Pro and Anti EU - The Arguments - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in Europe's nation states, the E.U. & Russia.

Moderator: PoFo Europe Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please. This is an international political discussion forum, so please post in English only.
#14978956
noemon wrote:Not correct, the Council is composed of the elected Prime Ministers of the EU member states.



You seem to be confusing the Council(The Council of the European Union) with the European Council. The Council is the 28 seat legislative body that "meets in 10 different configurations of 28 national ministers (one per state). The precise membership of these configurations varies according to the topic under consideration; for example, when discussing agricultural policy the Council is formed by the 28 national ministers whose portfolio includes this policy area."

I am not sure why you would consider our elected national governments as "technocrats" but whatever...


The individuals that run the various cabinet departments of the national governments are usually technical experts in that area and that's the definition of a technocrat. They're also usually appointed rather than elected so really they're not elected at any level, not the EU level or the national level. That's completely undemocratic.
#14978957
In American terms, it would be like having the federal government run by state governors and their appointees with the House of Reps only having the power to approve or reject legislation in certain limited areas.
#14978958
Sivad wrote:You seem to be confusing the Council(The Council of the European Union) with the European Council. The Council is the 28 seat legislative body that "meets in 10 different configurations of 28 national ministers (one per state). The precise membership of these configurations varies according to the topic under consideration; for example, when discussing agricultural policy the Council is formed by the 28 national ministers whose portfolio includes this policy area."


It's quite funny that your confusion is projected onto myself. The European Council is composed of the elected Prime Ministers of the EU member states. The Council of the European Union is the same thing but composed of the Finance Ministers, Ministers of Defense, Ministers of Agriculture of the Members States. Our national governments are represented at the highest levels of EU governance and hold all the keys of EU government, they appoint the Commission, they initiate legislation, they advise the EU parliament and they appoint the ECJ judges. Our national governments govern the EU.

The individuals that run the various cabinet departments of the national governments are usually technical experts in that area and that's the definition of a technocrat. They're also usually appointed rather than elected so really they're not elected at any level, not the EU level or the national level. That's completely undemocratic.


The national governments of the EU members states are elected in national elections. It's quite astonishing that people would declare our entire national governments as "technocrats" in order to maintain their kool-aid stick. Well if all our national governments are unelected and undemocratic technocrats, then is there any democracy anywhere, Sivad? If the national governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden are all composed of unelected technocrats, then what?
#14978959
noemon wrote:As well as the fact that the ECJ much like the EU council is composed of 28 members, 1 person from every country which theoretically enables each member to check on the other.


So 28 persons have to decide cases based on the national legislations of the 28 countries ? Or do they, as Mr Connoly said, judge only to favour the EU ?

noemon wrote:Mr Conolly is a propagandist

He does not look or sound like a propagandist.
Of course you do not like what he has to say but let us not go there.

His arguments about the Euro are also very correct. The common currency was not well thought out and has terrible consequences for a number of member countries. With Germany being the biggest beneficiary.

And finally, the decision to let in millions of migrants from a different culture and religion has created a populist backlash the dimensions of which are not yet fully realised. That decision by Frau Merkel might be a very decisive and big nail in the EU coffin.
#14978961
Sivad wrote:In American terms, it would be like having the federal government run by state governors and their appointees



Thats not far off from how the Senate was supposed to work until it was made a democratic body as well based on popular election.

So given your point, it sounds like membership in the EU is not much different than state membership in the U.S.A was supposed to be like as originally conceived.

Given how that has worked out for state sovereignty over time, I can see why euroskepticism is a thing.

Ter wrote:His arguments about the Euro are also very correct. The common currency was not well thought out and has terrible consequences for a number of member countries. With Germany being the biggest beneficiary.And finally, the decision to let in millions of migrants from a different culture and religion has created a populist backlash the dimensions of which are not yet fully realised. That decision by Frau Merkel might be a very decisive and big nail in the EU coffin.



I don't really understand why any of this would still be regarded as controversial anymore.

The european banking crisis several years back combined with the populists movements of late, the yellow-vests, and even ol' Hilary herself coming out to chastize EU migrant-policy have taken what were once regarded as far-right conspiracies and made them common-knowledge.

I really don't know what the fate of the EU is and I don't care that much as American with my own political concerns; however, I generally view decentralization, secessionism, and cultural preservationism as de facto moral goods so my leanings should be evident in this matter.

