EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Just voted for GUE/NGL. Any idea at what time the results start coming in?

# ¿ May 26, 2019 12:38

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 22:56

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

MiddleOne posted:

It's hurting my head looking at how many seats the Brexit party is estimated to get. It's no wonder it's impossible to get people to engage with the EP-elections in the smaller countries when Farages complete idiocy can sweep up more seats than all of our MPs put together.

Well when brexit happens they will leave their seats at least. It will happen, right??

# ¿ May 26, 2019 13:40

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Grapplejack posted:

Honestly at this point if the EU wants to survive they're going to have to go hard for federalization; this half-step liberal nonsense isn't working.

Well atleast within eurozone this is true. Without common fiscal policy euro will fail sooner or later. So either we forgo euro entirely or integrate more. Basically you should vote either federalists or hard eurosceptics who want to destroy eurozone. Status quo isn't going to work.

# ¿ May 26, 2019 16:29

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Sekenr posted:

Can somebody explain to me why in the name of gently caress does EU shutting down nuclear power stations? How is this win for anyone?

EU isn't shutting anything down. It's some countries in EU like Germany that are shutting nuclear power plants down while some other countries in EU like Finland and France are building new nuclear plants. EU doesn't dictate nations energy policy.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2020 17:31

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54692485

quote:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Turks to boycott French goods amid a row over France's tougher stance on radical Islam.

In a televised speech, he urged world leaders to protect Muslims "if there is oppression against Muslims in France".

Mr Erdogan has angrily criticised his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for pledging to defend secular values.

It comes after a French teacher was murdered for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class.

France "will not give up our cartoons", President Macron said earlier this week.

But state secularism - or la�cit� - is central to France's national identity. Curbing freedom of expression to protect the feelings of one particular community undermines unity, the state says.

I don't see what Macron can do to satisfy all parties. There's an extremism problem in France and Europe and we needs to be able to address it. Tasteless racist cartoons are one thing but the reaction to them is insane and you know, free speech is important. And now Erdogan is using this tragedy as a weapon to attack France on top of the row in the Med.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2020 16:40

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Truga posted:

the only thing "we" should "do" is stop bombing their people and fuding their terrorists

"We" could also have more stringent immigration policy that screens for potential extremists and deport extremists already here. Stop the bombings, withdraw from Middle-east, move to cleaner energy production, tighten the borders and do something about the islamists already in Europe.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 17:13

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201029-malaysian-ex-pm-mahathir-says-muslims-have-right-to-kill-french

quote:

Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that Muslims had a right "to kill millions of French people", shortly after a knife-wielding man launched a deadly attack in Nice.

Three people were killed at a church in the southern French city, with the attacker slitting the throat of at least one of them, in what authorities were treating as the latest jihadist attack to rock the country.

Shortly afterwards, Mahathir -- who was prime minister of Muslim-majority Malaysia until his government collapsed in February -- launched an extraordinary outburst on Twitter.

Referring to the beheading of a French teacher who showed pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Mahathir said he did not approve of that attack but that freedom of expression does not include "insulting other people".

"Irrespective of the religion professed, angry people kill," said the outspoken 95-year-old, who has in the past drawn controversy for remarks attacking Jews and the LGBT community.

"The French in the course of their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past."

This whole thing is tragically funny. Freedom of expression doesn't include insulting other people but it does seemingly include wishing for the death of millions.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 17:31

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

oliwan posted:

that crazy 95 year old you quoted who said some crazy poo poo is definitely representative of all muslims.

Of course not all Muslims. Vast majority of Muslims are cool and good. But it is representative of currents of thought in islamic extremism and how those currents affect people willing to behead people in the name Allah. Sadly this is a thing nowadays and we need to take into account when formulating policies.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 17:55

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Majorian posted:

The fact that they're "free" to doesn't mean it's a helpful thing to do, though. Fox News is "allowed" to put out racist dogwhistles nightly; that doesn't mean they aren't part of the problem. "They go after everybody" is not really a convincing argument, imo; you're still punching down if part of that "everybody" is a marginalized minority.

