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Comment by netcan | Hacker News Reader

I like Angela Merkel, and I live in the EU (Ireland). I think she's wrong about a lot of things though.

The EU is on shaky foundations. The original principles of free movement, free trade, solidarity & peace are great. I totally support them. They move the world in a liberal (ie liberty) direction and they really do promote the central goal, centuries of peace. Europe has been at peace for a logn time. It's an achievement, and we need to defend that. But, there was never a truly agreed upon and understandable basis for how these would be promoted and protected and an explicit definition of where and how the EU's authority ends and the State's begins. This has left our national governments with a nice scapegoat, great for populists, nationalists and fringe politicians to use for their purposes.

The Greek saga is a perfect example. Rather than an intelligent abstract policy of allowing Greek to make their own decisions, support with limited liability for the Union we get a German style bureaucratic approach. Regulation an oversight.

I also appreciate her refugee policy. My grandparents (like many's) were refugees in WWII. I think it came from a genuine place of human solidarity. I hope it doesn't sting Germany too badly.

I hope that the EU gets another round of constitutional, foundational work. Take as long as it takes, but do it right. This is for the next 200 years. The problem, as I see it, is that politics has polarized into pro and anti EU. Anti-EU political outsiders from either (or neither) traditional wings using anti-EU rhetoric as an easy populist tools and pro-EU insiders defending the EU as a bureaucratic status quo.

One thing I think needs to change urgently is an exit policy. We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option. Similar for Greek. No hard feelings, civilized-like, we can still be friends, just do what the people want.

View on HN

>allowing Greek to make their own decisions,

Apparently, Greece owes Germany $80+ billion dollars[1]. Of course, if it were up to Greece alone, they'd prefer to say "just forgive our past loans and let's reset the odometer to 0 for a new set of loans. And oh, btw, don't expect to get paid back on the new loans either since we don't want your input on how to reform our ineffective government to even make payback possible."

People want to interfere with Greece because they took lots of other people's money.

If a company borrowed money from bond holders and timely payment is not possible, those bondholders can pressure the company to hire their turnaround managers in return for refinancing, or force it into bankruptcy and seize assets.

Whether it's a country or a company borrowing other people's money, it's hard to see how a "hands off" policy by the lenders would be possible.

[1]http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-much-greece-owes-...

If the US were organized like the EU, several of the states would be heavily indebted and bankrupt, with a third world quality of life, and the financial, industrial, and entertainment centers would be even richer. Instead, richer states transfer huge amounts of money to poorer states through various federal programs (infrastructure spending, assistance to the states, federal welfare programs, etc.), going a long way towards putting citizens on an equal footing everywhere in the nation. The banking system is unified and federally insured, disaster relief is centrally supported, people are free to move around entirely freely as citizenship is handled at the national level. Every state has a comparable seat at the political table.

The weaker states in Europe should have never agreed to a currency union without any kind of fiscal or political union. It led to a massive bubble of stupidly cheap debt and speculative capital inflow, and then when the economy started looking iffy all the money flowed out again, and poof.

Losing control of your monetary policy is straightjacket enough when your economy dips, but under the rules of their debt deals, Greece also lost control over fiscal policy, and was forced to apply pro-cyclical cuts to government spending. They ended up in worse-than-great-depression level economic collapse, with absolutely no tools available to deal with it.

For Germany by contrast, the Euro has been great (though fiscal austerity in response to a recession was stupid for them too). Their currency has been artificially weak relative to their neighbors, helping them run huge trade surpluses.

Agree completely. Not having the ability to inflate one's currency in times of economic struggle (so that exports are made to be cheaper, etc.) is not the best thing; while for Germany it helps with their own exports.

Moreover, lots of Greek debt (IIRC) was originally to banks which had lent lots of money without oversight; almost knowing that someone (the EU states) would take over the debt if need be... Of course Greece had borrowed recklessly on their end as well.

But I think the analogy and contrast to how US states work is really good. Want a single currency across multiple areas with differing economic performance? OK, but then better have mechanisms for supporting equal footing.

>banks which had lent lots of money without oversight

If you sign a legally binding document that you will repay a loan, plus interest, or your assets are on the line, what "oversight" do you need? Wouldn't the world be a better place if people paid money back as contracted, rather than ripping off (and somehow blaming) the lender? If you don't like the terms, don't accept them. "But we need money!" isn't an excuse.

