Why is this flagged? It's super interesting, the comments are pretty civil and the news source is legit.
EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
21–30 of 54 posts
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#22This is probably a response to the collapse of the United States. A bigger EU could easily replace it's hegemony as a bulwark against China and BRICS.
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#23Why is this flagged? It's super interesting, the comments are pretty civil and the news source is legit.
"Political" content is the only kind of content for which civility and quality standards aren't applied - such posts are often flagged as a matter of course, simply due to the title alone.
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Polls before the Brexit referendum also showed a majority for remaining.
It was a +2 lead for Remain. Not the +21 that there is for rejoining. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/15767-final-eve-vote-brexi...
Just before the referendum. The lead at the time the referendum was called was much wider. One poll even had 66% remain in June 2015, while the Referendum Bill was in parliament.
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#25This makes as much sense as having Australia on Eurovision.
Eurovision is for any white country that wants to join. (That's the image at least)
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#26This makes as much sense as having Australia on Eurovision.
well Australia at least shares some cultural values with Europe, while certain genocidal Asian participant...
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a +2 lead for Remain. Not the +21 that there is for rejoining. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/15767-final-eve-vote-brexi...
Just before the referendum. The lead at the time the referendum was called was much wider. One poll even had 66% remain in June 2015, while the Referendum Bill was in parliament.
Well, I just assumed that when you said "polls before the Brexit referendum" that you mean polls that were made before the referendum, and not when the referendum was called.
Re: EU should expand to 40 states – including Canada
#28The EU's problem isn't that it's too small--its population is larger than the US already. Its problem is that it's not unified. It can't act as one country the way the US and China can.
The EU works by consensus of its member states. It does not have a strong executive that can, hypothetically, drop bombs on Iran without a vote in parliament. But it also can't defend Ukraine as fully as it needs to.
Russia is economically tiny. If the EU wanted, they could flood Ukraine with enough firepower to reverse Putin's invasion, even without intervening directly. They don't do that because not all member states agree, and without consensus, the EU cannot act.
In some ways, America is the opposite: it acts before it has consensus. One administration invades Afghanistan; the next one pulls out. One administration signs a treaty with Iran; the next one bombs it. It's the move-fast-and-break-things of foreign policy.
China and Russia are dictatorships. They pursue their interests and they act consistently. Despite their economic disadvantages, they get their way internationally because they are not afraid to act.
As an American, I would rather have a strong EU that sometimes disagrees with us, than a weak EU that cedes the field to China and Russia. But a bigger EU isn't the solution. The EU needs to act as one, or it will become irrelevant.