hydrophilic attack
Member
i'm not sure that's really accurate in the case of say germany-france
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Leaders of euro zone's biggest economies back multi-speed Europe
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i'm not sure that's really accurate in the case of say germany-france
And it is complete bullshit because the EU is making no effort at all to get their money back while the IMF is holding their hands out, saying gimme gimme gimme. It is like how the IMF dislikes austerity except when they are the ones forcing it.
You think elements like dismissing roaming charges, a unified privacy framework, travelling with your Netflix accounts are things companies want and people don't? Every European country would be the playball of companies. A company like Facebook would destroy any European country that tries to impose a law on it. But with GDPR they will have no option.
How can you say that? Just look at how many times they have tried to integrate.
andythinkpad
Member
They have to, if they still want to survive 21st century and remain first tier countries.
YourMaster
Member
You're right, the EU is not making any effort at all to get their money back, most effort is in not upsetting local electorates. The damage has been done several years ago when they decided to sort of bail out Greece instead of either giving serious debt release or allow them to default. Or even more years ago when they willingly let them join the Euro area in the first place.
Roaming charges are an excellent example,.... roaming chargers were to be abolished, good for the people. Then there was company push-back and now the roaming regulations are neutered. Now the phone companies get to charge each other roaming, causing money to flow from cold to warm countries and increasing costs for users in cold counties. Also they made exceptions for people buying phones across the border, so I can't bay a - for example - UK subscription to use in Finland.
Even worse, in the same law they also neutered net neutrality, forcing counties with proper net neutrality rules to abandon them. By law it is now specifically allow to give advantages to the services from some countries over others. This has the potential to harm consumers in so many fundamental ways. This law, like almost any law the EU has ever made, does far, far, far more harm than it will ever do good.
Now don't get me wrong, I think it is very good to have a unified Europe, for many, many reasons. However, how it is currently organized is very, very bad. On almost any level, by whichever metric you take.
You can argue whether it would be better to tear it all down and build something better from scratch, or do a solid remodeling on the current structure, but a fresh coat of paint won't cut it. And as long as it all functions as poorly as it does now, you shouldn't try to sell more of it, we should get our house in order first.
It would have been pointless to give Greece debt release at that point or to let them default, because they had to pay back debts to the IMF on which you better not default. The other European countries are keeping up appearances: they have to make sure it looks like Greece will pay them back so they can afford to give them the money they need. Because Greece didn't need debt relief from the European Union back then, it needed money to pay back other debtors. Giving Greece debt relief or letting it default wouldn't have changed anything. It would still be cut off from the IMF. The debt they have to pay back in fifty years would have been relieved, but the country wouldn't have access to any funding making it completely pointless for them to have their own currency. That is in the end what the Greek prime minister realized.
Companies have always charged each other. The European Union has severly reduced those charges and they have forbidden companies from charging it to the users. Those roaming charges you paid in the past, were the costs providers asked of each other. And yes, they have limited it so that you can't buy services like that in the cheapest country. You think that sucks, but it also means providers in cheap countries won't raise prices for the local population. What they need is to further open the market and federalize it to the European level. More EU integration will give you what you want, with this being a good first step because this isn't the end state.
You want a better Europe but you would tear down all it achieved. That means giving more power to the companies. That is stupid and it would be an excellent way to show what the EU has actually achieved when you lose it all. You need more of it so idiot politicians can't tear it down. Which means integrating further, selling more of it improves it by removing power from the individual countries. Going backwards just means putting more importance to local politicians and what they want to get elected again.
Needs half a dozen tiers. Minimum. 27 tiers would be optimal.
Huw_Dawson
Member
We already had a multi-speed Europe - the Eurozone, the not-Eurozone, Britain. Three lanes for three different sets of needs within the system.
We will still have a three-speed Europe after Britain leaves, except Britain's lane will be converted to the hard shoulder and all of the cars on it will be broken down or on fire.
We will still have a three-speed Europe after Britain leaves, except Britain's lane will be converted to the hard shoulder and all of the cars on it will be broken down or on fire.