No, it wouldn't. Categorically.

If everyone repaid debts, then lending money wouldn't require interest. Interest expresses the danger that money may not be repaid as, for example, during bankruptcy proceedings.

Debt forgiveness has existed since the dawn of money. See [1] for more information.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Debt-The-First-000-Years/dp/1612191290

Well quite a few states are heavily indebted. While many if not the majority have balanced budget rules they and the cities circumvented fiscal responsibility by making out too many promises to government and union retirement programs. That is their real time bomb and quite a few states are/will be in the same boat as Greece when time comes to pay up

Greece has consistently received at least 2% net of their GNI each year in subsidies from EU since 2000. This is investment in Greece with EU fees removed. (EL is Greece in the data below).

Germany consistently operated at a net deficit of 6-8 B euro/year in terms of EU fees vs EU investment in Germany.

That same wealth transfer is taking place in the EU as well. Not on the same scale possibly, but it certainly takes place.

Greece's 6B net gain in 2008 makes up 1/9th of their total welfare spend in 2009 for instance (56B).

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/financialreport/2014/annex/3/inde...

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG

I agree that it was not a good move to join the currency union for Greece. That was a bad choice by Greece, and a greedy move to manage finances short term with artificially cheap borrowing.

2% of GNI is a trivial sum in comparison to the scale of fiscal transfers between US states.

In poorer US states, about 10% of gross state product is collected as federal taxes, whereas something like 20–30% of gross state product comes to those states through various federal spending.

It's interesting that you say that the weaker states never should have agreed, while in the stronger states (I live in one), the opposite is the current opinion. Maybe everyone agrees on this point? I think that is the case: now (!) everybody agrees that this was a stupid scenario.

On the other hand, where would we have been without the euro? Would it have been any better? I am not so sure.

And in the EU the richer states do support the poorer ones, but since long especially the UK opposes this. They don't see the benefit. I think it's well worth the money, even with the Greek. We cannot abandon them, and it would be a major political stupidity to do so, with Turkey and Russia going the wrong way. I think - in the end - all political leaders of importance will agree with this.

In Greece, the problem is corruption. It will be an uggly fight to turn this around. I hope this is that fight, because otherwise it's all for nothing, or it's only for the EU. I sincerely hope they can get rid of corruption, because it will make their life in the end a lot better. For now it's lots of misery though.

> If the US were organized like the EU, several of the states would be heavily indebted and bankrupt, with a third world quality of life, and the financial, industrial, and entertainment centers would be even richer.

Have you ever been to rural Mississippi or West Virginia?

I have, and I've also been to rural areas of the "second class" countries of EU, like Greece and Romania (not to mention pending member states like Bosnia). And it's actually striking how similar they are in terms of economic development. Granted, I still saw some livestock plowing in Romania-not a common sight in the US-but otherwise the poorer states of the US and the poorer nations of the EU are pretty on par. Particularly with respect to dwellings and the frequent lack of many of the accoutrements of what we consider "modern life" (Internet, computers, smart phones).

I'd say the urban areas of the poorer US states are slightly more developed than their counterparts in Romania and Greece, but the rural areas are pretty much on par.

And btw, the governments of those poorer US states are typically fairly cash poor and often indebted, because they have very poor tax bases.

And in terms of government corruption, the two are absolutely on par, I'd say.

Median yearly household income across US states varies by less than a factor of two in nominal dollars, not accounting for differences in land prices or cost of living. (Mississippi = $37k ... Maryland = $70k) Mississippi has a <7% unemployment rate, down from a peak of about 11% in 2010. Compare to a Greek unemployment rate of 26%.

There are certainly many poor rural people in the US who get screwed over by the society at large, just like there are many poor urban people who get screwed over by society, but that’s a different set of problems that federal transfers to keep states afloat doesn’t necessarily fix.

(I agree though that it would be nice if we in the US had a more effective set of social support systems to help individual struggling families. It would also be nice if we had stronger labor protections, a higher federal minimum wage, etc.)

Have you ever been to rural Mississippi or West Virginia? I have...

