Okay, according to this the European Community is having all its members voting on a new constitution that in my opinion essentially creates unifies Europe into one big country howcome I never heard of this? Either I'm not paying enough attention to the news or the news isn't paying enough attention to it!
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
They are now regreting calling it a 'constitution' because the French and Dutch are about to vote against it in referendums which will likely to nix the whole thing. Really, it is more like a complex treaty to iron out the EU wrinkles.
If it were to pass ratification there would be a European President but it wouldn't be any more of 'one big country' than it is now. England, for instance, would still opt out of the Euro.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You're not paying enough attention and the (US) news isn't paying enough attention.
Of course, you're also quite wrong on what the EU Constitution does. It doesn't actually change all that much about the current way things work.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yeah, the "President" wouldn't be particulary analogous to our President. And of course, the EU already has a Presidency.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote:Either I'm not paying enough attention to the news or the news isn't paying enough attention to it!
I'd say a little bit of both.
It's really too bad that the vote is so close in France.... but then again, never trust the sondages!
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
I'm watching BBC World right now, the coverage has been nearly endless.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I haven't been particularly impressed with the Beeb's coverage of the EU, in general. I get my EU news mostly from the Financial Times.
Posted by orlox (Member # 2392) on :
BTW, 8 countries have already ratified the constitution without inconvenient referendums.
However, even one country failing to ratify kills the whole deal
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Well, failing to ratify in the long term. They're able to try again.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
I have to wonder wouldn't this eventually set the stage for a United States of Europe? Even if its rather looser and possibly doesn't have as much powe r over its own members wouldn't it eventually depending on the circumstances become a unified block of nations?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, its already a unified block of nations, just not at all in the same way.
Some people want it to become a "United Europe", while others want it to remain less so.
Most of the indication appears to be it will mostly remain as it is, there's little to no interest from the populaces to think about the EU as a superstate.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
It is really more like a UN of Europe. They do have some extra things, such as shared currency and economic restrictions (ie: you are not supposed to run a debt over a certain amount). However, you can opt out of the euro (ie: Britain did this) and the economic restrictions have no teeth. Like the UN, if you violate them they simply complain that you are not playing by the rules...and threaten to write a harshly worded letter. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*snort* Its not like the UN at all, really, either.
The economic restrictions have considerable teeth. The Stability and Growth Pact, known to be a bit of a bad idea by economists from the start, is being revised for good reasons.
However, the EU redistributes huge sums of funds among the states, has levied considerable fines against states and companies, and most importantly standardizes all sorts of laws regarding goods and financial transactions in a way the UN completely doesn't.
Not to mention that actually, no, you can't just ignore them, several member state courts as well as the ECJ (European Court of Justice) have upheld that EU law trumps national law, including national constitutions.
The EU is interesting because there isn't an entity like it, anywhere.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
While there's nothing exactly like the EU, you can find some parallels. The Holy Roman Empire was similarly decentralised, but functioned in somewhat the same way as court of highest appeal. The post-Napoleonic Zollverein in Germany removed customs barriers in a reasonably similar fashion. For monetary unions, you have the Scandinavian attempt around 1880, and the Latin Monetary Union in 1865. For sheer mind-boggling bureacracy, you might look at either Egypt or the Polish Sejm. For the theory of economic bonds preventing warfare, look up Norman Angell and The Great Illusion. Multilingual entities, Austro-Hungarian, Roman, and Holy Roman Empires.
European history is big, and also complicated. You can find an example of practically anything if you look hard enough.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
You'll hear more about it if you use the BBCnews website rather than CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews.
Sometimes they play BBC World news in the evenings here in the evenings, on public channels... if they do where you are, look into it.
--j_k
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
Like Fugu, I believe, was saying, the hardest part about ratifying this would be the effect it would have on nationalism. Would each country still feel like their own country if this is passed? Sure, they have their own government and so forth, but it's partially shadowed by the EU. An over simplified example, I suppose, would be something similar to the US. But that's, like I said, rather extreme.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Notice the present tense, KoM . And modern governments are enough unlike governments in even the relatively recent past that even overt similarities often do not connote significant practical comparison value.
If this actually did have an effect on nationalism, it would be big, and its those fears that no-supporters are praying on, many of them spreading incorrect information and FUD about the treaty.
The treaty itself changes very little from the current, extremely beneficial across the board setup.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Come to think of it, Switzerland is a bit like a miniature EU, right down to being multilingual.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, it was, sort of, briefly, but its much different today.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Customs union, check. Decentralised legislation, check. Military alliance, well, the EU is getting that now. Multiple religions and languages, check. Common currency, check. Let's see, what else defines the EU? Bureaucracy, which admittedly the Swiss don't have as much of. And of course there are differences because of the sheer scale of the EU. But they seem reasonably similar to me, at least to the point of being a useful analogy. Not identical by any means, but as comparable as, say, Germany and France.
