281–290 of 494 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would hold the confirmatory vote before you do all of that. You'd go to the EU, agree what joining looks like, and before doing any of the actual implementation you hold the vote
The joining process is already precisely defined.
With the state of the world right now they can probably get a very good deal.
I hope whatever they do they don’t adopt the euro as their currency.
Joining the euro is a hard requirement for new countries entering the union. The only negotiable is the length of the transition period.
And it isn't really a negotiable. It's up to the country when it wants to join the Euro. They just have to promise that they'll do it at some unspecified point in the future.
I run the count at one of the constituencies. We have about 42.000 people on the electoral register and we'll probably see about 75-80% turnout, so we're going to be counting about 33.000 votes with about 30-35 people on staff, 24 of them doing the actual counting. For the interest of the HN crowd, here is the technical report: You'll find that the Icelandic voting system is very low tech. The electoral registry for…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> border fascism I hope you keep to your principles and make sure not to lock your doors at night, and don't deny anyone the right to live in your house with you for free if they desire.
"Advocating open national borders means you must let random strangers live in your house" a truly reasonable and not at all disingenuous argument. On par with "advocating socialism means you must let random strangers use your toothbrush".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
During the 2010 debt crisis there was much talk of profligate Greece being "thrown out" of the euro zone. In this dark scenario Greek civil servants would get their pay rises in worthless drachma, but Greek homeowners would be left with unpayable euro mortgages. But nobody ever talked about the Montenegro option (similar to Ecuador and USD). I never understood this. What was stopping Greece from defaulting and keepin…
Look into who they were the debtor to. Turns out that a lot of German banks would have needed to scrap debt from their books.
These debates are hard to watch. 'Loss of sovereignty' for some reason is perfectly fine for Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, but not UK or others wanting to leave. 'Fisheries' was a small but founding and perennial concern before and during Brexit but they were labelled 'ugly nationalists'. The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now, and the crazy paradox is tha…
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now I like those benefits: The shared currency, easy travel, they killed roaming fees! Also they're the only ones seriously taking on big tech. They made Apple ditch their dumb ass lightning cable.
[flagged]
You accuse the EU of being neo-liberal, I accuse it of being a micromanaging bureaucratic behemoth heaping endless new regulations on everything including wrapping paper (this is our current outrage of the day), endlessly distrustful towards people who what just to take care of themselves and be left alone.
It is hard to believe that we are both describing the same entity. Reminds me of the fable of an elephant and three blind men.
Also, when it comes to borders, you probably know that if they were guarded as much as the European population wants, the situation would have been a lot stricter than it is. The EU is more left-wing in this regard than the median European voter.
These debates are hard to watch. 'Loss of sovereignty' for some reason is perfectly fine for Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, but not UK or others wanting to leave. 'Fisheries' was a small but founding and perennial concern before and during Brexit but they were labelled 'ugly nationalists'. The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now, and the crazy paradox is tha…
I don't think there are any others wanting to leave after Brexit! Politicians like Le Pen don't campaign to leave any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you join the EU you will lose control of your fisheries and have worse management policies pushed on you. Fantasy to think it will be any other way.
Icelandic ex-fisherman here: Iceland‘s fisheries are controlled by what we call quota-kings. They are extremely rich owners of fishing quota (similar to USA’s oil barons) who are increasingly anti-social and obviously very unpopular among Iceland’s general public. Iceland’s fishing system is kind of feudal in nature. People are allowed buy and trade and even rent fishing quotas. This means that the quota has accumula…
Given the current system maybe the most honest one would be if the state ”owns” all the quota and then let fishermen bid for fishing rights.
But I have a feeling that will quickly become politicized with strange carve outs benefiting a few.