You have seriously misunderstood the situations that you've seen. Yes there are poor people in Mississippi. No they do not live like poor people in Romania. They are probably similar in a way that looms large for you, in that they make different choices about their lives than you would make for them. An American who doesn't have a smartphone doesn't want one, which is a perfectly valid choice. [0] The use of animal traction in agriculture is also a valid choice, but one would be wrong to assume that the Amish are poor. It's especially problematic for "yuppies in McMansions" to attempt to universalize their idiosyncratic tastes in housing. Most of humanity does just fine without a giant pile of pine sticks and drywall.

[0] https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/lifeline-affordable-tel...

In 1953 Germany had half its WWI debt erased to rebuild the country and curtail violent attitudes.

Also, Greece did not dig themselves in this hole alone. Its a little telling that so many EU members kept lending to them despite ample signs of fiscal irresponsibility.

I agree with the general gist of your argument but you can't treat firms and nations and equals in this case. Greece's problem reflects a deeper concern of international debt structures and the concerns of the union against those of member nations.

a video i watched (which, i can't for the hell of me, remember the url or name), explained that the difference between the EU and the USA is that of national identity. People in the USA doesn't bat an eye when federal funds are sent to states whose revenue is below the national average. There's no ethos where a 'they' and 'us', unlike in the EU.

This is mostly correct, but the dynamic in USA is a bit more complicated. When one compares "donor" states to "recipient" states, by and large the donors are states with a political commitment to expanded federal spending while legislators elected by the recipients at least rhetorically favor curtailed federal spending. The transfers thus amount to a sort of "bribe" that allows spending bills to get through Congress. It's not clear to what extent the "spend less" position is actually a calculated pose to procure more transfers...

I think one reason is there are larger cultural differences, which is also reflected in government efficiency, corruption, and work ethics.

In particular, the northern 'ex protestant' nations are hesitant to piss away money on their southern friends. For a lot of reasons.

Have you heard of the "halo effect"? It's a very common fallacy where people mistake cause and effect. If a company is doing well, people will say "this company has great management and has a great, productive work culture." If a company is not doing well, people will say "this company has inefficient management, and has an unproductive, corrupt work culture."

They will say this, even if it is the exact same company say, right before a crisis and 6 months into the crisis. See [1] for more information.

When Germany's economy was doing worse than EU average, Germany was the "sick child of Europe". Now they are doing great and they are the "locomotive engine of Europe".

Besides, how do you reconcile these "ex protestant" work ethics with the breathtaking corruption of the VW scandal?

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions/dp/...

I guess the Allies also learned from previous experience (the Treaty of Versailles), and thankfully listened to Keynes the second time around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_t...

"Keynes points to the material violation of the terms regarding reparations, territorial adjustments, and an equitable economic settlement as a blot on the honour of the western allies and a primary cause of a future war. Given that he was writing in 1919, his prediction that the next war would begin twenty years hence had an uncanny accuracy."

Greece was loan-sharked by Germany and other "investors" for the explicit purpose of pumping up German exports and making German shareholders happier.

This is not quite the same thing as taking a lot of other people's money.

A lot of the money never reached the ground, so most of the Greek people got very little benefit from it. Rather a lot of it went on defence boondoggles. See e.g.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military...

Greece got loans at lower interest rates than Germany was paying at the time. That's not what "loan sharking" is.

How does this make sense? Greece accounts for less than 1% of German exports. Germany gave Greece 80B to protect 4B worth of exports?

I don't argue it makes sense, but Germany also got a few years of interest on those loans. Could they have gotten the same interest elsewhere for significantly less risk? I doubt it.

There also are claims Germany made lots of money on the crisis itself because it made it cheaper for them to borrow money (http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/08/10/study-germany-ma...)

>Greece was loan-sharked by Germany and other "investors" for the explicit purpose of pumping up German exports

I hear the same argument with the housing crisis; that people were somehow "suckered" into borrowing money. I don't understand how other people can be blamed for borrowing, spending, then failing to repay.

Keep on living, dude. If you only gain the sort of experience that gives one such understanding late in your life, you won't be the first for whom that is the case.

The irony is that Germany also owes Greece $300 billion, but refuses to acknowledge it. The German position towards Greece is extremely hypocritical, selfish, and undermining the stability of the EU.

Also, if a company borrowed money and couldn't repay it, they can declare bankruptcy and have their debt restructured. Greece needs to have their debt restructured. Most financial experts say it's irresponsible to expect them to pay it all back, but Germany took those debts from the banks (in order to protect the banks) when it was already clear Greece couldn't pay, and then used their political weight to enforce full repayment.

