the EU doing stuff is bad. Our political classes sort of seem to understand this fundamental dilemma, and tend to twist themselves into pretzels when questioned on their views of the EU's functioning. It's such a loving shame too, since European integration has brought so much wealth, science and options for our higher education students, and so on. But we're stuck in a hostage situation, since the original guiding idea behind the ECSC was that without economic integration, either France or Germany would start shooting at each other again  There's no seemingly feasible way of altering the EU's operating structure, at least in the near-term, and we're left with a fairly impotent organization when it comes to responding to anything jointly and speedily.
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Feb 26, 2023 19:04
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cinci zoo sniper posted:which is partly a concern that Germany and France will benefit the most from the relaxation, This is the bigger of the two road blocks I believe. The smaller states are (rightly) very worried about a relaxation of state aid rules that would let France and Germany in particular wield a money hose for their domestic industries, making it much harder for companies from smaller countries to compete. The alternative, a megamoney centralised EU equivalent of the IRA, is probably the only realistic/level playing field option that can happen. But its going to take some time to win over the schwarze null fanatics, as usual. On a positive side even if its slow, they probably will come to the right decision eventually. With the UK out further integration is consistently much easier to get done now. Its the real Brexit dividend.
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Feb 26, 2023 20:43
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it's very hard to see how the EU in its modern form would've gotten going without giving all these groups various kinds of veto - hardly anybody wants to give other people unchecked power over them, which a more centralised and effective EU would have. there's also a question of how such a centralisation would happen - the most obvious way to do it would be by empowering the Commission, but the way the Commission is formed would require a serious overhaul if you did that - it only works because it's a relatively low-stakes affair.
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Feb 26, 2023 21:08
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V. Illych L. posted:it's very hard to see how the EU in its modern form would've gotten going without giving all these groups various kinds of veto - hardly anybody wants to give other people unchecked power over them, which a more centralised and effective EU would have. there's also a question of how such a centralisation would happen - the most obvious way to do it would be by empowering the Commission, but the way the Commission is formed would require a serious overhaul if you did that - it only works because it's a relatively low-stakes affair. Pouring one out for the Spitzenkandidat.
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Feb 26, 2023 21:20
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There's some amount of slack written into the treaties, but it still depends on the consent of the members if and when it can be realised.
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Feb 27, 2023 05:24
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Rappaport posted:So the general voting public in any given nation is at a general risk of not really thinking about things but going with their "gut feeling" ... Unlike in countries such as
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Feb 28, 2023 07:50
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Doctor Malaver posted:Unlike in countries such as That's fair, but it still contributes to EU's dysfunction. The US won't break apart very easily due to their system, and they even had a war on the matter. Britain just said auf wiedersehen
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Feb 28, 2023 08:00
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Dunno that it's such a bad thing for countries to be able to leave. Arguably it showed without a war, why it's better to be in the EU than outside it and public opinion is for the EU in most countries. And if things get so bad that countries want to leave then maybe that's for the best too. It's a difficult tightrope for the EU to walk, but we're not the US and we're not gonna be either any time soon. I don't think it would be any easier if we where federalized though, Germany is still gonna Germany.
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Feb 28, 2023 08:27
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if it were impossible to leave the EU, the stakes of each individual fight would be higher and the structural dysfunction would be even worse the problems are inherent in the basic political project - the unification of the nations of europe into a single economic, cultural and administrative bloc by means of gradual parliamentarian integration - and there's no tweak that can be applied to make all the friction go away. the EU has done a very good job of cementing its support among educated middle-class types and the upper ladders of most national labour movements, but has very little to offer the emergent "red-state" population of the rural left-behind, and is intrinsically hostile to movement politics which could help build a mass constituency willing to really fight for it. that is probably good tbf - the most obvious ideology for this sort of project would be a kind of pan-europeist nationalism á la de benoist, which would in practice be indistinguishable from official racism and religious chauvinism. basically the EU in its current form is hard-coded to run on the assumption that the entire political landscape stretches from the SPD to the CSU through various shades of social-to-market-liberal parties. unfortunately, this only represents at best ~60% of voters these days (and this has been shrinking over time!), and that breeds a lot of resentment among the remaining huge chunk of the population.