Never quite got this "punching down" argument. A 21 year old radicalized Tunisian immigrant feels punched in French society so he decides to...punch up by beheading a 70 year old churchgoer? Does it change the moral calculus in any way? How useful are these kinds of analyses on power dynamics really? Like in Charlie Hebdo attacks, who was wielding the greater power, terrorists or the victims? What useful information can we gain from this discourse? Simplifying everything to the narrative of oppression takes away the agency of extremists and imo does disservice to the millions of muslims who don't get radicalized in Europe. There is more to radicalization process than just oppression. Material conditions matter ofc but we should look especially to the ideology of extremists. Belief is a powerful tool and it is in the content of it that we can truly understand the process. Deport and censure imams preaching extremism, stop supporting House of Saudi and their Wahhabism etc..

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 21:41

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Majorian posted:

They became radicalized partially in response to the xenophobia and structural inequalities they had suffered since birth. Unfortunately, poo poo like this is going to keep happening until someone breaks the cycle.

Like you say, that's part of the reason but far away from the whole truth. Let's take a look at arguably the most shat upon people by European societies, the Roma. There aren't extremists among them doing terror attacks against innocents while suffering from grave injustices. This tells us that there must be something else going on with islamists than just the oppression the Muslim population suffers from. Should we concentrate then on the oppression angle in these discussions or in the greater cause imo, the ideology that informs their actions? What is good in this lovely situation, is that the latter cause is more easily dealt with than xenophobia of greater European population and gross injustices capitalist economic model creates.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2020 07:12

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Media is saying that the killed terrorist was Austrian born Albanian with citizenship of both Austria and Northern Macedonia. Police also suspects that more shooters are still at large.

SplitSoul posted:

Apparently the shooter that was shot and killed was already known to intelligence services.

Yup, seems like a failure of intelligence services. The killed terrorist was one of the approximately 90 Austrian citizens who had went to Syria to fight for jihadists. This is one of those things where it is tricky to do anything about. Outlaw being a member of extremist organization? But what then? You can't deport citizens so only thing left is for intelligence services to keep tabs on them and pray that they are quick enough to make pre-emptive arrests if they catch a wind of something brewing. EXIT -programs maybe but they need to be voluntary to work.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2020 11:12

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

MiddleOne posted:

Not to be a dick, but this sounds like a contradiction.

Small capacity means that the turnover rate has to be large, otherwise you'd get overpopulated prisons and need to expand. So in that kind of case you'd have full prisons even with light sentences.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2020 13:31

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

An insane mind posted:

We can deal with unregulated migration, we choose not to.

There's already huge problems with unemployment in the native workforce that has had an education and language skills of the home country. How do you think unregulated migration will work in this situation when the immigrants don't know the language and don't have the needed education to integrate into workforce? Add to that a welfare state that is nearing the breaking point, realistically those migrants would add to that strain.

We are looking at a situation were we'd need to adopt more American system that arguably does a better job in integrating immigrants. But that would mean doing away with robust welfare system, liberalizing the job markets, ie. making it easier to hire and fire people meaning that union influence is lessened and labour laws are loosened. Work or die/become homeless. But personally I'm not ready to do that, I like a robust welfare state and labour protections.

More realistic solution, with the system we have, is to up the development funds and make investments to the countries immigrants are coming from. And NATO to stop destabilizing countries. Help them at their homes so there's no pressure to make the risky journey to Europe.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 14:29

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Gort posted:

They wouldn't because 50 million new people would be 50 million new people to educate, feed, sell things to and so on. That's why migrants are an economic positive.

Education costs money and the money to feed and sell them things come from the welfare state. GDP would grow but the resources for doing it stays the same. At best it would be a Keynesian stimulus for schools and local shops but uneducated immigrants with no language skills don't become a net positive to economy for a long time. It takes time to integrate them into workforce and with unemployment levels as high as they are, it is easier said than done.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 14:35

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

An insane mind posted:

The problems with the 'native workforce' aren't going to magically go away because you close the borders

And opening the borders wouldn't make them go away either, it would just add millions of unemployed people with even lesser chance of getting a job to the dole.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 14:40

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Orange Devil posted:

Our robust welfare system is being done away with. Our job markets are being liberalized. This has been happening for decades and will continue. As a result of choices made by the politically powerful. Recent immigrants, especially refugees, are some of the least politically powerful people on the continent. They can not possibly have caused any of this.

I agree that welfare state has been under attack for longer than the current immigrant crisis. But it is undeniable that it is exacerbating it. Not to go too deep into tinfoil hat territory, I think that part of the liberal push for immigration is because of this. It is a yet another convenient way to do away with robust welfare state. Naturally I don't fault immigrants coming here but they are dangerously shaking the house of cards that is our system. The reason that the system is a wobbly house of cards is because of past political decisions by powers that be.