The way Germany treated Greece is disgraceful and foolish on several different levels, and it's extremely damaging to the EU.

>The irony is that Germany also owes Greece $300 billion //

Can you cite a source of this and perhaps go in to it a bit more?

I think they are referring to war reparations which Greece claims Germany still owes them[1]. I don't know anything about this really, but the article suggests Germany's standpoint was something to the effect that Greece should've brought this up earlier (in negotiations before joining the EU, for instance) and failing to do so should mean they aren't entitled to any recompense. An odd argument, if indeed I've understood it correctly, since I guess it would suggest Germany acknowledges there may indeed be debt owed to Greece.

Regardless, it makes for more interesting reality tv than catching up with the Khlardäshiäns[2].

[1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31849430

[2]: https://youtu.be/Ol3KuDTiZtY?t=2m20s

Originally, reparations were postponed until there was an official peace treaty. Despite WW2 ending in 1945, there apparently wasn't official peace until the German reunification in 1990. At that time, the major allies decided to forgive Germans war debt. Greece was never a party to those negotiations, and would actually like its part of the war debt to be repaid.

So before Greece was too late, they were too early because there wasn't a peace treaty yet. There's no way for them to win.

In any case, Germany had massive amounts of debt forgiven, so them tightening the screws when someone else owes them money, is very hypocritical. Add to that that Germany is really rich and could easily handle a $100 bn or $300 bn loss, whereas Greece is in serious trouble, and that's partially because of Germany.

The reason Germany is so unforgiving, is that back in 2008, Merkel wanted to rescue the banks from their bad loans, and when the German voters questioned whether that was wise, she promised that the loans would be repaid. Forgiving the loans now would be breaking that promise. Merkel wanting to save the banks from their own foolish risks is part of the problem. Had they not lent money to Greece, Greece would have had to restructure much earlier. Instead, Greece was allowed to live on money they didn't have, and all of Europe knew and was fine with that. Until the crisis hit, and now Greece is the scapegoat for everybody's problems.

I'm not saying Greece is innocent here; they obviously aren't. But almost everybody carries some of the blame here, especially Merkel, and now they're sacrificing Greece to absolve themselves of their own mistakes.

I think he is referring to the notion that Germany still owes Greece war reparations from WWII, which Greece put at 297 billion Euros [0]

This is a hairy topic, with Germany insisting that these matters were closed in the Two-plus-Four Treaty, and Greece wanting to be repaid for their post WWII magnanimity, in addition to this being viewed as the Greek government trying to weasel themselves out of systemic issues and necessary reform using dubious legal claims.

Germans, and younger Germans in particular may also view this as a "sins of our forefathers" issue, which also strikes a nerve, especially since the claim seems frivolous to many.

If Greece were devastated by a natural disaster and demanded aid citing their waving of reparations more than 70 years ago, this would be viewed in a different light, but the general perception in Germany is that they brought this issue upon themselves, even though the situation is likely considerably more complex than that.

Very very controversial, that's as much as I'll say.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reparations_for_World_W...

The EU has lost its main purpose - in a sense it's a victim of having largely done its job.

Although it was originally created to prevent future wars in Europe, the role it performed most effectively for most of its life was to be an incentive for countries on its borders to open their markets and become democracies. Spain, Portugal, Greece, and most of eastern Europe, left dictatorships and/or communism behind and joined the European gravy train all, all through the 80s and 90s.

But its borders are rather different now -- corrupt cronyism (to the East) and Islamic radicalisation (ISIS etc, to the south) are the main threatening neighbours. It's less effective at dealing with those, and there's not many countries it can dangle the carrot of membership in front of, and the prospects of them being accepted are lower.

So with the potential gains gone, it's left looking like a layer of bureaucracy and interference sitting heavy-handedly on top of two dozen market-based democratic economies.

What you describe is not an unreasonable assessment, but it is very pessimistic. I don't think it's a matter of bleak reality, where a more optimistic assessment is naive or less reasonable.

Europe is generally a peaceful place, a decent political culture with relatively low tolerance for overtly sociopathic political actors. The corrupt cronyism is a real problem, a bigger problem outside the EU than in and most certainly not a new problem.

One of the founding principles of the EU has really been to try and avoid a repeat of the world wars that are still (just about) in living memory. In that respect it's been a wild success, I'm not sure we've ever had such a lasting amount of peace.