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Feb 28, 2023 09:20
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V. Illych L. posted:if it were impossible to leave the EU, the stakes of each individual fight would be higher and the structural dysfunction would be even worse I've wondered about EU in an institutional sense a lot, and while I see how one can interpret it working like you lay out here, I have to disagree somewhat. This interpretation gives in my opinion too much agency to EU as an institution. Because unlike other institutions, EU really defies smooth analysis. Like with national political systems you can relatively easily see the structures, how they interact and have some predictive power about future actions they will make. Or with global institutions like UN whose decisive power is basically built around (by design) security council, while general assembly is more of an discussion club and all the agencies like WHO work by the budget and mission given to them by agreements between nations. But I really wouldn't say that EU is hard coded in very concrete way nor that it has an agenda that it can act upon as an institution. At least yet. You do have EU programs that push for pan-European identity but they are at best something like Erasmus program where they proudly keep track of "eurobabies" born but that will only give dividends in future if even then. Then you have propositions of things like pan-European lists to the European Parliament but that isn't really pushed by the EU as an institution itself, just MEPs from different countries trying something novel if that were the key to creating more pan-European solidarity. On paper Commission should be all about pushing EU interests over national ones but as we know, commission is ultimately decided on backroom dealings between national politicians and that makes Commission inherently subservient to national politics. When was the last time Commission went against the will of what French and German national leaders have agreed upon? European Council is also explicitly about national politicians giving strategic guidelines to EU project through negotiations. European Parliament in theory could have more will of its own to do truly pan-European politics separate from national politics but it is relatively powerless compared to Commission and Council. No wonder Commission and EP have some friction going on between them about EP wanting more power, and were Commission truly about pushing for EU interests over national politics, I don't think that friction would exist. So yeah I guess my point here is that EU isn't really hard coded to do something because it really is huge mess that defies smooth analysis. We really can't predict what form EU will take or what it will do in future like we could if it really were hard coded. At the moment EU is in my opinion strictly in reactive mode of building its institutions and far from having concrete base. All of the current progress happens because of stuff like Eurocrisis or Russian invasion of Ukraine and things like that. EU has at the moment no guidelines or will of its own, it just reacts and stumbles from one crisis to the next building its institutions to deal with the current crisis. And that shows that it really doesn't have a will of its own. Yet. EU really is a showcase of how almost impossibly hard it is to make a diverse political project with real power based solely on voluntary intergovernmental basis. Can't really think of a historical example where something like this has been attempted before. It is very interesting thing to try to analyze. And would be extremely funny one too if, you know, we didn't actually live in Europe and had to feel the material consequences of this intergovernmental reactive Calvin Ball in our lives....
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Feb 28, 2023 11:17
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Rappaport posted:That's fair, but it still contributes to EU's dysfunction. The US won't break apart very easily due to their system, and they even had a war on the matter. Britain just said auf wiedersehen They said auf wiedersehen to having an economy in Europe and have finally internalized that their existence is literally unviable without a sound economic relationship with the US and the continent. https://www.ft.com/content/2017842b-eedd-4acd-91a9-22271bf8ddfa - new agreement struck with the EU over Northern Ireland https://www.ft.com/content/43f71723-fef9-4d96-8aef-3ae96420217f - details of the "Windsor framework" explained Going to be very funny if DUP or an ERG rebellion still decide to go buck wild over the ECJ.
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Feb 28, 2023 11:57
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The brexit negotiations were a mess from what I understand, but that's not really an argument for the EU's stability. And it seems a bit rude to just go "nice economy there, would be a shame if something happened to it"  (That second one isn't intended to be very serious, just to be clear)The original discussion was more about the functioning of the EU, and I think I've argued in this thread before that it's an unfortunate stale-mate for several reasons. Is this better than Europe circa 1914? You betcha.
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Feb 28, 2023 12:10
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Most of the EU problems just seem like neoliberalism problems, and neoliberalism problems are that under neoliberalism problems are not supposed to exist.
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Feb 28, 2023 12:17
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Rappaport posted:The brexit negotiations were a mess from what I understand, but that's not really an argument for the EU's stability. And it seems a bit rude to just go "nice economy there, would be a shame if something happened to it" Of course it's rude to go "nice economy you have there...", but that's a reality every state in the EU must face. A lot of countries would have fared even worse than the UK if they were to leave. Continental economies are deeply integrated, and leaving the EU without at least staying in the EEA would crash most economies. And if a country has adopted the Euro, it would be even harder to leave. It's telling that the Le Pens and Melonis are no longer speaking about a Frexit of Italexit. Seeing the UK's example, even majorities of nationalist far-righties understand that that's not a viable path.
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Feb 28, 2023 12:26
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V. Illych L. posted:has very little to offer the emergent "red-state" population of the rural left-behind That's not the case in Croatia at least. First, the rural population isn't emerging in any way. Quite the contrary, it's dying out or moving out. Second, practically the only rural improvements are through various EU projects aimed at agriculture, rural development, ecology, etc. The villagers might be backwards in many ways, but they understand that the new fruit drying plant worth 10M€ wasn't paid for by local taxes.
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Feb 28, 2023 12:30
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Doctor Malaver posted:That's not the case in Croatia at least. First, the rural population isn't emerging in any way. Quite the contrary, it's dying out or moving out. Second, practically the only rural improvements are through various EU projects aimed at agriculture, rural development, ecology, etc. The villagers might be backwards in many ways, but they understand that the new fruit drying plant worth 10M€ wasn't paid for by local taxes. Same, there's “EU bad” and there's “this was paid for by EU” placard in front of renovated central park with a newly built film/concert theatre, in my hometown of 35k in eastern Latvia. https://www.latgalesgors.lv/en  
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Feb 28, 2023 13:01
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NGL that park looks like I would immediately be buried in people excitedly telling me about the new features for the just-announced iPhone and recounting the evolution of those specs from iPhones as far back as 2017.
