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Comment by dachworker | Hacker News Reader

Bit late to the party. Just today on a Germany political podcast (Phoenix Runde) I was hearing the "experts", the crop of people who are largely responsible for the current economical and political under performance of the union, ... musing on what the solution could be to make Europe great again.

Their solution? Create an inner union of the EU countries that really matter (Germany, France, Beneleux ...etc). No I'm not making this up. It's not even the first time this idea was floated around. So to me it seems that the EU as a single block is almost finished.

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> So to me it seems that the EU as a single block is almost finished.

I don't know how old you are but as a European with a passing interest in politics I have been hearing this at least every month for the last ~20 years. And I'm sure it was said long before then.

What you need to understand is that the EU exists, and has pretty much always existed, in a constant state of crisis. There is always some major disagreement, some urgent problem. This is just a consequence of the EU's existence as an attempt to unify (in some respects) 27 pretty diverse member states. The EU has survived all of these crises to date. I'm not saying it will exist forever, but I see no reason to believe that the current set of crises will be the ones to kill it. The EU may change but I think it will trundle on for the foreseeable future.

Also, there is already an "inner union", it is called the eurozone. Again... constant state of crisis.

If we'd get a cent for every doomsaying post about EU in last 30 years, we could probably make our own Elon Musk.

> seems that the EU as a single block is almost finished

you're drawing some pretty far-fetched conclusions here

Germany and France have always been the core of the EU (and its founding members).

Euroskeptics used to say that the EU is Germany-first and France/Benelux second and everyone else last. The EU establishment used to deny this. To actually now go out and create an inner union is to validate exactly the euroskeptic claim.

It’s a podcast and you’re acting like it’s just been signed into law.

Critical thinking is not one of HN's fortes.

(Arguing about engineering pedantries is, but that is something different.)

I have never heard this claim specifically. But it is clear that the rapid east expansion of the EU still causes friction with the other goal of having a tighly integrated political and economic union. Some steps to strengthen the union may hurt the newer member states more than it would help them in their current state. It is really hard to balance this. This is why the inner union ideas get floated from time to time.

I don't necessarily think it is a good idea. I am a firm proponent of the EU. In a world where the other major powers are many times bigger than any individual European country, Europe cannot defends its interests when every member country is on its own. There are many issues with the current shape of the EU, but I see it as a necessary step on a path to something better.

A coordinated federation could also work, instead of a centralized union.

No, it wouldn't work. The coordination and decision-making processes would be even slower than the EU's current glacial speed. In order to persevere, the European countries must coordinate quickly and act with decisiveness for the next couple of years or risk becoming vasalls to a strong Russia and China.

Well, I think to counter invasive countries military ambitions, a military defense pact is needed. Not central regulation of the size of cucumbers.

And as for everything else, open borders, freedom of movement, standardisation of infrastructure etc. all can work without being mandated as well, if there is a common interest in them. The EU was designed, when there was no internet. Coordination can happen transparent and quickly without kafkaesk buerocratic institutions. And when there is no common interest to do things - then the EU in its current shape is not working so well either.

This take is shortsighted on many levels. Coordination without a fixed framework to do it in creates kafkaeque negotiations where every involve party can fight tooth and nail for their pet rule or exception and everything slows down to a crawl. A government like structure sets clear enough rules and processes that force results.

European defense structures rely on economic collaboration as well. There are lots and lots of multilateral weapon R&D programs that are only really possible because cross border collaboration between the involved companies is trivial because of the EU.

"kafkaeque negotiations where every involve party can fight tooth and nail for their pet rule or exception and everything slows down to a crawl."

That is pretty much how I see the EU as it is. Maybe you are aware of the luxory of moving the whole parliament once a month between Bruessel and Strassbourg?

And calling my comment shortsighted is just inviting me to return the compliment and further degrade all debate btw.

The EU has its warts. I'm not going to deny that. The EU parliament moving between Brussels and Strasbourg is indeed silly. Have you looked at the ridiculously long list of exceptions Britain had negotiated for their EU membership? These are the kind of compromises it took to construct a set of rules to create a framework for exceptionally close international cooperation between sovereign countries. Now that that framework is in place, there is no more room for further exceptions. If every little trifle of a thing had to be negotiated separately between all the EU member countries without any governance structure, can you even remotely imagine how slow, kafkaeque the process would be and how much each nation would try to inject their own petty interests into everythin? We probably wouldn't have a nice uniform rule for importing cucumbers(yeah, I said it...), but one with a myriad exceptions that are truly maddening. And it would have taken at least a couple of extra years to pass.

I can't see how your vision is even the tiniest bit practical. It just ignores reality.

" It just ignores reality."

Or it acknowledges reality as it is. (I have seen lot's of europe)

I don't see a need for universal regulation of everything, which of course will get messy and weird.

