Well when you write obviously non factual nonsense like
>The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well
You tend to get downvoted. When you write hilarious nonsense like this
>In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns.
And imply its the EU's fault, you get downvoted.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/12/25/256602581/wh...
> The EU's regulations on a common type of cinnamon called cassia limit how much bakers can use: 50 milligrams per kilogram of dough, if it's a traditional or seasonal pastry, or 15 milligrams per kilogram if it's just a regular old everyday pastry.
But the Denmark decided their traditional seasonal pastry was an everyday one
> This particular kerfuffle comes because the Danish food authority recently classified kanelsnegler, or cinnamon rolls, as an everyday pastry
So really this is the "fault" of the Danish government, isn't it?
Source for quotes: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/eu-worrie...
It kind of sounds like the issue is that outside of safety regulations someone told some petty tyrant that they got to decide how to classify pastry so of course they decided to classify it in such a way as to require action and importance on their own part at the expense of everyone's inconvenience.
I suspect the proper fix is to fire everyone in that department and start over.
Most countries have a body regulating what you can eat that will do it's best to stop you from ingesting dangerous amounts of, well, anything.
1. Spread misinformation and sow discontent against the EU
2. ???
3. Profit
That's true, but not all governments do it with the same ratio of genuine benefit to unwanted side-effects and collateral damage.
1. Mention an obscure irritant that is superficially not the EU's fault, and blame the EU for it
2. EU supporters pile on and say that this is what all anti-EU arguments are like
3. When examined in more detail, the irritant actually IS the EU's fault
4. People then accept #2 as true, and hate the EU more (since apparently if they examined all the obvious BS about the EU more closely, they'd find it to be true)
We don't have cinnamon patrols in my EU country, it sounds like the silliest thing in the world.
Can you name anything the EU has done well?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/europe...
It's from 2012, but the vast majority of what's said there is still true.
Although the creation of the EU was motivated in large part to prevent the recurrence of that sort of badness, the EU does not have the power to restrain the militaries of the individual European countries. Note that the EU was shown not to have the power to compel the Italian government that came to power because of the general election of March 2018 to adhere to EU regulations on deficit spending.
Nowadays war between France and Germany is close to as absurd a thought as a war between Calafornia and Texas is. It's not remotely comparable to 1900-1950.
Russia is the largest threat for European countries, but currently an attack on a NATO member seems unlikely.
Inter-war period was hardly one of economical integration, considered that most of European countries were engaged in economic war with other - eg. Poland had no economic exchange with its neighbours.
Second, the US were not a nice place to live in 1861, while Europe was. Time changes.
Removed internal borders, so you can travel from Denmark to Spain without 5 border crossings.
Created a common market, so you can order an item from a German web shop as a Belgium citizen without hurdles.
Made war between European countries economically unattractive because economies are closely intertwined.
Also, throwing it weight around on the geopolitical stage has been proven more then useful for european nations, compared to getting picked off by either china/USA/Russia.