Of course there's enough resources to have a robust welfare state and allow for mass immigration. But that isn't possible with the system we have. The solution is socialism

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 15:17

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Yeah. From Finnish perspective our social democracy has incredibly bloody history and it was steeped in the class conflict. The success of it had more to do with USSR being a threat to bourgeoise establishment than any right wing fantasy of ethnically homogenous society building somekind of (national) socialistic system. The roots of it are in the sacrifices of the 1918 working class whose actions, right or wrong, were much more divisive for the society than any recent immigrant "crisis" could ever be.

# ¿ May 22, 2021 06:20

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

I think most will agree that EU as it is is vehemently against revolutionary leftism. There's absolutely no way that EU would support toppling the powers that be. But the same is true for nation states.

Things become iffier with regards of "ordinary" leftism that happens within the framework of liberal capitalism. It is true that EU is first and foremost a liberal institution with things like free movement of capital baked into its essence. But within this framework you can and should enact leftist policies like, say, tobin tax, big investmentd into fiscal policy, worker's rights etc. Make the Union social democratic. I think this is what people mean when they talk about reforming the union more leftist. It is not revolutionary leftism. But it is a leftist position. Unless you are of the mind that there is only one kind of leftism.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2021 07:50

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

loving hell, never would have thought that EU could actually deal with a crisis like this in a united and strong manner. I wonder what this closing the ranks will mean regarding further European integration, especially foreign policy and military front. Maybe stronger articles of mutual defense than those of Lisbon treaty would be a start? As a Finn I've come around in support of NATO membership for our country but maybe it would be smarter to get "backdoored" in through EU clauses of mutual defense than seeking outright NATO membership. Joining NATO outright would give Putin reason in his and his useful idiots deluded minds to seek 'ukrainization' policy regarding my country but a strong EU defense clause would just be a matter EU politics that is harder for imperialism defenders to challenge.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2022 13:22

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Truga posted:

hopefully it results in a united EU army,

There's a lot of talk about united EU military but what would it entail? Personally I'm against united EU military in a sense of it being one huge military. I wouldn't gamble national defense on what people on other side of Europe want, our defense should be tailored to our needs, ie. conscription etc.. But national militaries with united foreign policy, command structures, fast acting common battle groups (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Battlegroup being a prototype) and materiel procurement and development? Hell yes, those should have happened yesterday.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2022 13:34

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

mmkay posted:

How does it square with him explicitly stating that Ukraine is a nation invented by Lenin?

Putin thinks he is denazifying a country invented by bolshevik conspiracy. It's like this scene made manifest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdiqh6Rjywg :v:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2022 13:39

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Orange Devil posted:

Given the past 75 years, I would not be surprised if the US deliberately set Ukraine up to take this hit to serve its own geopolitical goals at the cost of who knows how many thousands of Ukrainian lives and who knows how many millions displaced.

I don't think that those Ukrainians in Euromaidan protests in 2013 and 2014 thought much about what American State Department wanted. There's no grand conspiracy.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2022 13:47

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Resisting imperialism is a good thing, something all should strive for. Even if the imperial power is nuclear armed and the odds aren't in your favour. Ukraine is doing that and EU should help them, because it is a just and right thing to do. And if this idealistic argument doesn't sway you, you can think it through self-preservation. If Ukraine falls, Russia will continue trying to divide the EU and move westward. Only by standing together and through solidarity we can stop imperialism.

And it seems to me that Ukraine might have a chance still. If Russian economy crumbles they just can't uphold the tempo of invasion, never mind potential bloody occupation.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2022 15:40

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Orange Devil posted:

OK but for example my country has been a de-facto US vassal state for many decades now, firmly in its imperial grip. It's not great, but it is also not the end of the world. Standing up to just Russia isn't going to "stop imperialism".

I wouldn't go as far as equating American imperial hold on European country and Russian imperial hold. For one you get free elections, you don't get jailed for speaking out against the government and you have wide ranging free press/media. Theoretically you have a choice of voting for parties that want out of NATO and EU and they aren't going to send tanks to stop it. Contrast this to Russian imperialism. The obvious example would be WW2, would you rather live in imperialist countries like France or UK or authoritarian imperialist country like nazi-Germany? This is the choice that Eastern European countries have now.

quote:

As for the economy, what specific resources does Russia require that it cannot get as a result of the economic sanctions that you think might stall their invasion? And again, I do not think there is going to be an occupation nor that one was ever planned to begin with. One of the reasons I think this is because of the costs involved.

