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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. Congress is also pretty damned incompetent at its duties. In many ways the EU institutions are functioning better than their American counterparts. Sometimes it's better to have 20 different opinions to reconcile, rather than two polarised factions that can't concede on anything.

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Yes, but too many of the EU leaders and elites want to create a United States of Europe, with the Commission/Parliament hybrid as an even more dysfunctional equivalent of Congress (imagine how productive Congress would be if everyone had to speak through an interpreter).

It's actually worse than that though. The EU Parliament doesn't really deserve the name. It can't actually initiate legisliation, so it's meaningless for EUP parties to have any actual policies, so they don't, so there's no formal opposition either, so nobody cares about them and ... therefore ... (phew) turnout in European elections is extremely low. Most people can't even name their MEP, and why should they be able to? That MEP has no power to speak of.

Federalists (like me) who want to create United States of Europe usually want to get rid of the current institutions, and replace them with proper executive and legislative entities, elected by European citizens.

But the focus on Commission/Parliament is misguided: they are a just a smoke screen, as neither has much power. In the EU power is held by the European Council and The Council of the European Union [1]. These two institutions are composed, respectively, of the head of states (Merkel, Hollande, Renzi, Cameron, etc.) and the various ministers of each branch of government (economy, education, agriculture, etc.). The former controls the commission, and the latter holds most of the legislative power.

[1] Not sure I got the English name rights, as they are pretty confusing.

The elites are one thing, and actual European people are another. Of course the elites have a disproportionate amount of control but that's true of any institution but it doesn't invalidate the institution. European people by and large enjoy a better quality of life because of free trade, movement and most importantly peace. That there's one set of scoundrels at the top vs another isn't as important as is made out. At the end of the day all that will happen in the UK now is a new set of elites take control (the old rule Britannia brigade that were previously on the wane) and there won't be the buffer of a larger enveloping organisation to help smooth over the bumps. Britain has been declining recently because that's what happens to spent colonial powers, not because they were in the EU.

Of course people benefit. And if the EU had never existed, many of those same benefits would have been created via a patchwork of treaties and deals anyway.

The EU is not a choice between integration and chaos, despite what Brussels wants people to believe. European economies were integrating before the EU anyway.

Many benefits for sure, especially if you live in one of the richer countries. But what the EU gives you are certain rights, which are guaranteed to any EU citizen. Movement is no longer governed by treaties, but a right. As a business, you have the right to sell across Europe, without local regulations being able to ban you unilaterally.

Good luck selling software across the EU if you live there. Check out the new VAT rules the EU imposed. It's less paperwork to sell to everywhere but the EU, which is madness.

That's a different thing, you sure have the right to sell your software. Unification of VAT policies would be a hard sell for the member countries.

How is this different from having to account for different state and local taxes when selling software inside the US?

Your payment processor tacks on sales tax. Just list where you have nexus. You get a number at the end of the quarter that you pay when you file taxes.

With VAT, you have to keep careful track of input VAT and sometimes later claim repayment from various governments.

There is a lot of obligatory registration and document submission.

The velocity of legislative change is high, especially when summed across member states.

Small entities have an incentive to underreport. Thus, a lot of enforcement activity is targeted at small entities.

I think a lot of EU members would rather take the Swiss[1] deal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...

Instead, you get European regulations that ban you locally.

> European economies were integrating before the EU anyway.

No no no, the EU is an artefact of that integration. Just because it's grown a head and legs, and started to talk isn't an excuse to kill it though. Better off talking back. But when the quality of representative you send over is Nigel Farage you can't expect much of a conversation.

Definitely a frank discussion to be had about the behaviour of the EU (in particular the EC) and maybe such a discussion will be the good that arises from this ill wind.

People vote for Farage because the only difference between MEPs is how much of a symbolic protest against the Commission they will make. There's no other difference: it's not like an MEP can introduce a bill to change freedom of movement or reduce the EU's budget.

So the UK sends Farage. He achieves nothing. Nobody cares, because nobody expected him to achieve anything anyway. No MEP could.

Yes you are right. Political parties need to present a Euro agenda that their representatives will commit to advancing. Currently we only have the false dichotomy of (a) do what Brussels tells us or (b) tell Brussels to GFT which really isn't good enough. Sending the prime minister over there every 6 months or so to "get concessions" that the representatives should have been coherently campaigning for in the first place doesn't count.

In that case the EU isn't a choice at all.

Peace in Europe? You gotta be kidding. NATO bombed down Yugoslavia less than 20 years ago.

Well, Russian militia bombs Ukraine today, and that is Europe too.

But it's not EU, nor is Yugoslavia.

What is Ukraine? UK Reign?

> The U.S. Congress is also pretty damned incompetent at its duties.

People seem to forget that the American government has been made "incompetent" by design. The Founding Fathers never wanted a strong government.

As a german, there is a reason Hitler create a centralized government tuned for efficiency; and there is a reason Germany was rebuilt as an inefficient bureaucracy. Because in the latter you only get to move fast on something if every single involved person has a natural understanding that this is the right thing to do, has to be done, and why did it take so long?

Inefficient government makes it harder to move against your own population without open military action.

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