YourMaster
Member
You seem to just want to excuse anything the EU does poorly with the sense that 'at least its better than nothing'. I have higher standards of my leadership. It is good that they attempted to get rid of roaming chargers, it would have been lots, lots better if they mandated that companies may only charge each other the costs, or even 150% of costs, not over 10 times the costs like they do now. It would have been better to do so without the exceptions they created. And even if they got rid of all roaming chargers, there's no need to kill net-neutrality to do so. This is one of the countless 'half a step forward, two steps back' laws that the EU does. It's just that they only communicate their good intentions.
And Greece and the rest of the EU countries would have been better off with Greece having never joined the EURO-area, and the only way to truly recover is to get out of the Euro. Just blaming the IMF is a gross oversimplification, the debt they had was never mostly debt to other countries but debt to private institutions.
Germany and France can both be traced back to the Frankish Empire, it was divided between brothers and their realms later became germany and france. So historically they have been very close at one point, they were one country.
CyclopsRock
Member
Yeah and at one point what we now call England was part of the same Roman Empire as Syria. Culture travelled even slower in those days (I know my example is about 1,500 years earlier than yours) but 'being the same country' didn't mean then what it means now.
Ragnar Blackmane
Member
You might want to brush up your knowledge of current French-German cultural, political and diplomatic relationships because it isn't the 50s anymore.
First, roaming charges will drop. Phone companies have been charging eachother roaming fees since the dawn of roaming. The new legislation and more recent wholesale fee are capping those charges a lot, and way more than industry would've liked. Second, what are you talking about with net neutrality? BEREC and national regulatory authorities are putting out some very strict net neutrality guidelines. Telco operators are generally pissed off at it.
You have demonstrated you have incredibly little knowledge of what you are talking about, so I would say your entire opinion of the EU is misguided. Please do some research before you start criticizing something you don't seem to understand very well.
More fundamentally, you are blaming the EU institutions for the failings of the Member States. The EU leadership is quite bold, but they cannot make progress if the different nations want to do things their own way. And there's no way to force that - The legal decision-making authority is gradually evolving but unfortunately anti-EU parties and movements are putting spokes in its wheels.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
In related news, recent article on EurActiv: http://www.euractiv.com/section/fut...vision-of-a-multi-speed-europe-that-delivers/
The EPP (biggest party) will be discussing it end of March at their annual party summit. We'll see if we hear more high-level commitments. Looking at YourMaster's posts, and at the general anti-EU mood by some people, a big issue is indeed that people have the wrong impression or knowledge over what the competency, tasks and power of the EU institutions really are. This is key:
I think this means that the really 'major' changes may not happen until after national elections and when there's really a force of like-minded pro-EU politicians in the lead. I would expect a Macron/Schulz combo to make strides here in a multi-speed EU, with or without the Visegrad bloc.
The EPP (biggest party) will be discussing it end of March at their annual party summit. We'll see if we hear more high-level commitments. Looking at YourMaster's posts, and at the general anti-EU mood by some people, a big issue is indeed that people have the wrong impression or knowledge over what the competency, tasks and power of the EU institutions really are. This is key:
I think this means that the really 'major' changes may not happen until after national elections and when there's really a force of like-minded pro-EU politicians in the lead. I would expect a Macron/Schulz combo to make strides here in a multi-speed EU, with or without the Visegrad bloc.
They literally just reduced the rates that can be charged. And they will drop further and further.
As for how the EU helps people and not companies in this, when companies already try to get out of offering roaming abroad.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/eu-and-mobile-network-3-clash-over-roaming-charges-444149.html
The first is true, but that is why in the end Greece committed fraud to get in. The second is false, because they'd just be stuck with a worthless currency and nobody willing to help them.
Muffin1611
Banned
Jesus Christ. Criticizing the EU because it isn't doing the right things in his questionable opinion while thinking that armed invasions of member states are a valid thing to do. No wonder that the poster doesn't value the EU very much, the fact that it prevented wars between the European nations probably doesn't sound very valuable to him.