For most of the world now, it seems like the EU is having real problems and people need to acknowledge the conerns of the EU skeptic side instead of dismissing them as a merely racist conspiracies and nonsense. Real people are behind these movements and they are not all moral monsters, their complaints should be given some sort of thoughful analysis rather than dismissals.


I won't hold my breathe.
Last edited by Victoribus Spolia on 11 Jan 2019 12:17, edited 1 time in total.
#14978962
Ter wrote:So 28 persons have to decide cases based on the national legislations of the 28 countries ? Or do they, as Mr Connoly said, judge only to favour the EU ?


Mr Conolly is a propagandist that ignores the fact that the ECJ applies the law that our national governments have legislated at EU level. It is the instrument of our national governments not their dictator. Someone should be able to understand that every single democracy has a Supreme Court that applies the law of the land that the elected governments of the land have legislated, otherwise what would be the point of legislating law if it cannot be consistently applied? The EU is the collection of its members states not a separate entity that exists in a vacuum.

His arguments about the Euro are also very correct. The common currency was not well thought out and has terrible consequences for a number of member countries. With Germany being the biggest beneficiary.


The euro currency is not within the scope of this conversation as not all EU members have the euro. We will discuss it, but not just because propagandists wish to muddy the waters when they lose arguments.

And finally, the decision to let in millions of migrants from a different culture and religion has created a populist backlash the dimensions of which are not yet fully realised. That decision by Frau Merkel might be a very decisive and big nail in the EU coffin.


Neither is the decision of Germany to welcome refugees within the scope of the EU as the EU had nothing to do with it.
#14978963
noemon wrote:Well if all our national governments are unelected and undemocratic technocrats, then is there any democracy anywhere, Sivad?


Very little and definitely not enough.

If the national governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden are all composed of unelected technocrats, then what?


Then we all live in a technocratic kleptocracy and we should all be working to change that.
#14978965
Sivad wrote:Very little and definitely not enough.

Then we all live in a technocratic kleptocracy and we should all be working to change that.


But you guys are arguing that the EU is allegedly less democratic than our national democracies, no? And that we should do away with it to allegedly "take back control", take back control from who Sivad? from my own national government? Take back from my own national government and give it to my own national government? :lol:

Arguing on whether our national democracies are democratic enough is quite irrelevant to the EU.
#14978969
Rugoz wrote:I'm comparing institutions at the EU level with institutions at the national level in the UK/US/etc.. That's what this debate is all about. It's not like a federal structure makes a country more democratic anyway. In the US voters living in small states have a larger weight in the Senate than voters from big states. Same for cantons in Switzerland, or member states in the EU. That's not more democratic, but less.


This is correct; however, the point of this was regional representation (republicanism); thus, as to prevent majoritarian mob-rule, republican federalism taught that rural population imbalances had to be accounted for in some political body (the senate) in order to prevent the urban from consistently trampling the rights of the rural. Had this not been developed, union would have been impossible as rural states would have refused membership.

Its less democratic only if your regard the best expression of popular government to be direct democracy where individuals, not regions, states, etc, matter.

However, if you believe in any kind of union between different states and that they should all have fair representation, then rural states should have higher weights; otherwise they would have no interest in joining (or remaining in) such a group as they would never get any "Actual" representation and end up being trampled by the more urban states. The relationship between the Senate and House in the U.S.A (and electorcal college in presidential elections); were meant to maintain this important balance for the preservation of the Union.

Indeed, if something like the electoral college were abolished; the U.S. would likley descend into civil war within a decade as rural states and peoples would find themselves under the totalitarian rule of America's big cities, against which no appeal or veto would be possible. Given the polar opposite beliefs and lifestyles of these two groups, we could easily see how well this would go.
#14978970
Victoribus Spoila wrote:I really don't know what the fate of the EU is and I don't care that much as American with my own political concerns; however, I generally view decentralization, secessionism, and cultural preservationism as de facto moral goods so my leanings should be evident in this matter.


Are you saying that you support the break-up of the United States and the breakup of the United Kingdom? Both entities far less democratic, far more centralised, and far less culturally diverse than the European Union. Is that also what you are saying Ter?
#14978971
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Thats not far off from how the Senate was supposed to work until it was made a democratic body as well based on popular election.

So given your point, it sounds like membership in the EU is not much different than state membership in the U.S.A was supposed to be like as originally conceived.

Given how that has worked out for state sovereignty over time, I can see why euroskepticism is a thing.


