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"the EU is taking away liberties of people and countries in name of a 'common good' and a 'better europe'"

I'm struggling to think of what individual liberties I've lost to the EU.

On the other hand the fact that people from anywhere in the EU can come here to live and work here in the UK is great and the fact I can work, live and travel where I want within the EU looks like a huge increase in liberty to me.

Ok, first I'm not totally against EU and I know they did some good things, but heres some things from the top of my mind that relate to my personal liberties:

- Barroso being elected in a secret vote by EU parliament (I'm sorry, but that isn't very democratic)

- Circumventing Ireland's vote on the the Lisbon treaty, but saying in the EU parliament that even without Ireland's vote, they will modify whatever in the rules is needed for the Lisbon treaty to come into effect (Think it was Barroso and some Belgium guy that said that)

- Trying to ban sale (not sure what was the resolution on that one but was supposed to come into effect early this year) on all over the counter supplements.

- Forcing US vendors to setup a local presence to pay VAT on online shopping (even of digital goods).

- While this was was sorta deserved, since we did take their 'bailout' but Germany/France and now the EU saying countries should lose their part of their sovereign powers if they request help.

- Preventing, by direct influencing politicians, referendums in countries where a vote against some resolution is against EU ideas (leaving the Euro, leaving EU, signing the Lisbon treaty which by the polls some other countries pepole would also be against it) removing from the people the right to choose democratically.

The problems I see with EU was when they tried to shift it from a set of 'gentlemen' agreements about trade and free pass to trying to make it a full state (ala USA) without allowing the people to vote on whether they want to or not.

Edit: While I can't find an unedited video, here is a good example why more and more I'm starting to hate the EU. Please do watch it and than explain to me that there are no liberties being lost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6QmH-7fu68

Of course, I should be careful about coming across as completely uncritical of the EU. Some things it does are pretty awful.

However, on balance, I'm pretty keen on wider and deeper European integration.

> I'm struggling to think of what individual liberties I've lost to the EU

Likewise. So far for France it's mostly been a very positive driving force, especially in fixing the completely fucked up legal system and strengthening defense rights (the french political class and police force are still fighting those, but they've been on the losing side every time so far). If anything, most of the EU decisions have seemed to improve the situation of individual liberties and reign in country insanity.

> On the other hand the fact that people from anywhere in the EU can come here to live and work here in the UK is great and the fact I can work, live and travel where I want within the EU looks like a huge increase in liberty to me.

Yep, great one as well (although technically the UK is not covered by the EU, it's a separate set of agreements)

You may be mixing up the Schengen Agreement, which the UK is not part of, and the EU which the UK is most certainly part of!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

As far as I know it's the EU that gives me the right to work and live anywhere in the EU. Schengen gives citizens of member countries the ability to travel between countries without passport controls.

I'm from Italy, and, even if there are some things I don't like coming from the EU (for example, some regulations about food), I find that a LOT has improved in Europe thanks to it. I would just like things to improve even more ;)

Even with food, things like the Protected Geographical Status seem like a damn good idea - we have fantastic local foods in the EU and this can do a lot to protect manufacturers from blatantly unfair competition and give good guarantees to consumers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Geographical_Status

So forty six thousand words designating what is acceptable as a 'quality wine' is a good thing? To be a quality wine requires that the wine be produced in a designated area?

Sorry, but to me that is nothing more than good old protectionism to prevent worthy competitors from entering a market. I would not doubt that it is so corrupt that you can buy your way into a designated area provided you have the connections.

While some protection of known names is valid, determine who makes a good product simply based on their geographical domain is not. What we have is government bureaucrats picking winners and losers.

Fantastic local foods protect themselves by upholding their quality and their name. I fully agree that names need protecting, however determine quality by the region its produced in; the wine example; is wrong.

Quality wine doesn't need to come from a specific area. But if you write "Chianti Wine", it has to come from Chianti (which is a specific area in Italy).

There is protectionism, and there is consumer protection: I'm glad to buy food from everywhere, but I want to know what it is.

I agree that the wine example is stupid, but here is (fairly) local example to me:

http://www.arbroathsmokies.net/pgi.php

> On the other hand the fact that people from anywhere in the EU can come here to live and work here in the UK is great and the fact I can work, live and travel where I want within the EU looks like a huge increase in liberty

Unfortunately, this is not true for UK as UK is not part of Shengen. I think most(but not all) EU citizen can settle in UK and UK citizen settle in EU countries, but this is due to bilateral treaty not European one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area)

Schengen concerns passport/border controls, it has nothing to do with rights concerning living and working in EEA countries.

