Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Europe Disintegrating?

nybooks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 182 posts

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#131

Post by rbanffy »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #73

Europe is learning the same thing that the United States did in its early days: it's impossible for a union of disparate states to survive without strong, overarching federal authority. It's as unpalatable to member states now as it was to the original colonies, but the alternative is to be subsumed by some outside, more centrally organized power. The Russians understand this, which is why they work to encourage nati…

From what I hear, most of those who find the EU "unpalatable" have huge misconceptions about how it is organized, how the various bodies are staffed, how representatives are chosen and what the different bodies do. It's in part because national news give little focus to it and, therefore, its function becomes obscure, prime material for propaganda.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#132

Post by akjainaj »

muninn_ wrote: post #92
kuschku wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't have short-term, mass migration Well, luckily, we don’t have that, eh? In the 90s and 2000s, Western Europe took over a million refugees from the balkans – by 2005, all of them were deported back. There was no wave of nationalism back then, no political change. Even today, in Germany, most are in favor of the current refugee policy. I don’t see why any of what you said has to happen. It hasn’t happened th…

Why were they deported? Is that the same situation as now? Will Germany deport these new refugees back as well? Or are they hear to stay?

1. Refugees are not citizens. They are to be deported when the "risky situation" in their zones of origin ends.

2. Balkan refugees were not problematic and were fully identified. The opposite is the case of current refugees from the Middle East. That's why these problems are arising now.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#133

Post by dogma1138 »

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…

The problem is that you assume they will assimilate, based on the current 2nd and 3rd generation MENA immigrants in Europe that might not be the case.

Europe isn't a good place for assimilation, you can be a 3rd generation "immigrant" living in France but you will not be French regardless of how PC they might appear to be.

European nationality is very much based on blood ties to the land, ethnic nationality was the driving force behind the emergence of Nations in Europe in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Trying to compare them to "new world" nations, and specifically the US isn't really appropriate. The US was built by immigrants and the moment you arrive regardless of who you are or where you come from (to some degree) you are an American, this is not the same for many European nations.

Additionally it seems that judging by past MENA immigration patterns assimilation is also very much opposed by the communities at large, even communities that socio-economically are not ghettos like many immigrant neighborhoods and even whole towns still seem to rather change their environment to fit their culture rather than assimilate to the existing one.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#134

Post by dkb »

kuschku wrote: post #68
stale2002 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Yes, the entire point of the EU is to allow people/companies to move everywhere. To that point, I think this explains why richer countries from the West of Europe have seen so many company relocations to Eastern countries, for many years now, as the labor is less expensive over there...

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#135

Post by akjainaj »

stale2002 wrote: post #113
bostand wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are today legal border controls from Mediterranean all the way up to the Scandinavia. Blaming EU for your own officials incompetency is soooo uk-2016

Did you read the article? It says it right there. Hundreds of millions of dollars of fines for not doing what the EU says. Those are the facts. Fines. They are real.

What's funny is that given the current situation of Poland, the EU will end up paying for the fines they imposed

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#136

Post by dkb »

api wrote: post #14
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...

Question: what is the primary grievance against the EU?

It depends from who. A big one, in my opinion, is the loss of power/sovereignty, in the sense that countries of the EU have to follow the European Directives that are made in Bruxelles, and that if they don't, they have to pay huge penalty fees.

Another one is that, on a lot of different matters and areas, different countries just cannot obey to the same laws, and their history, language, and way of thinking are just fundamentally different.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#137

Post by dogma1138 »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #73

Europe is learning the same thing that the United States did in its early days: it's impossible for a union of disparate states to survive without strong, overarching federal authority. It's as unpalatable to member states now as it was to the original colonies, but the alternative is to be subsumed by some outside, more centrally organized power. The Russians understand this, which is why they work to encourage nati…

The problem is that the EU was founded on the principle of never superseding national sovereignty or identity.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#138

Post by rbanffy »

lomnakkus wrote: post #89
d0mine wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany alone has GDP larger than Russia. Other than the number of nuclear devices in unknown condition, what makes Russia a superstate?

> Other than the number of nuclear devices in unknown condition Exactly that + Putin, I think. (Plus they control a number of very important pipelines, etc. etc.)

> Plus they control a number of very important pipelines, etc. etc.

Which makes the push towards renewables (which wouldn't happen without a centralized organization) so very inconvenient.

They have a respectable military. That beats any GDP.

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#139

Post by dkb »

geff82 wrote: post #22

Integrating all countries of eastern Europe at once and much too early was the beginning of the end. The countries that had been members before were getting so close economically and culturally that I think the current situation would not have been possible and a real united state might not have been only a dream. Politicians wanted too much and too early and did not take the population with them. I love my polish co…

> The countries that had been members before were getting so close economically and culturally

How did the countries that had been members before got close culturally? What do you mean by that?

Re: Is Europe Disintegrating?

#140

Post by rbanffy »

matteuan wrote: post #79
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…

First "un-elected and un-accountable bureaucracy" is wrong. The parliament is elected directly and the decision-making is not less democratic than any other member state. Some problems and an example do not make the EU a failure. The economical and social advantages of EU have been already significant. If you were not the 'sophisticate' troll that I think you are, I would have spend more time trying to explaining you…

I keep having to point out that most of the criticism is based on false information and propaganda. The EU has done a really poor job with informing the public how it works.
Post reply on HN