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It seems as if this is an issue better left to the member states. The Finns and the Swiss (I know, not an EU member) seem to do pretty well despite heavier weapons being more common than in other states. I don't know what's the problem for the Brits, who are sitting smug on their island with near total control of their borders.
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Mar 7, 2016 14:24
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NikkolasKing posted:Well, I have been reading the posts in here claiming the EU is the erosion of democracy and law, that it has horribly disorganized military, that it sucks in so many other ways. I just kind of assumed these were the arguments used by the "Leave" camp and indeed, I heard some of them n the debate I watched. Some claim that the EU is a neoliberal institution starting a race to the bottom. And there is some truth to this claim, but it can always be worse. Case in point, the UK Tories often complain about the EU's Worker's Directive and other labor market regulations, because they prevent business from exploiting their workers too much... *cough* I mean because those are unnecessary regulations impeding economic growth! There's no way that lifting the rules regulating weekly work hours, overtime, overtime pay, etc. would in any way be bad! Edit: Oh, a word filter. For our poster that just recently got interested in politics again, n-word means neo.liberal 
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May 23, 2016 12:43
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Tesseraction posted:In that case one would hope that the public would at least go "by golly they're loving us, maybe we will vote for the scruffy looking dog on the opposition benches" Perhaps. After Brexit, UKIP might also fade as a protest party. At least I would hope so, it would suck if the voters instead decide to oust Cameron in favor of Farage. Abel Wingnut posted:does austria have an automatic recount provision? this election's so drat close i have to think that if such a provision exists it's getting triggered If I understand correctly, they don't have an automatic recount provision. But with how close the election is, the losing candidate will definitely have a right to demand a recount.
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May 23, 2016 13:04
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Arglebargle III posted:I'm interested in the institutional decision making at the center, if German banks really run EU policy. Who are the unelected technocrats, and what are examples of instances when they've pushed through policies against elected governments opposition? Or are elected governments complicit in these policies. If so, what instances? One thing to note though is the fact that the German members of the ECB govrrning council are all opposed to the in their eyes too generous rescue policy that the ECB engaged in to save the Euro and prevent Greece and co. from going bunkrupt.
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Jun 22, 2016 09:05
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Friendly Humour posted:half the posters in the thread are finnish. Which says something although im not exactly sure what. Ligur is your fault, Finns. Did you chase him out of the Finland thread again that he has to poo poo up this thread instead?
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Jun 23, 2016 08:12
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Ligur posted:A thing which amazes me are posters who on the first post declare the hitlersatan that is the Troika is responsible for making Greece miserable and basically a destitute third world country (and Spain and Portugal poor etc) but in the next post are equally sure EU is supargut end taking a hike would be an economic disaster and threaten world peace. And, eyes eagerly gleaming, they will often add anyone who thinks otherwise is a xenophobe, a hitler and a ligur. Basically, the Euro was a good idea but required additional reforms of the EU. These did not come and now the Euro is partly responsible for the mess that Greece is in today, and it's the main reason why the Troika could take control of Greece. This part of the EU is super lovely and urgently needs to be changed, but I fear such a change won't come for a long time, if at all. But Britain is not in the Eurozone and never will be, so it's unaffected by the Euro debacle. For the Brits, the negatives of leaving the EU outweigh the benefits. And as others have said, there are some serious lovely neoliberal policies on the EU level, yet for most of the right wing people leading the Brexit campaign, the EU is not neoliberal enough. And if you think the EU is all bad, please ask our Eastern European posters what they think about EU led anti-corruption efforts in their countries.
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Jun 23, 2016 11:48
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Thread regulars know all about this. It's just the simple fact that monetary union without greater fiscal union is bad. But the idea was that fiscal union would follow monetary union. That didn't happen and seems unlikely to happen in the future, so the Euro became overall a negative thing. But returning to the old individual currencies would also suck a lot, so we are stuck with this bad deal 
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Jun 23, 2016 14:20
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Sinteres posted:If nothing else, it could signal to member states that they should de-prioritize English education. Why would they? I can only post in this forum because English is rightfully the first foreign language to be taught here. Most of the western world communicates in English on the web. I wouldn't exchange English knowledge for French or other dumb poo poo.
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Jun 24, 2016 17:06
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Toplowtech posted:As a frenchman, you have my sympathy: the loving list of worthless exception rules in my mother tongue is insane, i am fine with it not being the top language as long as the dominant EU language isn't German. But i can suggest you a solution: we make a modified/simplified version of English (some kind Simplified Technical English variant but for politic not aerospace industry maintenance manuals) the official language of the EU. Let's call it European English. We create a European Academy of that language on the French Academy model, just because it's both pointless and a bunch non-english foreigners loving with the language in a building in Brussels, which will be popular in London, i bet. We slightly modify the whole language and add some grammar change and choose a poo poo "official" non-posh eu-friendly accent/pronunciation. I am pretty sure the Irish won't mind us bastardising the English language. As a German, I 100% agree with your post. We wouldn't want you to butcher our beautiful language anyway  And the hilarious "gently caress you" to the English by taking control of their language (at least in the EU) is an amazing idea.
