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Is Europe Disintegrating?

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Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#61

Post by tshadley »

muninn_ wrote: post #7

You can't have short-term, mass migration without having something happen or change. We will see a huge change in European political landscape within the next few years. People have to slowly assimilate into a culture in order to allow for a gradual, peaceful change in that culture. Shocking these types of systems with any sort of migration is a recipient for instability. Please keep in mind that this isn't any sort…

> You can't have short-term, mass migration without having something happen or change.

I am generally confused by the claim of "mass migration". As this chart shows, EU migration of 2013 is below the rate of 2002 and is only now recovering from the 2008 economic crisis.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

If there is some problem that mass migration causes, why didn't it happen back in 2002?

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#62

Post by nommm-nommm »

dkb wrote: post #42

Interesting article. I do believe that the EU will collapse, and that it is only a matter of time. First of all, there is not a single instance in History where a common currency, such as the Euro, succeeded. It always has collapsed. Different people in France have developed about this exact subject. I believe that more and more people are in favor of existing the EU. In the case of France, the first thing that peopl…

Your house/building analogy is flawed because there are extremely significant rules/regulations about what your house can look like and what materials you can use to build it leveed by all sorts of levels of government as well as HOAs. Doubly so if you live in a historical neighborhood.

And somehow people do manage to live in skyscrapers without flooding the first floor.

I'm not sure if anyone ever attempted a currency something like the Euro before.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#63

Post by padthai »

sean_patel wrote: post #5

> For now there is crisis and disintegration wherever I look: the eurozone is chronically dysfunctional, sunlit Athens is plunged into misery, young Spaniards with doctorates are reduced to serving as waiters in London or Berlin, the children of Portuguese friends seek work in Brazil and Angola How much truth is there, to this statement i.e. "young Spaniards with PHDs are serving as Waiters in London or Berlin." Anyo…

It is true, actually. Lots of waiters with degrees in London. But most of them do not last much. It is a way to improve their English, try to get a job in the UK (getting to an entry-level job it is almost impossible in the South), and live in London. Note than normally do not want to stay in the UK permanently.

Also take with a grain of salt all this kind of articles. American and UK media likes to project their worldview in the political actors of continental Europe but the 20-something nations involved are varied and make the EU extremely complex.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#64

Post by walterstucco »

akjainaj wrote: post #6
Mikeb85 wrote: post #2

Based on my recent experience of visiting Europe - yes, it is. I stayed mostly in France, was there during the Brexit vote, and everyone I spoke to was pretty keen on exiting the EU, voting right-wing, and seeing it all crumble. They also have several separatist movements, especially in Brittany, which seems to be more anti-EU than anti-French...

Living in one of the PIGS, I can tell there's not much going on here about leaving the EU. Nobody has seriously brought it up. That said, I see important problems in the EU going on now that must be solved: 1. I know the EU is completely against the "two-speed Europe". But that MUST be put in place if the EU is to survive. There's a clear divide between regions in the EU. It is a cultural divide in the way work is se…

Coming from Italy I don't feel like a pig. Maybe Spanish and Portuguese feel different about themselves...

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#65

Post by bjelkeman-again »

bostand wrote: post #33
kristianc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's exceptionally difficult to have 1/ that functions well without 2/ The Euro was designed as a bulwark against currency speculators and people trying to arbitrage between imbalances in the different European economies.

Not difficult at all, many EU countries have decided to stay outside the euro zone. They are doing just fine.

Can't reply to the reply, but Sweden is not a founder of the EU.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#66

Post by bostand »

walterstucco wrote: post #53
bostand wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not difficult at all, many EU countries have decided to stay outside the euro zone. They are doing just fine.

not many, of the original EU founders only Sweden hasn't adopted euro. The other 6 out of 25 that are not using the euro are all ex communist countries. and other two (Monte negro and Kosovo) adopted euro without being part of EU.

So you agree that it is by no means mandatory?

Also, Denmark?

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#67

Post by blibble »

walterstucco wrote: post #53
bostand wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not difficult at all, many EU countries have decided to stay outside the euro zone. They are doing just fine.

not many, of the original EU founders only Sweden hasn't adopted euro. The other 6 out of 25 that are not using the euro are all ex communist countries. and other two (Monte negro and Kosovo) adopted euro without being part of EU.

what? Sweden joined in 1995.

Denmark and the UK are examples of other EU states that were not communist that do not use the Euro

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#68

Post by kuschku »

stale2002 wrote: post #34
bostand wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU in its simplest form is harmonization of rules and a bigger market for you to sell your goods. That part works exceptionally well. I don't see a single reason where that could be a negative in a mid to long term. The euro zone, which tries to connect some very different economies is not working that great but EU countries can decide to stay out of that part.

Exactly! Give back control of borders to countries, and just run the EU like a NAFTA free trade zone. Bam, best of both worlds!

Eh, no thanks. Then we can just scrap the EU and replace it with TTIP.

The entire point of the EU as an entity is that it allows people to move everywhere that companies and services can move to.

Additionally, the entire problem of the refugee crisis was that countries controlled their own border – and everyone refused to do anything, instead telling Greece to prevent them from entering, and Greece said they’d just open their borders. In fact, the EU only got control of the borders in September 2016! http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/...

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#69

Post by CamperBob2 »

kuschku wrote: post #54
MarcusBrutus wrote: post #24

It most definitely is and it takes a very starry eyed sort of person to expect otherwise. The idea that 20 or so different people with different languages, religions, mores, histories, frames of reference, economies could somehow achieve monetary or much less political union under the rule of an un-elected and un-accountable bureaucracy of "commissioners" who rule by means of "directives" (you couldn't make it sound…

> un-elected and un-accountable bureaucracy So tell me, what is this? http://i.imgur.com/zhVYPwN.jpg And what is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhafgcPeXes Or is it maybe actually elected, actually held accountable? > The idea that 20 or so different people with different languages, religions, mores, histories, frames of reference, economies could somehow achieve monetary or much less political union Aha, so h…

By the time it was formed, not even half of the people spoke a common language

Are you counting Native Americans? I've never heard this before.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#70

Post by ComradeTaco »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #36
ComradeTaco wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see an overall trend of of authoritarianism and nationalism as a response to immigration and an increasingly changing world. There's also a pretty heavy streak of anti-intellectualism as voters were encouraged to fundamentally reject experts that gave (IMHO well-founded) warnings about the ill-effects of Brexit and Trump. In short: Nationalism in, Globalism out.

Even the idea of experts is being rightly criticized. Look at the flip-flopping recommendations of the US health dietary guidelines. What's true to the experts this year will be rejected some point later. Not only that, but when you have centralized power it becomes much easier to corrupt and politicize. There's wisdom to decentralization.

I agree that sometimes experts can make massive erroneous assumptions. Nutrition is a field that has suffered greatly from this.

However, many of the predictions like currency devaluation and market loss, that were dismissed as expert scaremongering tactics, did occur.

1. The pound dropped 22% in value after the referendum [1] 2. A 13% drop in the FTSE from referendnum to present [2]

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/pound-dro... hard-brexit [2]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/what-can-...

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