As someone with a mixed UK / Greek background it's been interesting and often painful seeing the current woes of the EU. Greece has had a lot of problems, many of which really do benefit from outside oversight. I've seen a large amount of corruption there, be it deliberate or just letting things slide. Having input from outside to try and stamp out some of the more rampant stuff is very much a good thing.

However this isn't always a good thing, the rise of the far right 'golden dawn' can very much be attributed to old stirrings of anti German sentiment, much of it based on inflammatory second world war tub thumping (although ignoring the fact that many of the particularly right wing areas now were Nazi sympathisers, go figure).

The UK has, in contrast, been much more high handed. I think a lot of the Greeks are worried but ultimately they really do want to stay in the EU, where as I'm not sure that's the case in England. There's this air of superiority, both from the colonial past and the nature of the UK as an island that lends itself well to always expecting to be treated specially for some reason.

Rather than forever going towards a broader union I can't help wondering if a more hazy framework would work better, rather than having an authority in Brussels/Strasbourg could we not have representatives from sovereign governments that debate these issues when they affect areas larger than countries? Much of the current legislation seems as though it doesn't really need to be done on such a sweeping scale.

> In that respect it's been a wild success, I'm not sure we've ever had such a lasting amount of peace.

It's weird, but we basically had decades of peace in Europe with only minor conflicts before WWI. Interestingly enough, most of this minor conflicts happened in the balkans, much like recent history.

EDIT: not trying to deny your observation, or your conclusion that EU was a success in this, just mentioning an interesting fact.

Well, debatable. Last major war before WWI was in 1870, however there was an arms race and escalation of military preparation since the last years of the 1890s. So you really only had a couple of decades of peace, then people started preparing for war again.

> Europe has been at peace for a logn time

I think in terms of peace it's useful to distinguish between the EU and Europe. There have been a couple of wars in Europe in my lifetime. Not to mention a few military dictatorships (which had a kind of 'peace' I suppose - but not a good one), assassinations of leaders etc.

Maybe (hopefully!) we'll get through this without it imploding - maybe end up with a more Hanseatic League kind of set up, maybe more like the US. 'May you live in interesting times' and all that... ;-)

I agree, there has been conflict. It is far from a perfect peace. But, it has been more peaceful than ever before.

I would also question whether this period of peace in Europe is really due to the EU. The EU and it's predecessors certainly contributed to it, but I would argue it's a marginal contribution. If you look at world history after WWII you see that major conflicts - between two powerful nations - have largely disappeared. Instead we got a slew of proxy wars: US vs. China in Korea, US vs. China/USSR in Vietnam or Iran vs. Saudi Arabia in Syria more recently. I think the reason for this is purely economical. No country can afford in the late 20th century to break all diplomatic ties with another country (and their allies), so instead of engaging in an all out war they support local regimes or mercenaries whilst maintaining the necessary economic relations with supporters of opposing regimes. In Europe meanwhile the economies have become so interconnected (even before the EU) that any war would mean economic devastation for the whole region and is thus an impossible course for any regime.

I think the EU certainly helped a lot by trade and free movement of people. It's a lot harder to make people from another country into demons if you've met them and shared a bottle of wine with some of their (almost inevitably from a UK perspective, better) food. Not impossible - but much harder.

I think we've had proxy wars by major powers going back millenia - I don't think that's such a strange situation for Europe compared to free movement and cheap flights.

Nukes probably play a large part in this too.

It's unthinkable at this point for any of the large nuclear powers (e.g. the permanent members of the UN security council) to engage each other in direct military confrontation. Barring an early armistice, there's a high likelihood of human extinction as soon as one side gains the upper hand and the other side believes it has nothing to lose.

Much safer for everyone to expand their sphere of influence through proxy wars.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Is there really a strong anti-EU movement? Admittedly I don't really follow the nationals politics of the other member states, but at least from my position - living in one of the PIGS - what I see is mostly a movement against the Euro. I mean, sure, Merkel, Schäuble and Juncker are demonized quite a bit, but I think the argument is for improving the EU, not leaving it.

Nobody is against the EU except far-right political partys and their supporters. edit: so far left, too, sorry!