YourMaster
Member
I'm guessing you're deflecting here. I did not link net-neutrality to roaming charges, the EU did both with the same measure, they used reduced roaming charges to mostly get rid of net neutrality. And yes, reducing roaming charges is better than nothing, however where you keep skipping over is that it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. They should have never introduced the exceptions, they should not have kept the high prices companies can charge each other and they should not have linked it to crippling net neutrality rules.
Sure, telco's still bitch and moan, but they've got a lot out of it. The EU now disallows member states to have proper net-neutrality rules and the countries that had, had to remove them.
And please try to have a broader view, it's not helpful trying to focus blame on just a few individuals. The whole reason why the current system is working so poorly is because of the entire system, not just because people working in a single building are doing a poor job. The way responsibilities and power are divided between different institutions and member states is the problem. That the interests of a single member state often prevail over the good of the rest is an issue, and yes I'm sure that frustrates people working in the EU.
It's not them that's ultimately responsible though, it's us citizens. Citizens are always ultimately responsible for the rulers they have, and we've got to do better.
Telco's want more power, EU limiting them here is good. But it is not good enough. Telco's are not going to admit to any benefits they expect, they have nothing to gain there, they are only going to put pressure on the points that hurt them. Do you expect them to share how they are going to exploit the new holes in net neutrality rules to try and gain monopolies or reduce data usage for their clients?
And Greece used fraud to get in, but this was known. I think in the long term it would be better for them to get out again and try to become competitive, but perhaps we'll never find out for sure. Or perhaps we'll find out in a few years when it still all goes belly up.
hydrophilic attack
Member
lol, i was just making a joke, i wasn't expecting so many people to take it seriously. still the official reason for starting the union was to bring the countries closer in response to how many times we have been enemies in the past and to prevent history from repeating
i'm personally in favour of increased eu integration as long as we (sweden) are allowed to stay out of the euro until full fiscal and banking unions are in place
Nikodemos
Member
Transparency and trust mean jack shit when national politicians actively oppose any and all initiatives to disseminate and popularise the Union's roles and competencies, for fear that they'll be seen as a bunch of relatively useless seat-hunting obstructionists.
Ayy lmao.
Can you specify what you're referring to with the bolded? I also disagree to some extent with 'not good enough' - roaming and wholesale fees is a complicated issue and you can't just say zero. There are costs involved and it's not super-simple to shift your entire business model. A lot of south-EU telcos are going to feel the hurt from roaming. Ultimately we reached a decent compromise, a step in the right direction. A jump is not always desirable, nor is blindly going for this or the other option.
Point also remaining that it's not really the 'EU's fault. But on that,
Here I agree and I'm happy to see this - your earlier posts seemed blindly critical of the EU institutions while failing to understand how they work, interact and what they're founded on. Ultimately indeed the responsibility lies with the citizen. You all need to vote for pro-EU parties. Everything that comes out of Brussels is a result of democracy, based on the representatives and politicians from millions of people and 28 (for now) Member States and nationalities. That means that it's not always what you on the individual level may prefer. It may be frustrating, but it is fair.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
While I agree with this, I also kind of have to understand the Visegrad 4 when they show concerns about being left behind.
Of course, for Orbán and similar turds their real fear is being caught between Russia and a bunch of superpowered EU states with little care for their shit. Which wouldn't be a positive situation anyway.
Considering their role in the refugee crisis, democratic developement and the current Tusk drama i can see this going forward even without approval from the visegrad countries.
It seems a lot of EU countries are loosing patience with them and their behaviour in EU concerns
Kill Your Masters
Member
I read this in Trumps voice as you sound like trump. Post some metrics, numbers, facts to back it up, or are these "feeling metrics" that are not quantifiable?
Nikodemos
Member
And it's a shame, since the Visegrad group was considered back in the mid-late '00s a beacon for East European countries to unite into a single voice.
Now it's a country club for corrupt authoritarian-leaning populists.
DarthMasta
Member
At the end of the day, British claims of "muh sovereignty" are bullshit because EU countries are sovereign. Same for the claims of "alt-right" (wink, wink) parties in other countries.