I'm more of the opinion that the shock of removing Russian economy from global economy will be so great that Putin can't maintain his imperial war machine. Soviet Union had a big, self-sufficient economy too but it was inefficient and putting huge amounts of production into military materiel stagnated them and was their undoing. And modern Russia isn't even Soviet Union.

quote:

And again, I do not think there is going to be an occupation nor that one was ever planned to begin with. One of the reasons I think this is because of the costs involved.

This raises the question of why didn't Russia just consolidate the separatist areas and at most try to do decapitation strikes against Ukrainian military? They are invading Ukraine from all fronts. What would be the point of bleeding out the army in all out attack, if the end result would be returning to separatist areas? They had already achieved that in 2014, there's no need for anything more if Russia doesn't aim for occupation of Ukraine now.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2022 16:33

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Orange Devil posted:

Yeah so this is what I mean with losing perspective by every bad thing automatically being the worst thing.

So you would be willing to accept foreign invaders forcing you to live in a society with no free democratic elections, that jails people for having different political opinions, murders journalists and has no free press? Because those are the things that Russian imperialist war machine is trying to export. It is reality in Russia, it is not a matter of 'losing perspective' whatever that means. Sure I can think of even worst things but that doesn't mean people shouldn't fight against it. Even if the odds are slim.

quote:

The answer to your question according to Putin is that he:
1. intends to demilitarize Ukraine, which concretely appears to mean destroy as much Ukrainian militarily materiel as possible to the point where the country will not have a functioning military
2. intends to kill, or maybe capture and put on show-trial, a bunch of people associated with Azov and the like as well as the high-level Ukrainian government

How does he intend to do those without occupation? He destroys Ukrainian military and then leaves allowing them to rebuild like they did in 2014? Or is he going to come back every time Ukraine remilitarizes? And about the decapitation of political class, does he think that Ukrainians aren't going to vote for even more anti-Russian people after the war? Is he going to come back with an invasion after every election? No, of course not. He isn't going to play some kind of geopolitical whack-a-mole game where he reinvades every second year, he's going for occupation and creation of puppet government that exemplifies those things I talked about at the beginning of this post. No free elections, only pro-Russian government is allowed and dissiders will be dealt with. That is what Putin meant with the 'solution to Ukrainian question' thing.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2022 17:19

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

mortons stork posted:

There is also the unavoidable question of having to rationalize our economies, plan more and consume less

Rationalizing/planning the economy more is inconceivable for liberals in power and the idea of consuming less is preposterous for vast masses of Europeans. So we are in a gridlock where the rational choice of more hands on energy policy isn't going to happen from our current political class and the electorate will become more reactionary if their living standards are threatened. I fear that this gives a window of opportunity for far right to gain support all over Europe. All they have to do is not stand in the way of Russian imperialism and push for return of European energy dependence on Russia. We'll see how the coming winter goes....

Nuclear plants would have been great, but they needed building decades ago. It wont solve the current crisis.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 15:40

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

An insane mind posted:

Lol this 'we should have been building them ages ago, no use trying now' is the weirdest take about nuclear plants to me.

Whose saying that? Yes we should have built them years ago, yes we should begin building them now. But it wont help with the current crisis.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 15:59

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Guavanaut posted:

Many useless people are saying this.

Was Clegg saying that: "We should have built nuclear plants years ago, but we shouldn't build them now."? Because for me it seems a very strange position to hold, to be some one who supported nuclear power before but doesn't now. Usually the thinking goes from opposing it to supporting it, haven't heard many people going backwards in this sense....

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 16:13

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

mobby_6kl posted:

Ten years ago the costs were much more favorable for nuclear and the opposition was almost entirely ~atoms~. Now that renewables are cheaper (when it's sunny & windy), the "sensible" solution is of course renewables + storage (tbd).

The French managed managed to build 56 reactors in 15 years in the 70s-80s. The first plants took 6-7 years. Literally half the time it took the Swiss to build one pumped storage facility.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Station). That we somehow can't do it as fast nowadays, despite enormous advances in material science, computing and sensors, is purely a result of long-term choices and policy.