That's not entirely true though. There are a lot of leftists who oppose the EU because they believe it is to neoliberal, prioritizing the protecting of businesses rather than the interests of the people. At least that's the case here in Sweden, and I'd be surprised if we were unique in this aspect.

Over here in the Netherlands, that is not true. The SP (Socialist Party) is on the left end of the political spectrum and is pretty anti EU.

Political fringes of all colors are against EU by necessity. Their ideas and principles can't blossom otherwise.

In British politics the need to leave the EU ASAP unites both left and right.

I personally want out because of the Double Irish and the Dutch Sandwich. "Racist!" is the only argument the self-serving pro-EU movement have left, and no-one pays any attention to that word anymore.

The future of the UK lies where it always has, with the Commonwealth.

The leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn is a Euro-Skeptic

https://theconversation.com/with-or-without-eu-jeremy-corbyn...

In the 2015 UK general election, UKIP, whose main selling point is "UK should leave the EU" came third with 12.5% of the votes. That's a significant amount.

On my case in France (2012 election) if you do an addition of all the parties against the EU : Front National (want to go back to the Franc and do a poll for quitting the EU, ~18%), Front de Gauche (considering quitting the Union depending of the circonstances, ~11%).

So these + all the minor parties it's like 35% of votes more or less against the EU. This was back in 2012, it's currently probably higher.

In the UK, yes. The party in power (the conservatives) favour leaving the EU, and even those among them who supposedly favour staying will only do so with demands met they already know they won't get.

The population at large also support leaving, and when the referendum happens this summer, I will be surprised if this ship of fools doesn't vote to be cast adrift.

Have you got any sources on that? First of all I haven't met many people that favour leaving the EU. And what is the tory position on it? I thought they were in favour of a referendum but largely also in favour of voting to remain in the EU (at least Cameron supposedly is).

> We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out.

Can you imagine a US state doing that? I don't think unions are reversible at this state in history. The national state is not exactly living a revival. This is majorly a financial crisis.

> This has left our national governments with a nice scapegoat, great for populists, nationalists and fringe politicians to use for their purposes

That is a very good observation. It's the reason Greece is suffering at the moment. But leaving the EU at this point would be even worse.

On the US:

The USA is ancient compare to the EU. The EU's first days were debated on the internet. The US' were debated by pamphleteers, distributed on horseback and had slavery as a side issue midway down a list of policy questions to debated later.

Could you imagine The US expanding its union? Could you imagine Mexico joining, the constitution being re-written?

I don't think we're bounded by what the US is or has done. Even the US isn't. Times change.

On exits

I don't think that option would be taken very often. (A) It would pressure the EU to be what it needs to be, a Union countries want to be a part of. (B) It would change the local political debate. At the moment, the anti-EU Trump^ can safely talk without it meaning anything. I think the EU should be built to withstand border changes, in both directions.

^Interesting how rarely EU politics is debated on HN compared to US politics. Hello brothers from across the Atlantic.

I would love to see an American/Canadian/Mexican union - with similar ideals of the EU. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime though.

It seems that would produce little but similar problems to those the EU is having.

As a Canadian, this scares me. The only outcome I can imagine of such a union is that the American states would bully our politics to an even greater degree.

I would love to see USA broken up into many smaller pieces. Many of our problems are due mostly to our giant unwieldy scale. Those problems wouldn't be solved by absorbing Canadia.

I'm not opposed to less drastic unions, however. Super-NAFTA? Free immigration? I'd vote for both of those. The thing we should do to help Mexico first is to end drug prohibition. We'll be harshly judged by history, for the violence to which we've subjected the people of Mexico.

Incidentally, many of the pieces into which USA might be broken would end drug prohibition fairly immediately once on their own.

>The national state is not exactly living a revival.

...unless you look at Eastern Europe. Poland and Hungary show that homogenous nation states are not as much a thing of the past than you'd thought, and that their 'revival' (they were never dead though!) is doing just fine.

I live in Hungary and don't feel that way. In fact, not even anti-EU populists feel that way considering all the talk I've heard about closer ties to the V4 and talks of a comprehensive political framework that would tie these countries together.

So, they used EU aid and know how to stabilize and start growing and now they leave?

Sounds like an amazing idea /s

It's difficult to attribute success. Heck, it's difficult just to compare your situation to the situation 20 years ago when you were a different person.