Come to think of it, Germany itself started out as a federation of independent states, and the Lander still have quite a bit of power.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
The main advantage in my opinion to this if it eventually gains momentum toi the point that the EU becoems a super state if fixes the many problems with small countries today, today a small country unless it has a VERY high tech society basing most of its revenue on trade and its tech industry wont be able to compete with the other far larger nations that today are becomming a far more dominant in geopolitics.
But becuase of the relative hisotrie sof most small nations most of them are usually unwilling to let go of certain sigments of proventialism or certain parts of the economy they see as important to them, thus alot of naton srae stuck in a rut unable toescape either their laissez faire enconomy becuase of the impact on its voters and probly lose an election or becuase of certain economic instabilities that prevent any sort of change.
England today losing its Empire and barely keepings its Common Wealth of nations while a respectable nation with a formidable Navy and armed forces is still nevertheless unable to compete with far larger nations because of it having been so dependant on its Empire for raw materials and rare resources, and is still I believe recovering.
By Becomming a super state they nolonger have to compete with alrger nations alone but can now compete as one large nation with a shared economy and trade just as complex as Russia's, China's, Japan's or America's.
[ May 27, 2005, 10:54 PM: Message edited by: Sid Meier ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Wow, that heart my eyes and my brain, Sid. Please, paragraphs and real sentences. Please, for us old folks with bad eyes.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You're missing that Switzerland pretty much acts and thinks like one country, while the EU doesn't, which is the crucial difference
Scale is also not so easy to discount as you gloss.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Not to mention the EU's extraordinarily unusual system of decision making.
And I'm always amused at accusations of EU bureaucratic overflow. The EU has less bureaucracy, both in number employed and in number of regulations, than the city of Berlin alone.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Edited.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Berlin has existed for longer, and is German to boot. Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I've heard complaints that Germany, with its massive industrial/economic complex, and its centralized large land size has too much of an impact on the EU, especially if France votes out of the constitution. In other words, the EU is German to boot, too.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Editid: Blah no one can take a joke these days
[ May 29, 2005, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Sid Meier ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Hey we in Alabama joined one of those union thingys once. It seemed like a good idea at the time but 100 years later they really weren't representing us very well. They started passing laws that would bankrupt us in order to enrich manufacturers in other regions of the union (forcing us to sell our major trade goods to them at below market value). So we decided hey, okay, if that's how you're going to be then we take it back, we'd better pull out and continue on our own, or else we'll join up with like minded neighboring states for a better system.
So they invaded us, destroyed our homes and livelihoods, raped pillaged and burned everything down here, then had this "reconstruction" period that was a more sustained and less violent rape and pillage of what was left. In the end we were left in dire poverty from which even 150 years later we are still trying to recover.
I wonder if anyone considering strengthening the EU has considered that lesson from history?
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
How's Alabama's current union going for it?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
True enough explanations. There is one eensy, weensie little thing you're neglecting to mention, though. The big thing that really pissed off Alabama and its 'confederates', and was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes, and the lesson we draw is, "don't keep slaves".
Sid, I find your last post extremely offensive. Do you mind removing it?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
You mean that the president of the union got elected without a single electoral vote from Alabama or any other southern state? That was the immediate impetus for withdrawal from the union, wasn't it?
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
quote:It seemed like a good idea at the time but 100 years later they really weren't representing us very well.
And by "us" are you talking about everyone in Alabama?
quote:They started passing laws that would bankrupt us in order to enrich manufacturers in other regions of the union (forcing us to sell our major trade goods to them at below market value).
True. But let's not forget the North was also afraid to compete against your "free" labor supply.
quote:So we decided hey, okay, if that's how you're going to be then we take it back, we'd better pull out and continue on our own, or else we'll join up with like minded neighboring states for a better system.
A choice that was never extended to some of the guests in your state.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
It's true that lots of people didn't have the vote then, for instance, women. That was true in far too many places, for sure. In general there was far too little recognition of human rights everywhere then as now.
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
There is inhumanity everywhere. But some spots are darker than others.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, I don't know, Alabama's got the whole "part of the world's only superpower" going for it, has a standard of living that's the envy of every country except those in western europe and a handful in australasia, and has been preserved from being the site of all major wars for quite some time now, nearly 150 years.
Compared to Europe, which currently has a piddling military (so even with a stronger union doubtful any major war would come of succession), has incredible poverty in many regions that makes the poverty in Alabama look like luxury (this is in fact one of the reasons for the EU, to fight that poverty), and had its last major war, a far more devastating one than our Civil War, only half a century ago, plus a little -- another reason the EU exists, because absent union Europe's history is pretty clear: they go to war.
If the south had managed to secede, that would likely have locked this continent in a resurgent grudge match lasting hundreds of years, if not longer -- just look at history.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
In the first place, it's SECESSION. You'd think it would be possible to get this right.