Countries are sovereign, they might just not be able to afford that sovereignty with the world being what it is, since other, sovereign entities might not like their decisions.
The EU either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't work, this being the real world, who it isn't working for counts. It's "fine" if the EU doesn't work for Greece or Portugal (my own country), not ideal, but it'll keep chugging along. Once it stops working for some other countries (and you guys can figure out which), it's going to change, over the objections of the rest if need be. This is the real world, ink on a paper binds a country for as long as the country wishes to be bound...
Countries are sovereign, they might just not be able to afford that sovereignty with the world being what it is, since other, sovereign entities might not like their decisions.
The EU either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't work, this being the real world, who it isn't working for counts. It's "fine" if the EU doesn't work for Greece or Portugal (my own country), not ideal, but it'll keep chugging along. Once it stops working for some other countries (and you guys can figure out which), it's going to change, over the objections of the rest if need be. This is the real world, ink on a paper binds a country for as long as the country wishes to be bound...
YourMaster
Member
In a single ruling they did 'roaming and open internet'. And with the 'open internet' regulations it is now explicitly allowed for telco's to allow certain services outside of the data bundle, so spotify doesn't cost data but their competitors do for example. This allows telco's to abuse their power and extort money from internet-companies. This is one of the issues and loopholes, there are more.
No, that's just your bias in that when you hear somebody disagree with you, you assume they know less and are acting blindly. Fact is, European politics is complicated, and the devil is in the details. Just because you like the idea of a strong and unified Europe(as do I) does not mean everything is working as it should.
Muffin1611
Banned
Dunno about you, but bringing up the possibility of invading Greece for their debt certainly does sound like a lack of knowledge and proposition of a blind act.
CyclopsRock
Member
I think this argument's a bit ... I dunno, pointless. It's like saying that I'm totally free to go and murder a bunch of kids in a school. I mean, yeah, I am, in the sense that there's no mystical force that stops me doing it, but as long as the repercussions of doing so are so severe, I don't do it. (Plus, uhh, I don't really want to murder a bunch of kids). But in this sense, you could argue that my murdering a bunch of kids is an expression of my sovereignty as a person. Well, the vote to leave and subsequent process that's begun is simply the UK expressing their sovereignty in this area, by saying "the benefits of abiding by these rules no longer benefit us more than the drawbacks". So either way it IS about sovereignty.
chromatic9
Member
That was ending in 2020. UK would've needed to join the Euro.
While the Brexit has been a shock, when you look at 5-10 years on in the EU, UK just isn't going to go for a integrated Europe or the Euro. UK has been a stick in the mud for a long time. It's probably best we leave and let them carry on with the integrated super state.
There was a BBC news night interview with Mr Verhofstadt and even the Pro EU presenter said the tighter EU proposals on paper he brought in to the studio that UK was never going to agree to down the line. All the concessions were just delaying the inevitable. David Cameron got refused. We weren't slowly easing into the EU.
CyclopsRock
Member
There's literally no way we would have joined the Eurozone in the near or even mid future.
UK does not meet the criteria to join.
might as well just bring back the holy roman empire and call it a day.
The Holy Roman Empire or the Roman Empire? Roman Empire failed to expand to the North where Germany was its border while the Holy Roman Empire lacked France, Spain, huge parts of Italy and similar countries. Neither managed to control a Europe as big as the Union. The First French Empire if you include the countries Napoleon controlled but not directly included in the Empire would be a better fit.
Merkel just spoke in the Bundestag about this.
Basically said they will go ahead with multi-speed EU and compared it to the euro and schengen.
She said it's important that members that member states have the chance to opt out or join later.
Cited a EU attorney office which apparently will be decided at the summit this week and is supposed to enforce financial/trade interests of the member states
Will post link when available
Basically said they will go ahead with multi-speed EU and compared it to the euro and schengen.
She said it's important that members that member states have the chance to opt out or join later.
Cited a EU attorney office which apparently will be decided at the summit this week and is supposed to enforce financial/trade interests of the member states
Will post link when available
Stiflers Mom
Banned
Finally. Was long overdue.