The populists in Poland and Hungary made a story where good aspects of the current development (for example: competitive workforce, open borders) are taken for granted and bad aspects like perpetuating big differences (like, wages, or quality of public institutions) between Hungary/Austria or Poland/Germany are attributed to some evil manipulation by the seemingly neutral EU.

Every explanation for the big wage differences is quite complicated: you can't rely on any popular simple ideology. If market is efficient, why the difference? If state-regulated society is just, why the difference? This leaves space for quite stupid populist "solutions" that are not true, but at least short.

Full disclosure: I'm from the Czech republic.

Hey, I'm kinda torn on the issue as well. If not for the EU, we would not have that huge brain drain that left our country kinda stupid and slow to develop (lots of unskilled workforce left, as well).

But then again, I am fairly certain that EU integration helped with our progress, especially since we had corrupt ex-commies running the show ever since '89.

It stopped them from being too greedy, plus the aid, advice and reforms did help.

And now if some people who left return out of a feeling of patriotic duty or just wanting to improve their home country, they'll be much more effective with the knowledge they gained in western Europe...

The ability to manufacture for cheap and export without too many taxes and customs headaches really helped, too, and we've set a very low corporate income tax to attract foreign (mainly EU) companies here (which worked).

How do they show it? I live in Poland and I don't see it (though I am biased, I like the idea of unification and I wouldn't mind Europe's nation states turning into simple states).

>Can you imagine a US state doing that? I don't think unions are reversible at this state in history. The national state is not exactly living a revival. This is majorly a financial crisis.

I might be wrong, but it's not my impression that the US laws are a hodgepodge of compromises between states. In many ways the US is more coherent. Americans are also viewing themselves as Americans first, secondly as Irish, Latino, whatever their ancestors origin might be. Only rarely do Americans define themselves as being Idahoan, Washingtonian or Michigander (Exception are Texan, New Yorker and maybe Californian). For most people in the EU European wont even be their second level identification, for me personally it might be third or forth level.

My point being that not wanting the EU or parts of it, has no consequences for my identity in the same way if would for a person in the US wanting his or her state to at least partially leave the union.

The nation state are seeing a revival. Areas like Catalonia want to be their own small separate nation, Scotland considered leaving the UK. Many EU members also want to move power from a distant and anonymous EU parliament, and give it back to their national parliaments. In some cases people want to move power even closer and adopt Swiss style democracy. I don't think it's to fare fetched to see a state like Bavaria in Germany wanting to move power from Berlin to Munich.

The US started out as a hodgepodge of kludgy compromises, with a uselessly weak confederate structure, but after a dozen years of experience, the system was in many ways failing. And so, still wanting to make the nation hold together and function, with the memory of winning independence fresh, the states decided to start over, and gathered a group of delegates to write a new constitution establishing a more coherent and unified federal government.

At this point I think internationalism and republicanism in Europe is sufficiently weakened that such an outcome is impossible in the near future.

> I don't think unions are reversible at this state in history. The national state is not exactly living a revival.

Unions not reversible? Ask Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, or the USSR. Or within Europe currently, the Scottish and Basque separatist movements. The growth of the EU -- largely for financial reasons (access to EU development aid and a large market) -- has been an exception in an era of fragmentation.

Well, the soviet republics you mentioned weren't really unions but Stalin's grand vision how the world is supposed to be organized.

After WW2, commies divided the land under their control into countries and forcibly relocated people around to match new borders in pursuit of "historic justice" and whatnot.

"Can you imagine a US state doing that? "

You can't compare US and EU. US was built more or less as a coherent whole - politically speaking. EU was jury rigged on top of autonomic political entities, some with hundreds of years and some tens of years of political sovereignty.

Most of the peace was achieved by having two superpowers use Europe as their high noon staring contest location. Most of Europe was exhausted from two generations of war at that point, so having another would be a fools errand.

Also, i don't think Merkel has much say in any of this. Its her finance minister and his buddies at the ECB that is running the show.

> We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option

That has been possible since the Treaty of Lisbon.

This is not only the UK I believe, it's just the UK is the only country where citizen will have their opinion heard about the EU, the sentiment is shared by other countries. On my case in France, they won't do a vote because they are really afraid of the result, the anti-EU movement is going stronger every year and I believe it's the same in Germany, Spain and Italy. As much I as love the EU myself, it's currently not very democratic I must admit.