You could lobby for _less_ legislation. I think what the OP had in mind was creating a better business environment, which usually means less legislation and less regulation.

Yes, when I think about harmonization, that would often mean less national regulations. The EU already often intervenes against national regulations that are anticompetitive, so this wouldn't be a first time.

" A good example is the now credit crisis which was mostly a problem with EU interfering with countries. "

This is completely untrue, if the EU had more power the crisis would be much easier to solve. For example with one interest rate for the whole Euro zone instead of a different one for each country.

Please note I mentioned an example that wasn't the response in 2009-2010 to the crisis, but what happened before causing part of the crisis. Easy influx of money, both in interest rates by joining the Euro (more borrowing but not fault or EU per se) and influx of money from EU to close specific industries and/or production of goods (Agriculture for example) was a problem. Also, at least in Portugal, during this crisis there were incentives to buy new cars that were influenced by EU. This benefited some countries but countries that do not have an auto industry were screwed. Also for example, there were added taxes from pakistan on textile products. When the floods hit, EU wanted to lift those taxes as a whole, hurting a lot of countries that have a good amount of people employed in those industries.

These are the examples I mention with interfering. A central parliament where the members are payed an enormous amount of money to be there (yes, I also have a problem with the money and benefits they get there), deciding for the whole EU where individual countries get shafted because some countries (UK, Germany, France and Italy together get more than 50% of votes) can get a majority easily and can look after their own interests.

I see the benefits of Europe but I do not like how the EU is moving towards a single mega state. This isn't what I want the EU to be or do.

If anyone should be lobbied it should be your countries government, not the EU.

> This isn't what I want the EU to be or do.

I have to ask: why not?

I'm British, I prefer this identity to being European. You can see with the single currency that one size doesn't fit all. Flying under one giant flag reduces individual states ability to stimulate their economy and promote a certain sector to grow.

The EU isn't bad and I certainly wouldn't want Britain to stop being a member however - economic woes aside - I am generally happy with how things are currently. Europe doesn't need to become the United States of Europe to prosper.

That's because the EU is a heterogeneous environment and so there is a big difference between British/German standards, quality of life and mentality and the Greeks. However, it doesn't have to be that way.

Apparently 50 states in the U.S. that are spread across an area that's almost as big as all of Europe and with a population that's racially and ethnically very diverse, can get along.

I assume you are citizen of USA.

Would you like USA to join countries like Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Kuba, Wenezuela, Peru, and others to form one huge country with common political system (mix of current political systems of these countries), new official language (let's say it won't be English), common currency, etc? For this analogy to hold don't assume USA will dominate this union (even thought it would in reality), because for most countries in EU - they won't dominate.

Think about this - more people in this new country would live outside of USA than inside, so when some hard decision comes, there's big chance former USA will lose the voting. There's big chance that people from USA will be minority in government of that new country.

That's how many people in EU think about EU becoming one state.

> I assume you are citizen of USA.

> Would you like USA to join countries like Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Kuba, Wenezuela, Peru, and others to form one huge country with common political system

I'm a citizen of the EU, and that's the kind of stuff I'd welcome. There are risks to it (leveling the resulting country to the bottom instead of the top), but it would make "globalization" far more accessible (and beneficial) to the common man.

> That's how many people in EU think about EU becoming one state.

That's mostly how people in the UK, historically "eurosceptics" and fearing a loss of power by the more populated and powerful (in their own right, but even more so when paired) franco-german pair, think. Interestingly, had the UK invested more heavily into the EU instead of going with the US they might have been able to create more balance by making the current DE-FR pair into a DE-FR-UK triplet.

> new official language

The US don't currently have an official language, only states do. And it's about half-half there (27 states have established English as an official language, including Hawaii and New Mexico which have a second official language besides english — respectively Hawaiian and Spanish)

I'm not a citizen of the USA - I live in the EU.

The difference between the USA and Brazil, Kuba, Wenezuela and Peru are much bigger and irreconcilable than the difference between Europe's members.

However I could see the US joining Mexico and Canada. Canada has pretty high standards of living and I don't know if you noticed, but Hispanics are the nation's largest minority, as lots of Mexicans have migrated. If they can eradicate corruption in Mexico somehow, they could do it.

> whenever I see lobbying mentioned, I shriek!

danmaz74's idea came because he's part of the http://SrlFacile.org initiative, which is lobbying for less laws and complications for the creation of limited liability companies in Italy!