It's really not possible anymore to steer this ship with 28 countries involved.
It's really not possible anymore to steer this ship with 28 countries involved.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
A thousand years ago, being the same country as someone else meant that the warlord who was taking your money was the same one taking the other guy's money.
CyclopsRock
Member
Well, quite. If even Belgium, mutt of Europe that it is, can have a unique identity amongst its citizens, the idea that Germany and France has a meaningful shared history outside of Germany constantly trying to fuck them is a bit fanciful. A sense of "Frenchness" and a sense of "Germaness" are very different things.
Belgium is an excellent example. We have a French law system, a German king, a shared history with the Netherlands for ages and a longstanding hatred between two parts of the country. A significant part of Northern France speaks better Flemish than parts of Belgium, a significant part of Netherlands - under the 'Moerdijk' - is considered part Flemish to Belgians. What makes it interesting for Belgium to stay Belgium in that context? We have a unique identity that makes us closer to our neighbours in other countries than those in our own.
I have to admit that this multispeed business fills me with a good amount of trepidation.
There's so much that can go wrong with it... However, if it succeeds and we get a core Europe that's essentially one big federalised state, then I'm all for it. One army, one intelligence service, one border agency, and so on and so forth. Bring it.
Basically it boils down to "No risk, no fun" I guess.
Or, in so many words...
Then again, it could be regarded as an admission of failure, a smack on the good ol' reset button of the EU in the face of a failed expansion policy. You can put a bow on it and use polite language all you want, but the we'd essentially shed "dead weight" and return to a manageable, more flexible and unified "true" EU - this time surrounded by a bunch of second class satellite countries organised in a looser "conglomeration of hopefuls". And that'd be a bit of a tough pill to swallow.
Oh well. I like the more optimistic take on the situation better. So, with clenched buttcheeks, hoo raaah multispeed Europe! *waves EU flag*
There's so much that can go wrong with it... However, if it succeeds and we get a core Europe that's essentially one big federalised state, then I'm all for it. One army, one intelligence service, one border agency, and so on and so forth. Bring it.
Basically it boils down to "No risk, no fun" I guess.
Or, in so many words...
This.
Then again, it could be regarded as an admission of failure, a smack on the good ol' reset button of the EU in the face of a failed expansion policy. You can put a bow on it and use polite language all you want, but the we'd essentially shed "dead weight" and return to a manageable, more flexible and unified "true" EU - this time surrounded by a bunch of second class satellite countries organised in a looser "conglomeration of hopefuls". And that'd be a bit of a tough pill to swallow.
Oh well. I like the more optimistic take on the situation better. So, with clenched buttcheeks, hoo raaah multispeed Europe! *waves EU flag*
Sarcastic Poster
Member
I'm not big on the idea of further integration tbh. I think the EU is in need of serious reform beforehand, and not just a multi speed thing.
If memory serves me right, in at least a few cases the citizens were never directly asked if they wanted to join in the first place.
I just hope this "multiple speed" business doesn't basically mean throwing the smaller/poorer countries under the bus while the core group listed in the article only look out after each other... especially when some of the smaller only have as neighbours the ones in the listed core group.
If you mean Austria, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg: they will certainly be invited. I also cannot see Portugal being left behind if they want and Spain goes in.
This is basically giving time to Eastern Europe to evolve on their own speed and for Scandinavia to see what they want with Europe.
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
I'm mostly concerned with Portugal, being where I'm from - size, being at the western edge of the continent and being stuck with only Spain as a neighbour have historically done it few favours, and economy-wise it's had its share of troubles which rarely get mentioned compared to how much others like Greece got to be a recurring topic.
Yeah. Merkel suggested everyone will be invited and can decide to participate or not this morning so it's basically up to the individual country to participate or not
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I'm totes ok with an Iberian federation, tbh.
DarthMasta
Member
Yeah, me too, in theory. But then we get to the nitty-gritty of the thing, like, where's the capital and part of me goes "Not fucking Madrid, nope!"
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