I think that pressure would be healthier if directed at a real path. The combination of EU as scapegoat and fear-based counter-politics by the political establishment is unhealthy. I don't think it's possible to really poll opinion in this environment.

Look at Scotland. They wanted an independence vote from the UK. It would have been historically peaceful and safe independence. They would have joined the EU, maintained close ties with England. But, when push came to shove, Scotland didn't want it, mostly because of anxiety. That's a real pressure valve. If Scotland really wanted independence (like Ireland did 100 years ago) it would have passed.

It would also put pressure on the EU to improve. I want more democracy too. It wouldn't be bad to have countries demand it to stave off EU-exit politics.

It's indeed complicated, the EU is moving way too fast for local cultures, they are also arriving in a bad economic climate so it does not help. No-one thinks themselves "European" either (whatever this might mean), the European Union looks from the outside as a floating entity on top of Europe, it's difficult for people to relate to it.

The fact that politicians are avoiding to do a poll with almost 35% (total of left + right parties) of votes to openly Anti-EU party (this was in 2012, I imagine it's more now, and this is only people voting for openly anti-EU parties, the real figures are obviously higher) is also seen really negatively and does not help at all to improve the general opinion of the European Union.

I do, to an extent. So, there is at least one.

To me, it's a modern identity. I have geographically dispersed friends and family. I am speaking to you online, right now and we are speaking candidly about political issues concerning us together. I don't even know where your'e from (Hello, by-the-way.) I appreciate the right to live in other EU countries and I would feel violated if it was curbed. I respect other European's rights to live here if they choose.

That's it. There is a lot of movement, btw and I think it's a good thing. The italians living here for 2 years before college and the Germans living in Paris for a year. The cousin who married a French girl. Maybe their grandchildren will feel differently.

We don't need to be anything in particular. We just need to function a little better. We'll feel whatever we feel. Our kids will feel what they feel and hopefully they won't bomb each others cities ever again.

Oh yeah I feel the same, I'm a French guy currently living in London but I must admit I clearly not represent the majority, especially when I look around my relatives.

I think you make a good point about your cousins children. I believe if the EU could survive for another decade or so, it will be in a much better shape. IMO the politics of free movement inside the EU changes the lives and behavior of those affected(e.g. students having the chance to live & study in a totally different culture and environment) in a way that makes is almost impossible for them to accept a reversal to the old status-quot. When the generations that are currently criss-crossing in the halls of european universities will get a chance to influence the politics I believe we'll see a much more aligned "european identity".

FWIW, in Italy the general complaint is that the EU needs reform, or that the Euro sucks, but none of the major political entities has a platform of leaving the EU (the Lega Nord does but is below 20%).

I detest Merkel generally, but her refugee policy was the right thing and earned her some grudging respect from me. Unfortunately it could very well be her undoing if she doesn't pull it off very well.

On the other hand, not much grudging or otherwise, respect from the German women (among others) molested and in some cases raped by them. Hungarian women will count themselves lucky they have Orban as PM. 'Could be her undoing' is an understatement.

> Rather than an intelligent abstract policy of allowing Greek to make their own decisions.

I think the point was that Greece needs to change and arguably are incapable of making the decisions that need to be made. Germany felt that there was an need/opportunity to impose that change. Whether it was the right move or will be successful is a completely seperate discussion.

The rampant tax avoidance, the unsustainable pension system, the very low productivity and the culture that allowed Greece to lie their way into the EU all need to stop if they are going to be a successful part of Europe.

> "[...] allowed Greece to lie their way into the EU"

I believe you hit the nail, but not quite on the head.

The fact that it was possible to get into EU through systematic lies was a symptom of a much bigger problem. I remember when Greece joined. Everyone I know thought that it was an insane idea, because Greece simply wasn't ready or financially stable enough.

But at the time the main political drive in EU was expansion. It was almost as if the heads of EU states felt that unless the union was large enough it would be irrelevant. So the policy was expansion at all costs.

And there was nothing subtle about it. Hell, a Finnish politician got the seat of a commissary of EU expansion!

Not sure whether that was naked ambition or just institutional myopia.

> We need a way for countries that don't want to be in, to get out. It will act as a relief from a lot of populist pressure. If the UK want out, they should have an available option.

The EU has a well-defined mechanism for secession; it is what the "out" option on the UK referendum is about. Any country can get out of the EU within a couple of years if they really want that.

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