The cost issue is more about the next generation plants being more powerful and thus more complex and that is reflected in costs and build times. I'm sure we could build similar plants as in Gravelines comparatively fast and cheap but then we come to issue of efficiency. Is it smarter for long term to build costlier and more complex plants that are more powerful and efficient or go with fast, cheap and less powerful choice? Like the boondoggle of Olkiluoto 3 plant has been a stuff of legends. But when it is online (hopefully by this winter), it generates 1 600 MW whereas those Graveline reactors generate 900 MW each.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 16:35

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Pope Hilarius II posted:

Most of the energy consumption in Europe doesn't come from individuals and families but from companies, though.

While often well-intended, I hate the avalanche of lazy articles that hand out obvious "tips" to save on energy. The problem isn't the consumption and the problem is only partially one of availability, the problem is regarding energy as an abstract resource that's fine to use for all kinds of speculative stock market derivatives. On top of the pricing system that makes all energy as expensive as the most expensive type.

Yeah but I meant more that European people's living standards and consumption are very much tied together in most peoples minds, and those depend much on European energy consumption on a wider societal level. So even if individuals consume less energy than companies and industries, it is those companies and industries that enable Europeans to live above their means energy wise. We all benefit from cheap goods, foodstuff, employment, export industries etc. So any kind of policy that is meant to curtail the energy consumption of industries will reflect on people's living standards and ability to consume. And I fear that inflation and recession will be reflected in different elections because now the far-right have an easy culprit to point at as the cause: "The unelected political elite in Brussels caused all of this by antagonizing innocent Russia and supporting Ukraine" or somesuch bullshit. You can already see this in recent statements by Viktor Orban in Hungary.

We need to consume less as a society. Not only because of the current crisis and ability to oppose Russian imperialism, but on a longer term for the planet. But we also have to admit that this will be deeply unpopular with large sections of our society, be they liberals who want to see profits go up, or regular people who are used to current levels of consumption.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 17:50

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

mobby_6kl posted:

How much efficiency would we be really losing? Because it seems to me like having two (or 4!) 900 MW reactors in 6 years would be better than one 1600MW reactor in 17 years.

I don't have any calculations behind this, but I think losing a but of thermal efficiency would be preferable to spending 10 extra years on construction while capital costs are going through the roof.

Well we have to take into account that the lifetime of nuclear reactors can be over 50 years. So that's a lot of time for a more powerful reactor to catch up to the less powerful reactor that went online a decade earlier. At the end of their lifetimes, the more powerful reactor will have put more energy to the grid.

Then we have the question of developing new technologies and skills to implement them. Next generation reactors are harder to make than the older, but when the knowhow to do them and technologies are refined, it will become easier and easier to build them. Biggest reason OL3 was such an boondoggle is that it was the first of its kind. I think that first EPR to come online was in China but OL3 was the first EPR to start construction. Wouldn't surprise me if Chinese were taking notes of OL3 construction difficulties. It's always hardest being the pioneer. To progress technologically, we need need to take risks and make bigger investments.

I don't know the figures about thermal efficiency either so I don't know how much more efficient fuel consumption the newer generation of Nuclear plants have.

EDIT: oh I misread, sorry. So I guess building two older reactors could be smarter (if building two old ones is cheaper than building one new). But there's still the second point.

Glah fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Sep 27, 2022

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 18:09

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

His Divine Shadow posted:

The OL3 debacle was predicted ahead of time and seems to be a problem of organization:

Yeah the OL3 construction has really been a combination of numerous issues creating a perfect shitstorm.

There's the organizational problems where Areva started building the plant with the typical mindset of outsourcing the construction to cheapest subcontractors. So for example there rose huge issues with qualified welders. Thinking went 'what can go wrong with hiring cheap welders, we'll give them two weeks of training OH poo poo now we need to redo everything, who could have seen this coming?'. At the beginning there really was no organizational leadership for welding work, no standard instructions for it and that was one reason they hosed up the concrete work because of mistakes in rebaring.

Then there's the engineering challenges with pioneering technology added to lovely organizational procedures. There were huge problems with the complicated automation system, where Areva didn't provide sufficient documentation to address them. And there were similar problems with the turbines and primary circuit piping. There were more problems too, but these come to mind off the top of my head.