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Feb 28, 2023 14:11
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Rappaport posted:The brexit negotiations were a mess from what I understand, but that's not really an argument for the EU's stability. And it seems a bit rude to just go "nice economy there, would be a shame if something happened to it" The EU presented a unified front during Brexit negotiations and despite repeated efforts by the UK negotiators to try to split off countries or industries they failed to make any inroads. It is extremely rare for the entire EU27 to unify like that. And it should be noted that the EU tried its hardest to present the most friction-free Brexit-In-Name-Only deals possible out of self-interest, but the UK side was constantly imploding, on fire, saying one thing in negotiations and saying it was all a ruse to UK media an hour later.
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Feb 28, 2023 14:22
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Tesseraction posted:NGL that park looks like I would immediately be buried in people excitedly telling me about the new features for the just-announced iPhone and recounting the evolution of those specs from iPhones as far back as 2017. It's teenagers poorly hiding that they're drinking in public, and pensioners and parents simply enjoying the weather.
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Feb 28, 2023 14:22
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V. Illych L. posted:but has very little to offer the emergent "red-state" population of the rural left-behind To add to the Croatia and Latvia posters thats also demonstrably not the case in Ireland or France off the top of my head, and I'd suspect many more countries. Applying that sort of "red state" thinking to Europe seems to be something a lot of terminally online people do who live in an American media/Twitter bubble and think it applies globally. In the real world the combination of EU agricultural and infrastructural funds means it often does more in rural areas these days than national governments.
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Feb 28, 2023 14:57
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I do feel like pointing out that British farmers were well aware that they were heavily subsidized by the EU, but assumed/were promised that the UK government would pick up the slack post-Brexit. Meaning even heavy subsidies might not convince a farmer to stay, as long as someone can convince them that they'll pick up the tab. At which point it comes down to how much trust people put in their own politicians vs. the EU. I suppose the UK had a real handicap here, since it had gone through like a quarter century of concerted anti-EU propaganda, while also never letting off the gas of imperial nostalgia.
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Feb 28, 2023 15:16
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Same, there's “EU bad” and there's “this was paid for by EU” placard in front of renovated central park with a newly built film/concert theatre, in my hometown of 35k in eastern Latvia. https://www.latgalesgors.lv/en
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Feb 28, 2023 15:17
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The EU as an institution is weak and it's probably fair to call it subservient to national interests. It's also unique and it's hard to see different outcome if you tried to do it anywhere else. Would Canada and Mexico be cool with a federal system with the US? Could Southeast Asia or South America federalize? There's plenty of absolutely fair criticism to level at the EU but something like it is probably also the limit of what humanity is able to build at this point.
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Feb 28, 2023 15:27
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I do feel like pointing out that British farmers were well aware that they were heavily subsidized by the EU, but assumed/were promised that the UK government would pick up the slack post-Brexit. Meaning even heavy subsidies might not convince a farmer to stay, as long as someone can convince them that they'll pick up the tab. At which point it comes down to how much trust people put in their own politicians vs. the EU. I suppose the UK had a real handicap here, since it had gone through like a quarter century of concerted anti-EU propaganda, while also never letting off the gas of imperial nostalgia. British farmers were subject to decades of propaganda, and served as first movers by trusting their national government to replace EU funds - where most other farmers across the EU would know better now given that salient example. But even allowing for those two factors not all British farmers even voted in favour of Brexit, it varied quite significantly by the actual type of farmer (and how Brexit would impact their style of farming): 
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Feb 28, 2023 15:35
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A Buttery Pastry posted:assumed/were promised that the UK government would pick up the slack post-Brexit That was not limited to UK farmers, and it is extremely funny/sad now. If memory serves, Cornwall got its support slashed from 100M to 1M. Because the UK government is more interested in tax benefits for the rich. And then you had this kind of thing:  Ad infinitum.
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Feb 28, 2023 15:38
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mobby_6kl posted:So that's what they're wasting our money on?! That's the sentiment here. EU bureaucrats wasting our money, we the net payers to the EU. Granted there does not seem to be that strong an urban rural divide to this in my experience though I certainly associate that kind of thing with a certain type of person, 50+ man usually.
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Feb 28, 2023 15:55
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Blut posted:British farmers were subject to decades of propaganda, and served as first movers by trusting their national government to replace EU funds - where most other farmers across the EU would know better now given that salient example. But even allowing for those two factors not all British farmers even voted in favour of Brexit, it varied quite significantly by the actual type of farmer (and how Brexit would impact their style of farming): While I am sympathetic to the argument that they're made an example of themselves, you do have the issue with nationalists where they can just go "But that was the perfidious British politicians. Our own countrymen would never do something like that.".
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Feb 28, 2023 16:05
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