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Jun 25, 2016 13:31
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steinrokkan posted:Speak of the devil! A Slovak nationalist party has already proposed a Slexit (ew) vote. So, I guess every loving country will now have a movement to get a chance for a ritual suicide? I think you would find support for the EU in Western Europe increase dramatically if all the Eastern Europeans decide to quit it.
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Jun 26, 2016 12:45
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It's also not a poll but a real election/referendum, so any talk about margin of errors is dumb. The "real" outcome of the Brexit vote was not Leave 52% +/- 3%!
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Jul 4, 2016 15:27
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GaussianCopula posted:Because Wolfgang Schäuble's vision is shared by a majority of member states, the ECB, the IMF and the ESM. I hate to agree with GG, but he's right. Schäuble couldn't impose all that crap on Greece without the support of a lot of other EU states. He's the public face of the whole movement, but a lot of EU governments share the dumb view of "Greece needs more austerity!".
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Jul 8, 2016 11:06
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Nitrousoxide posted:Now, I'm certainly one of those Americans who'd like to see American thresholds for getting involved in countries we have no defense treaties with substantially increased. But look at the gulf between our commitment and the rest of NATO just as a portion of GDP. I think a fixation on the 2% of GDp is wrong. Latvia, a country with 2 million people and a GDP of 28 billion $, won't become any more able to resist a Russian invasion if it doubles it defense spending from 1% to 2% of GDP. Likewise, it wouldn't save the USA any money. There's just a lot of redundancy among the NATO members outside the USA. It would be better to make a plan what each country should contribute to NATO, so that they can truly complement US forces. The small nations would mainly contribute (ground) troops, while the bigger coastal nations would bring the navy units, etc. And lastly, US defense spending could be a lot lower if you guys stopped doing stupid poo poo. Like invading Iraq for example. Edit: Also, the real people you should be mad about are the non-NATO members that massively profit from US protection but are working to undermine you, like Israel or especially Saudi Arabia. Europeans hurt their own economies to put sanctions on Iran. The EU sanctions (+ Russia and China) were instrumental in bringing Iran to the negotiating table, since the Iranians mainly divested themselves from the US economy. We are your "real" allies, it's a reciprocal relationship (see NATO involvement in Afghanistan). Others just take advantage of you without offering anything in return. Torrannor fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 11:53
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Nitrousoxide posted:US states don't have the right to succeed. We fought a war over that. Perhaps you've heard of it? That is not strictly true, they only have no right to secede unilaterally.
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Jul 29, 2016 13:00
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Tesseraction posted:Not to mention the civil war itself was started due to Confederate aggression. Right, but the result of the war settled the dispute about the legality of both slavery and unilateral secession in the USA.
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Jul 29, 2016 13:06
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GaussianCopula posted:So, in the European context, a rich region would be totally justified to declare it's independence from the larger country it belongs to, and than can stay in the EU to continue to benefit from the infrastructure and resources of its former nation? Which part of Germany are you from? Laying the groundwork for Bavarian independence?
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Jul 29, 2016 15:13
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I mean, Berlusconi came before Trump.
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Nov 13, 2016 16:06
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For the non-Germans, it's Schäuble. And Greece grew unexpectedly this quarter? It's at least a small glimmer of hope that things might get better, despite austerity.
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Nov 17, 2016 21:29
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His Divine Shadow posted:Seeing same reports in local news now. Hail orange satan? It was most likely already dead even before his election.
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Nov 18, 2016 12:14
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My Imaginary GF posted:What the gently caress did she expect to happen when she offered unlimited welfare to illegal immigrants? She never offered anything like that. Also, please note the huge difference between illegal immigrants and refugees.
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Nov 19, 2016 09:14
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As much as I hate to agree with GC on anything, but it's not really clear if this was really a Muslim girl being attacke. And it's not clear that the attackers weren't Muslims. At the same time, it's entirely possible that this was an islamophobic attack. We just can't tell from the video alone, it's not a good source But it's true that islamophobia is rising in Europe, this video makes no difference either way.
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Dec 9, 2016 15:08
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YF-23 posted:I mean I don't think it's a good video to present and make claims on without source, but you're applying a double standard here, whereby ethnicity is given the benefit of doubt in case of the victim, but is assumed in the case of the assaulter. No, that's not true. Perhaps my words were unclear. We don't know the ethnicity and religion of both attackers and victims. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if this was indeed an islamophobic attack. But we just can't tell from this video alone.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:24
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Grouchio posted:Gonna need more elaboration. You should ask in the Eastern Europe thread.