And add to these piling problems the big brother Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority supervising the work with an iron fist (which is ofc a good thing!) demanding Areva to address the problems and change the already done subpar work, the end result became one of the most expensive building projects in human history.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2022 15:10

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Making 500e denomination bills was a stealthy attempt by EU to gain the status of global reserve currency through the shadow economy because international criminal organizations really really love large denomination bills. :colbert:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2023 11:25

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

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

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 � 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.

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....

# ¿ Feb 28, 2023 11:17

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

I think that euroscepticism walks hand in hand with populistic movements because almost every traditional political party is pro-EU and when you oppose their policies, opposing EU makes for a obvious and easy policy to push alongside others. And even when these populistic parties gain power but can't really affect material change and their policies end up being not any better from traditional parties, EU makes for an excellent target to blame for their failures. 'We tried our best but it is the Brussel's red tape that tied our hands' etc..

And I wouldn't be surprised if this was really more of a class issue. The downtrodden naturally find their political home in populistic movements and because of geographical distribution of material wealth, you might see geographical division regarding EU. But I'd expect that were we to look at people's opinions about EU through class, that correlation would still show up, and even more clearly. Because as said, you'll see the effects EU development funds more clearly if not for any other reason than because EU demands that their 'this has been funded by EU' placards are clearly visible. Big cities just have more happy bourgeoise people in them so euroscepticism doesn't show so clearly in geographical voting patterns as in left-behind areas.

Now I'm not saying that this euroscepticism is justified or not within this population cohort, nor make a moral judgement about populistic politics. Just that I think this is the main reason euroscepticism is tied to these parties. British politics were really an outlier here because of their constant eurosceptic messaging was pushed even by segments of their well-to-do bourgeoise parties. The British society was much more uniform in their dislike of EU.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2023 11:01

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Haramstufe Rot posted:

The dividing line is whether or not the country is Christian enough

How did Estonia get in?

# ¿ Mar 13, 2023 15:15

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Could Turkey use this technicality into getting in or is their Roman legacy too far removed?

# ¿ Mar 13, 2023 17:46

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

This is one of the main points I struggle with in forming my opinion about EU and what path should it take.

I realize that for efficiency reasons if we want EU to ever have more proactive agency in forming continent wide policy, we'd have to move away from the current directorial system. But the risks of it are huge if neoliberal ghouls gain hold of the now sole executive institution of Commission. Not only would it start clashing with countries with more encompassing welfare state policies, it would make the situation in southern economies even more dire. This would inevitably lead into fight between national states and Brussels depending on changing political landscape within members and after that fragmentation and possibly break up of the Union. So EU really is in Catch-22 situation where becoming efficient political agent would probably lead to destruction of it being a political agent in the first place.

So while I like the idea of EU, I'm stuck in voting for politicians who wont rock the boat too much and are satisfied with status quo. EU will be stuck with a directorial system, where the European Council will in effect lead the Commission, Parliament is the stamping machine and discussion club and EU as a whole stays as a confederacy. This means that EU policy will be reactive for foreseeable future, but at least there's still some institutional framework for European co-operation where European interests are looked after in globalized world.

Glah fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Mar 23, 2023

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 17:00

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

The solution is of course for the proletariat to get hold of EU's executive organs, unite the continent through interests of the working class and actually make the epithet that populist eurosceptics like to throw around true with the creation of EUSSR :v:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 17:29

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 22:56

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

The recent attempt to introduce transnational list in addition to national lists and so called Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidates of EP groups would vie for the position of Commission presidency) for European parliamentary elections illuminates how difficult any kind of reform for EU institutions are. Federalists had been campaigning for this relatively small reform for years and parliament had agreed on it but European Council just went 'nah' and that was that.

Would have been interesting to see how transnational list would have worked out in practice. It would have been weighed for smaller countries so that Germans or other bigger countries wouldn't have dominated the list so much but could it really have led to pan-European campaigning? Personally I think that transnational list is extremely important step towards creating actual pan-european politics where country doesn't matter as much as mutual pan-european interests. Workers of Europe unite and all that, baby steps towards you know...... Of course there'd also be risk of European fascists uniting but that's a small one. Not because there aren't European fascists but because those fuckers are incapable of co-operating over national borders. Always the funniest thing after EP elections is waiting for the inevitable implosion of the fascist group into in-fighting.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 21:21

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