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As the link explains, the Commission is proposing this at the behest of member states. You have it completely backward. Your elected national representatives are trying to force this through, and ironically, your elected MEPs (European representatives) are trying to save you.
Anti-EU people are often so unbelievably misinformed.
Then talking about the far right in the EU... the US has nothing to brag about. You guys don't have a left side at all: it's right vs far right there.
There are other political parties against authoritarianism (such as chat control), like the liberal Renew Europe or Volt.
OP implies he wouldn't, but that regular voters would: most voters don't think things through that much, so when they get mad about some issue, they'll vote against whoever they think is to blame for it.
In the case of the EU, it's a capitalist authoritarian project.
Edit:
There is no meaningul difference between socialism and communism, especially on this aspect (ownership of means of production), which is key to conclude that the system must be authoritarian.
"According to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx, "Marx used many terms to refer to a post-capitalist society—positive humanism, socialism, communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death"" [1]
The 'distinction' was created by Lenin and the Bolcheviks for political purposes.
"The distinction between communism and socialism became salient in 1918 after the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the All-Russian Communist Party, interpreting communism specifically to mean socialists who supported the politics and theories of Bolshevism, Leninism and later that of Marxism–Leninism,[53] although communist parties continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism." [1]
In Europe, most socialist parties have evolved to simply seek to implement socialist-inspired ideas within a capitalist society and perhaps state capitalism, whereas communist parties stayed on Lenin's line and seek to overthrow the system to set up a fully socialist society.
For instance, saying that public transportation should be public (i.e. belong to the state) does not mean that the state is authoritarian. You can have more moderate forms of socialism.
I find it interesting that the Wikipedia articles are pretty different in different languages. In French it is much more moderate than in English, for instance: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialisme.
Sure, but that's not socialism. That's state capitalism at most.
There is not gradient. If society is socialist then as per definition and as explained there must be authoritarianism to suppress any private initiative.
The article in French says the same thing as I wrote before: "socialist parties" are no longer socialist:
"Le socialisme démocratique, c'est-à-dire un socialisme converti à la démocratie libérale et respectueux du jeu parlementaire, représente aujourd'hui la tendance majoritaire des partis socialistes, qui n'envisagent plus la rupture avec l'économie de marché."
If they no longer want to get rid of the market economy and private ownership then they are no longer socialist at all! Socialism has demonstrably failed so they have been trying to adapt while keeping the name...
This logic works both ways. There is authoritarianism to enforce private ownership in capitalism. The police is a tool of the capitalist class, designed to suppress any protest against the capitalist system. It even extends internationally, to Imperialism. One only needs to think of banana republics, or more recently, Coca Cola murdering union leaders.
That's not what the sentence you quoted says. Do you speak french? Just to know (respectfully) if we need to debate the meaning of that sentence, or if I need to translate it for you.
That sentence precisely means that there is a gradient.
You think that it's not socialism anymore (which is fair, "socialisme democratique" is not "socialism" anymore), and I say that socialism has evolved ("socialisme democratique" is an evolution of socialism that works in democracies). In the end it's just a difference in the definition.
The fact remains that the US don't really have the equivalent of "Parti Socialiste": the democrats would be on the right wing in France, right?
These days there is a tendency to use socialism and practical present-day social democracy rather interchangeably, but I think that is problematic (and the latter doesn't really aim for socialism anymore, I'd say).
> if this continues long enough, the far right will come into power, and we all know how well that tends to end
You seem to be in agreement and you're reading things which aren't there.
And so does practically any poll in any EU country, as well as many non-EU countries where people are desperate to get in (be it in the Western Balkans or the Caucasus).
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/majority-of-g...
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-nato-growing-in-popularity-in-germa...
No, Germans quite like the EU. Same as in France, it's that popular and Brexit was so much of a disaster, that the far-right parties stopped talking about leaving the EU and moved to just vague stuff about reforming it.
Edit: and the extent of EU regulations is quite enormous.
That describes to a T the French party "Les Republicains", and nobody calls them far right. So no, you need the extremist "migrants bad" with zero nuance, heavy doses of populism with no foundation, promises of more money distribution (in France, the Front National is promising raising the minimum wage, bringing back the wealth tax, and other such populist "give money to the real people" things), and yes, lots of Russian support and money and dicksucking, and you get a classic European far-right party.
> In EU socialism is the norm
What is your definition of socialism? Considering the EU hasn't nationalised/EU-lised anything to control the means of production, I can guarantee you it's wrong.
The EU is neoliberal in many aspects, like the railway packages, strict rules on country subsidies into many sectors (countries can no longer just bail out their national industries when they fail). But it isn't only neoliberal. Consumer protections with warranties, GDPR, Digital Markets and Services Acts, etc. aren't strictly neoliberal.
I don't know why anyone would think something as complex as the EU can be described with a political label. Hell, most parties can barely be described with a single label, let alone a multi-government entity with many institutions and responsible for some of the greatest progress and unity the continent has ever seen.
These are not populist things…
You don't want people with radically different value systems being allowed to migrate without making efforts to integrate themselves? Sure, say so. That's a reasonable position that can be debated. Maybe you'd be OK with asylum seekers fleeing for their lives, maybe not, to be discussed.
You don't want anyone different to come to the country? That's xenophobia, and considering the demographic challenges facing the EU, stupid. And of course the funny thing is that most of the people espousing those extremist views and voting for the "migrants bad" parties are living in the countryside where there are practically no migratns and everyone knows everyone else. Cities, where those migrants (be they Afghanis or Ukrainians who ran for their lives, Sudanese looking for a better life) are actually concentrated, are markedly pro-much more open to migrants parties.
There are programs to help asylum seekers (people literally running for their lives) settle in, but there are lots of criteria to fill to be able to claim that, and it takes weeks to years of processing to validate your claims you're indeed running for your life and there's an actual risk for your life.
Non functioning? All EU countries with public healthcare score better than the US in the healthcare rankings (and life expectancy), by a good measure. And some of them are the best in the world. This [1] is just one source, you can find multiple ones with the same conclusion.
Switzerland has universal health care, regulated by the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance. There are no free state-provided health services, but private health insurance is compulsory for all persons residing in Switzerland (within three months of taking up residence or being born in the country). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland#:~:t...).
You are right in that it is not exactly neoliberal, I believe the correct term is "ordoliberal".
Sounds word by word like a Nigel Farage speech campaigning for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
It seems that his populist speech lingers a bit after achieving his goal, Brexit.
Nevertheless, years after such an event, there can be no doubt that he did not have the citizens' interests at heart. Of course, neither he nor the other parrots who spread that kind of discourse have faced the consequences of their vile actions.