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Dec 22, 2016 13:39
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LemonDrizzle posted:https://twitter.com/YanniKouts/status/823901940056805376 It can't hurt. Gabriel has the charisma of a stone, Schulz is a lot more likeable.
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Jan 24, 2017 17:05
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LemonDrizzle posted:laydeez n' gennelmen, we officially have Schulz-mentum! And the AfD is stalled around ~10%. It's pretty great news for the establishment, Germany and the European Union.
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Feb 14, 2017 23:09
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icantfindaname posted:How much hostility is there between the SPD, Greens and die Linke? Will they actually agree to work with each other or would the SPD rather remain in their Grand Coalition? Several former East German Länder are already governed by SPD-Linke coalitions, so it's not as if they would never ever work together. And I'm pretty sure that another grand coalition just barely ranks above being the biggest opposition party for the SPD.
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Mar 6, 2017 18:22
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Truga posted:hahahahahahahahahahahahaha holy poo poo. Just browse certain right-wing US sites, there are a lot of people who thought the early US election model where only landowners can vote was such a good idea. It's "No Representation without Taxation" for these fucks, I'm not surprised at all that GaussianCopula is a fan of a similar system.
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Mar 9, 2017 11:00
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Even apart from members of the government campaigning abroad being illegal under Turkish law, why should we allow the AKP to campaign for votes while they have the leaders of one of the two opposition parties locked up under bullshit terrorism charges? They obviosly can't campaign in Europe while in prison, so Erdogan and his stooges shouldn't be allowed to either.
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Mar 13, 2017 09:04
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Kurtofan posted:
Let's look at the other side of the Atlantic. What are American conservatives saying? Quote Patrick Buchanan: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/is-turkey-lost-to-the-west/ quote:Le Pen, the anti-EU populist who would lift sanctions on Putin’s Russia, is running even with 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a socialist running as the independent leader of a new movement.
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Mar 14, 2017 12:14
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the ECJ decided in favor of one of the women, because she didn't interact with customers face-to-face and so there's no reason to ban her from wearing a headscarf?
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Mar 15, 2017 15:58
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I don't understand why any French politician would show how close they are to Trump, I thought the French hate all things Anglo-Saxon. If we pray very hard, maybe Schulz can form a government without CDU involvement, ending Schäuble's reign of terror.
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Mar 16, 2017 14:30
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So Sweden wants to reinstate conscription, Macron is now talking of bringing it back as well. We abolished it in Germany less than ten years ago, and only on behest of the Free Democrats. Both CDU and SPD were actually always in favor of compulsory military service. I wonder if an SPD-CDU government under Schulz will bring back the draft?
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Mar 19, 2017 13:18
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Why isn't there a French politics thread? I enjoy reading about the upcoming election, but it seems as if there's enough interest for a genuine France thread here. And even if nothing happens, you can have regional slapfights like Bretons vs Parisians or whatever, like we do in the German politics thread. (Southern Germans are scum  ) Or talk about the best French food etc.
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Mar 29, 2017 11:38
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Private Speech posted:Then this thread would become Bad again, probably. Oh right. It's gotten a lot better. Nevermind then, carry on!
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Mar 29, 2017 11:46
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Cat Mattress posted:On the long term, definitely not. Germany is a dying country. Unemployment is low because the German population shrinks, so there's a lot of old people who need care and very few young people who need jobs. Last year, the birth rate in Germany went up for the fifth year in a row. It's still below replacement level, but if the trend continues... So predictions about Germany being a dying country should be taken with a grain of salt. France had below replacement level birth rates after WW1 if I recall correctly, and they managed to recover from it. Demographics are not set in stone.
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Apr 25, 2017 20:05
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Just a question, but what do you suggest people should do who like the idea of the European Union and many of it's aspects? I like border free travel. I like harmonizing regulations, student exchange programs, coordinated foreign policy, a common market and a common currency. I would love a common economic policy and more wealth transfers. In general, nation states are sort of dumb in my opinion. Of course the EU's neoliberalism is poo poo. But am I supposed to vote for those who want to leave/dismantle the EU, so that we may perhaps get better left wing policies? That's a lot to ask for.
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Apr 28, 2017 23:11
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TheRat posted:Soon what? That graph shows Macron will absolutely crush Le Pen may 7th If the campaign were to last a few more months, Le Pen would overtake Macron eventually if the trend continued. Thankfully, the election will be over in a week.
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May 1, 2017 20:32
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Ekster posted:With any luck WW3 will be fascist US, UK and Russia against liberal Germany, Italy and Japan. So you want the fascists to win?
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May 8, 2017 07:44
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Electronico6 posted:You forgot the Eurovision final too! There will be riots in the streets if anything happens to the Eurovision final!
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May 12, 2017 17:16
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Is Merkel gonna be forever-Chancellor or will the CDU lose an election sometime this century? I think she will be chancellor for at least four more years. Thankfully, humans don't live forever. She will be 67 in 2021.
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May 12, 2017 21:12
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