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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

The Euro seems to make no sense unless there is a common government and common economic policy, which Europe lacks.

I'm from Poland and I've always been a big supporter of the Euro, but I recently realized that it can't work in its current form. I would like to see a more unified Europe instead (we have much more in common than we think). Sadly, this is not likely happen mostly due to stupidity (populist and nationalist movements all across Europe).

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I'm quite skeptical of a European political unification having a net benefit, considering precedents. To mention European cases, East Germany is still far from catching up with the western part (you might be aware of this as a Pole) and the South of Italy, which in the mid 1800s was quite advanced, has never really recovered after being "united" with the North. And we are speaking of regions with a common language.

To make things worse, the linguistic and cultural composition of Europe is much more diversified. This means a much higher friction for internal migrations, which would help balance economic mismatches. Moving say from Italy to Poland or from Greece to Germany to work requires a huge investment in language acquisition.

Another effect of language barriers is the difficulty of a paneuropean political discourse. In this respect, I am quite grateful to Varoufakis for communicating extensively in English and allowing me to access his and Syriza's message (whether I agree with it or not) out of the simplifications and potential distortions of my country's media.

China and India had language barriers and cultural differences. By introducing the state language(s) they have solved the problem in one generation. India benefited enormously by giving English the status of the state language. Europe should do it too. (I could hear an outcry of French and Germans..)

And rightly so, there are far more native German speakers in the EU than native English speakers. Even French is mother tongue to more people than English.

And yet half of all members of the EU don't share a common language they're functional in. That's a drastic inefficiency. The logical means of correcting it, is to standardize on English, which would provide a much greater international benefit than any other language already heavily spoken in the EU.

18% of the EU speaks German natively, versus 13% for English. However roughly 50% speak English as a whole, versus 38% for German. There are 360 million native English speakers in the world, and only 89 million German; with a billion English speakers globally, and only 166 million German speakers.

More than half the EU population already speaks english whereas less than one third speaks German [1]. Plus it is a much better choice thinking in global (worldwise) terms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...

English is "defacto international (or global) language" you like it or not.

No one said that English must be the only state language of Europe.

Everyone has always known this. The idea was bring in the Euro and then later the economic and political integration required to make it work. The Euro has always been a Trojan horse for European integration. If this is a good or a bad thing depends on your perspective.

The problem is that when economic issues are the cause of the failure, that doesn't make the countries involved want to integrate. It makes them hate each other instead.

Which the Greek situation have showed.

Yes this is one of the possible outcomes :(

The euro project was always a bit of a gamble. It reminds me of the German attack through Belgium during WWI. The german military high command was criticised after the war of gambling too much trying for a knock-out victory. Using the euro to achieve european integration has a similar feeling about it.

Edit. This is not a criticism of Germany in anyway, just an feeling I have based on the Euro project being a high risk, high reward strategy.

That's unfortunately going to be a tough deal. If anything the whole Euro thing has made its partners Euro-skeptical.

I'm not sure you would convince Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece that more Europe is good for them considering how bad it has been so far. ( we have hurt you, sorry, just let me be in charge and everything will be good now )

For the rest of the countries, Germany has taken the image of dictator of Europe, meaning that more Europe means more Germany telling you how to live your life for Germany's pleasure. Of course that's BS, but Germany is the go-to scapegoat and as they don't campaign anywhere else than Germany, so no matter how true that is, that is going to stick in people memories for decades.

I think you came to the right conclusion. We need more Europe now (and a more democratic / less bureaucratic one).

I think it's because of language.

If there was one official European language, as primary, it would be easier to unite the people. Language is the greatest divider. Just look at Belgium, or Spain/Catalonia, France/Corsica, it is still dividing people.

I don't even think Google Translate would help, because it could well be mainly the result of different languages causing different systems of thought.

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