I do see a need for standardisation of infrastructure. Track gauge of railways. No expensive roaming for telecommunication. Energy grid. Education certificates. Europol. Those things - and the debate there can also get exhausting for sure, but must not be.

But whether I will buy polish meat in what shape, or french cheese in what condition, is something I would like to decide on my own and don't need EU intervention. So no debates needed there, no complications of things that need no regulation.

I also don't see a need for a parliament that big at all, or actually a european parliament that has to physically meet in the first place. So expert comitees, that work on the bordercrossing problems yes - and then all the local state parliament can legalize the implementation.

Pretty much what is happening right now, just with less complications.

So you see the point that governance on the level of the EU is needed! The current lawmaking process on the EU level is still too convoluted and there were some minor reforms already to straighten it out a little. If we keep honing it, we'll eventually get a fine government structure at that level that works.

I feel this discussion thread has run its course. I said what I want to say and anything more would be pointless repetition.

It is indeed a fundamental debate out of scope for this thread. But please don't insult people in the future for coming to different conclusions than you. The tensions are high enough in general already.

My main point is and was, voluntarily coorperation beats forced cooperation most of the time. And if there is a will (even if it just comes out of the fear of external forces) - then even hardcore nationalists are able to compromise. Right now they use the EU to blame anything and block things out of general principle. Using the EU as a cheap scapegoat for own failures, but also for the feeling of it being imposed on them - and to this I can relate, even though I am far from being a nationalist.

I'd say if it has ever been Germany first, that started in the 90s or later. France needed some convincing to agree to German reunification, and they weren't wrong about what would happen next. Germany simply has the largest population in Europe now. AFAICT, Germany is not really seeking out a leading role, it's more trying to avoid it, which has its problems, too.

Germany is lobbying all the time for stupid rules to please minority members of their home coalitions (see them trying to torpedo nuclear as a carbon free source on energy in all the European law related to clean energy to appease Die Grünen for exemple) and have realigned themselves strongly with the US since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Since Von Der Leyden appointment, the commission has been favouring them a lot.

The main issue is that the EPP is basically in service of Germany and France lost a lot of influence when most of their deputies joined Renew, a party which is less well integrated in the European Parliament apparatus. That and France failures to even start tackling the structural reforms it needs obviously.

Regarding von der Leyen I would just like to say that she is widely disliked in Germany and "failed upward" into the EU government. Whatever she is doing, it's her will, not that of most Germans.

The organisation founded in 1957 which is now known as the European Union, originally had six members: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Weird how everyone always forgets about Italy

Fair point. It’s because France and Germany were the driving force behind the Treaty of Rome (despite it being signed in Italy) and well Benelux wasn’t that important.

Yes, and Germany and France have also been open that the goal was always (and still is) political union. For a lot of other EU countries that is not the goal. So there has always been an "inner core". Making that official is not going to be a huge jump, or particularly destabilising.

The fact that you’re basing this off a podcast aside, it seems fine to allow deeper political ties for countries which want it. Some, but not all, want a unified pan-European military for example. Some countries would prefer the EU remain in its current quasi-(con)federation form, but there’s a group which would gladly form a stronger federation like the United States.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_army

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Europe

You’ll notice it’s not exactly a clandestine conspiracy lol

What's the use of a pan EU military when most EU members are already in NATO? Just to add Austria, Cyprus and Ireland to a pan EU force? Rather than that allow a share of EU funds to be used for members' militaries and adopt common EU military policies. Also incentivize EU members to buy EU military equipment using such EU funds.

The ability for EU common bodies to command the new army to defend their other members without being subjected to divide/conquer tactics from US, RU and CN.

So the idea of building a military, or encouraging economic growth were out of the question?

That’s how it’s done: hard power and economic growth. Every empire in history had those two things. Europe has neither.

It’s pretty obvious than enlargement went too fast and is an utter failure. It was mostly pushed by the UK which wanted to weaken the union as a political entity as much as possible.

It’s even more true with the euro zone where some members are directly harmed by the high exchange rate.

It would make a lot of sense to go back to a smaller more integrated union with the countries which want it and leave the ones which only want the single market be part of a less integrated union.

Then again, considering Germany and France disagree about pretty much everything at the moment, I doubt it would go very far.

> It would make a lot of sense to go back to a smaller more integrated union with the countries which want it and leave the ones which only want the single market be part of a less integrated union.

That option does exist, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way. Nothing is stopping a member country from leaving the EU and joining EFTA and the EEA afterwards. The fact that no country is seriously contemplating this is telling.

That only going to a less integrated union. That doesn’t solve the issue of inner members wanting to go faster towards union and being hampered by countries which shouldn’t even be members like Hungary.

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