In the second place, Europe's military is not 'piddling'. The Bundeswehr alone is 250000 men in peacetime, and since they still have the draft, that could grow to several million on quite short notice. Both Britain and France are still quite capable of projecting power anywhere on the globe, against anything but American opposition, and have peacetime armies of a similar size to Germany's - so together, larger than the USA's, and with a larger mobilisation capability.
Apart from that, though, the new Constitution explicitly states that there is a right to secede from the Union, so there would be no war. Diplomatic relations might not be very warm for a while, though - ambassadors would no doubt get snubbed at aprties.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:You mean that the president of the union got elected without a single electoral vote from Alabama or any other southern state? That was the immediate impetus for withdrawal from the union, wasn't it?
The impetus was because a President was lawfully elected to office who was feared to be anti-slavery. The South was (justifiably in some areas) angry because it was under-represented and getting screwed by the North, and wasn't able to come up with the answers to its own questions. But the actual question they most wanted to answer for themselves?
We get to enslave these human beings and force them to work for us, right?
Don't talk about how the South was minding its own business and doing its own thing, Anne Kate, before the mean old Union started screwing them. I was born and raised in the south, too. We were screwing other people over, and it was fine.
(This is not to say the North was clean, either.)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Europe's military is strong on paper, but it is very much piddling. Many of their limitations in contributing to peacekeeping have been due to the inability to sustain the support of sufficient well-trained manpower.
Plus, they aren't particularly well equipped, which is most of what matters nowadays, especially as that equippage relates directly to their ability to be effectively projected.
Europe as a whole spends something like half what the US alone spends.
Estimates I've heard put the amount of US force we could project at around 75%, and the amount of European force they could project at around 5%.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, not to mention that the European armed forces are significantly fractured, with major cooperation problems (read up on Bosnia for some spectacular stories in that line). An attempt for a group of them to wage an aggressive war together would be a planning nightmare.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Quite so; might I suggest you take a look at the First Battle of Bull Run?
The remaining problems you mention are basically a result of being defensive, rather than imperial, armies. Since we are discussing a war on the European mainland, power projection doesn't matter so much as all that. As for equipment : American propaganda.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*snort*
When you manage to be the world's peacekeeper, let me know. Equippage doesn't just mean guns. It means aircraft carriers and submarines and satellites and much, much more.
Europe is not equipped to prosecute a war, even a local war, within the same order of magnitude of that the US could prosecute anywhere in the world with just a six month timetable.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Certainly the EU isn't going to be invading China; but Germany could easily manage an invasion of Poland or France.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Assuming the US forces stationed in Germany didn't put the kibosh on that Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Um, right. All two divisions of them, who would be supplied exactly how, against German resistance? Now I grant you they could probably fight for a couple of days or even weeks on their local supplies, but after that they're essentially hostages for the US's good behaviour.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
All that's needed to put the kibosh on such an attack is a minor delay so we could deploy our air forces. Among other things, upon war in eastern europe we'd deploy our strategic air forces.
Posted by Choobak (Member # 7083) on :
Just about sondage in France : 30% of thez population don't know if they vote yes or no... So all sondages who said the no will win or the yes will win are not realistic.
Statistic are the same than bikini : it show us many things but hide the essential. Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
I've been sort of following this. I don't pretend to understand it all, because European politics are rather opaque to me (and also because I don't live there so it doesn't directly affect me yet), but I've been keeping an eye on the news in Le Figaro. I'm gonna be watching the papers tomorrow and the next day.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
I'm pretty sure that America's air power would be shot out of the sky if they plan to hit strategic targets in Europe, Europe is a big place compared to Iraq.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
The USA hasn't invested more than the defense budgets of many nations in stealth technology for nothing, Sid.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
It a possibility that Certain nations may have come up with Anti stealth weapons.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:All that's needed to put the kibosh on such an attack is a minor delay so we could deploy our air forces. Among other things, upon war in eastern europe we'd deploy our strategic air forces.
Air forces are nice, certainly, but hardly magic. Germany is neither Iraq nor Serbia, and they have a large and modern airforce of their own.
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
and the polls say it's a no.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
And by a 4to3 margin. Just as well, the EU Constitution was written to guarantee the race to the lowest common denominator.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*snort*
aspectre, your profound misunderstanding of EU voting procedures continues to amuse me.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Make that: the French voted down the EUConstiturion by a 5to4 margin. The 4to3 was at ~80% of the vote counted. The Dutch voted 8to5 against ratifying the EUConstitution: a higher "no" vote than predicted by the polls. Before the final days leading up to the Netherlands' voting, polls showed that the Danes and Brits -- who have also been promised a referendum on this matter -- were even more strongly opposed to acceptance than the Dutch.
From listening to all the finger-wagging excuses, the only thing the pro-passage politicians have learned is "Don't let the public vote."
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. And modern governments are enough unlike governments in even the relatively recent past that even overt similarities often do not connote significant practical comparison value.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)