Co-operation between neighbours is a inherently a fairly good idea, but that doesn't mean the bureaucratic fustercluck of the EU is the only vehicle with which this can be accomplished.
Co-operation between neighbours is a inherently a fairly good idea, but that doesn't mean the bureaucratic fustercluck of the EU is the only vehicle with which this can be accomplished.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, about twenty countries wanted to join the EU as soon as they could. Some like Serbia are still working to fulfill the entry criteria. Brexit does nothing to change that: Britain was always an exception with its recent imperialist past.
The EU institutions are often bureaucratic. Yet they offer more representation and individual freedom to small countries than does the American constitution, for example. Given the often conflicting requirements, many aspects of the EU work amazingly well.
This is a joke, right? Ever heard of French Indochina, French Syria, or the Algerian War? Or how about the Belgian Congo? Or Spanish Morocco? All from the second half of the 20th century.
And let's not forget the Germans conquering all of Europe. And your own country, Finland, siding with them.
As far as WWII and Nazis -- that is precisely the reason why we have the EU, and shouldn't be brash in dismissing it. Nationalism in Europe ends up badly.
If Brexit proponents feel Britain should work with English-speaking former colonies on the other side of the planet, that's fine -- but why come up with lies about the EU to advance that goal?
I had to laugh after reading this line. American constitution gives much more power to the residents of the smaller states because of the Senate and the electoral college. In addition, US offers everyone much stronger civil liberties than most European countries. Compare the First Amendment with Germany's hate speech laws for example.
Civil liberties between USA and EU are a toss: the First Amendment is strong in its scope, but on the other hand things like privacy are much better protected in most EU countries. American legislation doesn't do much to protect citizens against corporations.
I suppose governments are regarded as inevitable, which is why this strange double standard exists.
Why should they have a "unified front" in an irrelevant peripheral war?
>They failed to provide any military deterrence to the Russian federation
Because the "Russian federation" is a viable antagonist for EU?
If anything, the US overestimates how important its "shield" is, as if they are some kind of cavalry and EU a damsel in distress.
US involvement and NATO are mostly remnants of the Cold War, when USSR and its satellites in Eastern Europe was indeed a formidable antagonist for the European countries. The US, due to its size and economic/diplomatic influence still has lots of European politicians by the balls, and can buy others. This is what prevents an EU-driven NATO-like body.
That, plus the fact that EU is just a loose union of different national countries, and not an actual federation of a single people, like the US is, and European national interest don't always see eye to eye.
Russia is of little consequence in the European state of affairs/influence, and fundamentalism terrorism from the failed states is a mess the US created and/or fueled, and which European powers like France and UK could have handled 10 times better (and had, in the past).
Because the war definitely created issues between states in the EU at the time, between those states part of the coalition of the willing and those states that were not.
Because the "Russian federation" is a viable antagonist for EU?
I don't know why you're scare quoting "Russian federation" - that is the official name of the Russian state.
An economic union and monetary union that can't secure its on borders or have a unified foreign policy is just completely putting the cart before the horse.
Hardly. There were and are tons of issues between EU states, but none of those were created by "the Iraq war" and by whether said states wanted to join the "coalition of the willing (to be led by the US)" or not. The tension at the time was just an expression of pre-existing differences and divergent interests, not something new brought up by the response to that war.
>I don't know why you're scare quoting "Russian federation" - that is the official name of the Russian state
Because unless one is speaking in official capacity, or wants to make it sound scarier than it is, one can just call it Russia.
>An economic union and monetary union that can't secure its on borders or have a unified foreign policy is just completely putting the cart before the horse.
Europe has never shown much of an issue in securing its borders, at least not any more than 9/11 or the presence of millions of latinos in the US is a sign that it cannot secure its borders.
Pedantic, sure. Trying to make it sound scarier? Hardly.
> They failed to have a unified front on the Iraq war.
All member states of the EU consider pluralism a core value. But yes, it would have been much nicer if all of Europe had just said "no".
> They failed to provide any military deterrence to the Russian federation
After a few hundred years of cultural exchange on an amicable level and another 50 years of a forced, much tighter relation between Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, one cannot seriously expect Europe to fight the US' war against someone most still consider a friend. Oh yes, we, as Europeans, also don't need to turn Europe into a war zone just to satisfy US geopolitical dreams. Or maybe it is just the memory of fighting in our home countries that makes us understand that we don't want this.
> And now they failed to persuade one of their most powerful members from leaving.
If you had followed European pre-Brexit news, you'd know that all reporting was against Brexit and that the vote for Brexit surprised even those who fought for it.
I'm definitely no fan of the EU, but unsubstantiated generalities won't help you make your point.
Do you know how many times Poland has been invaded or partitioned in the past 300 years?
How about all the map redrawing in Europe over the past 1000 years? I'm guessing this too was completely amicable and was primarily just an excuse to ramble across the Prussian countryside? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2LgiMMGf6Q
> Oh yes, we, as Europeans, also don't need to turn Europe into a war zone just to satisfy US geopolitical dreams.
Unsubstantiated generalities won't help you make your point.
177 years. Poland has not existed as a sovereign country from 1795 to 1918. Since not even the Polish can agree on an answer to your question, I'll refrain from it as well.
> How about all the map redrawing in Europe over the past 1000 years?
Excluding islands, not much worse or better than anywhere else in the world?
If you look at any of the published/leaked scenarios for US/RU-wars: All of them predict that the most heavy fighting will be in Europe, unless it's just nuked en passant.
Ughh. That's like saying the UK has only existed for 301 years; It's the answer of an idiot savant.
There is a European Defense Agency and there are EU battlegroups that sort of form a standing EU army. The EU definitely is a military union and there are quite a few people pushing for even more cooperation on that front.
EDIT: For those people down voting I would suggest reading the preamble of the Paris treaty[1], which essentially started the EU. It's not exactly subtle or ambiguous about the goal.
[1]: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/europe-forges-ahe...
You don't act like a single nation either. When a hurricane hits the US we don't worry about who foots the bill, we collectively respond at the Federal level to solve the problem, in the expectation that if we ourselves have a similar disaster then everyone will step in for that too. You can't say that about, say, the refugee crisis in the EU, which has entirely been lumped onto the backs of the states least able to afford to deal with it.
Basically the EU's problems are fundamentally the same as those of the Articles of Confederation. You can run down the list: no Federal military force, no Federal ability to tax and spend, a body of members who espouse values of unity but actually stand for the values of their own independence and sovereignty, who work against each other every step of the way if it'll mean a bigger slice of the pie for themselves, etc. Fundamentally you still view yourselves as sovereign nations and national citizens, rather than Euro Member States and Euro Citizens.
Honestly what the EU really comes down to is a bunch of tiny, insignificant states who think they deserve a seat at the grown-ups table of international politics but are unwilling to make the sacrifices they need to get there. You don't have one foreign policy, you have 28 foreign policies, and the same thing internally.
The EU is first and foremost an experiment in integration of economic and foreign policy, it clearly doesn't work at that. If you want to be a United States of Europe, then you need a Federal government with some authority. If all you want is European Peace, can't that be handled at the United Nations?
That is how NATO was designed.
There is not and never was a plan for the US not to be dominant.
Stratfor/Friedman have been claiming EU is on disintegration path for years. Now George Soros, previously upbeat about EU and its values, is acknowledging the same trend.