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Comment by yessirwhatever | Hacker News Reader

That is the most bullshit thing I heard today. The EU is an achievement that has given Europeans an incredible amount of freedom, not least the freedom of open borders. It needs to be reformed and modernized so that future generations can enjoy the same (or even more) freedoms as we do. I hope you are aware of the cynicism of speaking of tyranny in light of what is going on in Ukraine and Russia.

I’m an EU citizen, have been one for 15 years, I still have to carry my ID card with me if I want to travel to Hungary and further West. Non-EU countries like Norway or Switzerland don’t have to do that. The joys of living in a second-level EU country (Romania, in my case).

The accession process did give us higher incomes, that is correct, but it also meant about 20-25% of the population (mostly young people) just packing up and leave the country (5-6 million out of a population of 21-22 million).

the open borders come from Shengen agreement not the EU. You can drive through switzerland no problem

> It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, by five of the ten member states of the then European Economic Community.

> Originally, the Schengen treaties and the rules adopted under them operated independently from the European Union. However, in 1999 they were incorporated into European Union law by the Amsterdam Treaty, while providing opt-outs for the only two EU member states that had remained outside the Area: Ireland and the United Kingdom (which subsequently withdrew from the EU in 2020). Schengen is now a core part of EU law, and all EU member states without an opt-out which have not already joined the Schengen Area are legally obliged to do so when technical requirements have been met. Several non-EU countries are included in the area through special association agreements.

You are right, and wrong. You cannot drive through Switzerland (I lived there for two years so have personal experience) without showing passport. It works some of the time, but they do checks. For me it has been perhaps 25% of the time entering Switzerland I was stopped and passport for everyone in the car was checked. This was on a Swiss registered car with Swiss highway sticker on.

And the Schengen agreement is EU law :-)

That's like saying free speech in the US comes from the 1st amendment, not the constitution.

Not in Romania, it isn’t (nor in Bulgaria). I should know, as I’m from Romania.

As part of the aforementioned EU law, there's a list of countries to which it applies. The two you've mentioned aren't on it. You can look it up in the Amsterdam treaty if you'd like :)

edit: here's the law for your convenience: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/SK/TXT/?uri=CELEX:11...

So an EU law that doesn’t apply to the whole EU, that bodes well for a confederate project.

Isn't that what the article is arguing for though? A multi-speed Europe?

Count of disingenuous to argue for a multi-speed Europe starting from now on when we have been a multi-speed Europe already. I'd be perfectly fine with that, too, but getting rid of the unanimity thingie is just asking for trouble.

The „The EU has done a couple of things well, so you now have to support full blown centralization/communism.“ argument is luckily falling apart. We should focus on isolating the good parts (mainly free trade, external security) and get rid of all the undemocratic cruft

- Government is tyrannical - Government is useless - Government dilapidates money - Politicians serve their own interests - Politicians are power hungry - Politicians are elitist jackasses - Politicians have different agendas (that they don’t reconcile) - Politicians don’t serve citizens - We need to throw all away

Doesn’t seem very specific to the EU. Do you know about the Barnum effect? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect

> EU should dissolve itself and be rebuilt from the ground up, with one referendum this time, not two

Why should the replacement union by any better than the existing one?

Agree for the lawmaking part, though the free trade agreement is great and should be expanded.

Deregulation works

Counterpoint: not necessarily?

Huh? EU citizen here. The EU got us a lot of stuff that is very good for its citizens:

- a common currency, eliminating the need to exchange currency - remember, Europe is a lot of small countries and you can drive six hours and pass eight different countries.

- a common border-control free zone ("Schengen agreement")

- a common, free-of-charge mobile phone roaming area

- common consumer protection laws in all areas of business, particularly data protection (GDPR), product safety (e.g. RoHS) and finance

- infrastructure development across Europe (e.g. constructing trans-European highway and rail network)

- a common economic market with the same standards for everyone

When comparing the EU to the US, I definitely prefer the EU, as dysfunctional as it can be sometimes (especially in foreign policy and military).

> common consumer protection laws in all areas of business

As an American, every time I buy something directly from a European company online (most recently ebooks, for instance) I come away thinking "wait -- was that it"? Like I was bracing to be drenched in raw sewage and given a black eye. Might be over-generalizing from my limited experience, but I do appreciate the difference. I feel like the U.S. quit even talking about consumer protection in the 80s.

So I'd say these things actually benefit more than just EU citizens!

EU currency isn't necessarily good, especially the attached ECB which now has no power to increase interest rates due to a disparity of member states with economies that are impossible to reconcile in a single currency.

Yeah idk what OP was on about, the EU is huge for allowing Europe to punch at the level of the US, China etc

Despite the trollish zeal of your argument, I believe this dangerous sentiment needs to be properly refuted.

> The parliament is made of power hungry MPs and a commission full of elitist jackasses, with a million and one agendas

An alternative to people ready to fight, and campaign for a place in parliament are people without any agency in the fate of the country, and nothing to lose if they want to massively harm the country.

The worst alternative by far is to have a parliament full of uncharismatic yes-men, who would be easily dominated once some charismatic Der Fuhrer would appear.

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