The fact that so many in the EU don’t realise this just points out how amazing American propaganda is
Asking as a fellow European (HU)
Basically Germany's entire foreign policy is economic suicide and very much driven by a US stooge (Baerbock). The total penetration of the German Green Party (formerly pacifist) is an excellent example of American influence.
Sanctions on Russian energy are a response to invasion. Apart from moral reasons, they also are meant to cripple russia so we don't have to fight them later in the baltics, in poland or romania.
So it's pretty much EU self interest here.
I might get downvoted for this, but the duty of every head of state is to ensure its country's economic and citizens well being is above anything else.
And what the EU as a whole did was exactly the opposite with the sanctions.
And no, no one would have had to fight anywhere else in Europe.
They are doing that by ensuring future conflict is much more unlikely.
If these measures were done earlier perhaps russia would not have started current invasion and we'd be much better off.
So perhaps politicians failed by being compliant up to now.
Try telling the baltics, poland, romania that they should not fear russia and continue trading... Same countries russia constantly threatens and are part of EU and NATO.
Imagine germany's position if Poland is conquered by russia.
> And no, no one would have had to fight anywhere else in Europe.
That's a bold statement considering russia's posturing, threats, history and leaked initial plans.
I’m very proud of that and I think cutting dependency on Russian gas – while we might not have necessarily wished for it to go this fast – is just plain good policy, making Germany more resilient in the future. Obviously there have been some short term bad consequences, that‘s pretty much unavoidable with any such drastic shift. But consequences have been far from catastrophic or existential for us. Germans and Europeans are going through some times that are a bit tougher – the people suffering, however, are in Ukraine.
I see Germany and Europe coming out of this more resilient and safer, especially if we make sure Putin cannot win this war.
https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/comments/tdct34/russian_mili...
This article says the speaker is "Colonel Igor Korotchenko, formerly of the Russian General Staff and air force and currently a reserve officer".
https://www.thesun.ie/news/8513264/russian-state-tv-discusse...
This time we're tripping over ourselves to to make life harder for the Russians no matter the cost, seemingly lacking any self awareness.
Europe desperately needs its own army.
Ha! Do you not remember the Time making Putin a person of the year? They encouraged it back in 2009
And the worst part is they even fail at providing a good single market. You still can't work for a Spanish company from Germany (without being a freelancer), or pay your taxes in Spain with a French bank account. If you start a company, hiring across Europe means having local payroll offices to handle local taxes and labour laws in local languages in every single country (and possibly more internal autonomous regions). Trade unions differ in every country so there's no central negotiations.
Residence registration and ID is done independently in every single country, so you might be delayed by months when moving for work.
This is what we have in the EU at the moment - VDL as a "compromise" between Center-Right, Center-Left, Center, "South-bloc" and "North-bloc", coming from the party that won the election.
None of the other major party candidates would have been able to form a commission (maybe Margarethe Vestager, but then the party arriving third would have won, which would have been weird and undemocratic to some.)
I know some people would rather have the head of the commission elected directly - but, seing the crazyness of French system, completely centered on the election of a single person, I'm starting to reconsider...
As for being a "puppet state", well... I guess we come back at the US by forcing people to implement GDPR popups ;) ?
Right now VdL has just failed upwards, being a terrible politician in Germany who was moved to the EU to get her out of domestic politics, and it seems she'll be NATO leader soon (again unelected).
The ePrivacy Directive is different from the GDPR btw. The GDPR is actually not so bad tbh - although a bit too over-reaching, but at least it's a step towards making some things like I mentioned in the previous comment a bit more uniform.
The Parliament is also very weak and can't propose laws, etc.
I guess Californians and Texans can both vote for local politicians under the same party, but nothing force the politicians to vote together once in Congress ?
Also, I think as a bloc, the EU is not entirely ready yet for, say, French people to directly vote for non French people. But who knows.
As for the balance of powers in the EU, it's far from perfect. But coming from France, who am I to judge ?
I'm not sure I get your point. The European Parlement Election _is_ held accross all EU contries "almost" at the same time. It's spread accross a few days to respect the voting tradition of each member state, but the campaign very much happen at the same time for everyone.
There were debates between the "heads", but there you hit the language barrier - we're not going to see a Spanish candidate arguing with a German one in English on French Television any time soon.
> Like have French, Spanish, Greek, Swedes, Germans, etc. all debating and voting - and people would actually know the background of who the President of the EU commission is!
To be honest, the 2019 elections were the first time it _did_ felt like the voting was occuring across the bloc. Each cross-european party had a few clear faces for candidates for the Commission, beforehand.
Had the PPE received a clear majority, we would be talking about the Webber Commission - except, no-one really won, and they had to pick a compromise candidate.
> Right now VdL has just failed upwards
She is the grand tradition of the parlementary leaders chosen because they were "the least worse alternative", and "bad enough to be acceptable by everyone."
Again, I don't know if it is structural, or just the result of an election without a clear majority.
I understand this is an issue because she was only known in Germany. Would it have been better to at least choose a "compromise candidate" that had previous EU-level experience ?
Ironically, you have to notice that the British People did not vote for Sunak either ;)
I don't know what's the structural way to avoid "an elected body not agreeing on a name chosen before the election". Do you stick to the name, until you reach gridlock ? Do you setup your elections to ensure a clear majority, artifically reducing the diversity of your electorate until you have a duopoly ?
But VdL is the head of the Commission not Parliament (which is also far too weak IMO). The equivalent would be the King in Britain, which is obviously even worse, same for the House of Lords, etc. but two wrongs don't make a right.
I think really the Parliament should be more powerful with PR voting for the European blocs directly rather than local parties with the lists, etc. and the President should also be directly elected.
Basically give the EU parliament more power in return for greater democracy.