I'm an US skeptic. Maybe the federal government can be democratically reformed but it's probably always going to be too big and too remote to be constrained by democracy. The Europeans are out of their minds setting up a massive central government, they can barely hold down their own national governments and they go and erect another layer of government over those, what are they smoking? :knife:
#14978972
Sivad wrote:'I'm an US skeptic. Maybe the federal government can be democratically reformed but it's probably always going to be too big and too remote to be constrained by democracy. The Europeans are out of their minds setting up a massive central government, they can barely hold down their own national governments and they go and erect another layer of government over those, what are they smoking?


The government of the EU is composed of the national governments of the EU member states, and every national government has a veto. Europeans do not need to hold down an extra layer of government but only their own governments. And to make matters worse if we do away with the European Union, that will not stop our countries from making international treaties with each other, before we had cannon diplomacy, colonisation and serfdom. Our countries had to take orders from whoever was the Hegemon of the time. Our countries mattered for nothing. I understand that Americans would prefer it this way because they would then proceed to control us all. But please do not pretend that you are arguing this in the name of democracy. Now our countries have direct representation at every single level and control every single gubernatorial & legal process of the union.
#14978973
Sivad wrote:I'm an US skeptic.


#MeToo.

:lol:

Sivad wrote:Maybe the federal government can be democratically reformed but it's probably always going to be too big and too remote to be constrained by democracy.


It cannot be democratically reformed; there is no actual incentive on the part of those ruling it to scale back its scope.

This is largely because their is no financial disincentive on the level of the elected representative.

If their own personal credit score and assets were leveraged against the debt of the U.S.A, I am sure they would think twice on voting for a gazillion dollar spending package before flying back to the Hamptons.

As it stands, they have nothing to lose by spending money they don't have, its not their money after all, its belongs to this nebulous thing called "the public."

Sivad wrote:The Europeans are out of their minds setting up a massive central government, they can barely hold down their own national governments and they go and erect another layer of government over those


I agree, how anyone look back at the history of centralization and statism and be encouraged to duplicate it themselves is beyond me. Of course, we have clowns on here who look at the short-lived disaster that was the Soviet Union and say to themselves: "You know what? Lets try that one again." :knife:

Sivad wrote:what are they smoking?


Clearly not enough Ganja.....probably parsley leaves.
#14978975
Sivad wrote:I'm an US skeptic.


Victoribus Spoila wrote:#metoo


I think it's great that this conversation has made you guys more skeptic of the US and the UK, than it has made you about the EU.
#14978976
noemon wrote:But you guys are arguing that the EU is allegedly less democratic than our national democracies, no?


Yes. Your national governments are directly elected, the EU government is not. Even your national governments have severe democracy deficits and the EU system is basically designed to amplify the democratic deficits in your national systems.

And that we should do away with it to allegedly "take back control", take back control from who Sivad? from my own national government? Take back from my own national government and give it to my own national government? :lol:


It's not just your national government, you've ceded control to 27 other national governments when you can barely manage your own.

Arguing on whether our national democracies are democratic enough is quite irrelevant to the EU.


How so? If you have democratic deficits in your national systems then that's only going to be compounded in a supranational system administrated by those undemocratic national systems.
#14978978
noemon wrote:The government of the EU is composed of the national governments of the EU member states, and every national government has a veto. Europeans do not need to hold down an extra layer of government but only their own governments. And to make matters worse if we do away with the European Union, that will not stop our countries from making international treaties with each other, before we had cannon diplomacy, colonisation and serfdom. Our countries had to take orders from whoever was the Hegemon of the time. Our countries mattered for nothing.


If this were the case, then why would anyone ever want to leave the EU? You basically make it sound like the EU is nothing but a club of fully equal and entirely independent states contributing power and wealth voluntarily without any binding constraints upon them.

You also seem to be saying that the reason this club was created, and its entire weight of importance, was to make European states confident enough to stand up to the actual superpowers of the world?

That is, you seem to be saying that the EU is a mere confidence club and trading bloc created so that no individual european state could be bullied by the big meany USA ever again! :lol:


I can hear it now:


USA to Greece: "You better move your ships out of the way so we can bomb this little arab country."

Greece: "No! You mess with me, you mess with us all!!!"

USA: "What the fuck did you say to me?"

Greece: "Germany!!! UK!!! France!!! USA is picking on me again, come here and lets yell at him together."


:excited:
#14978983
Sivad wrote:Yes. Your national governments are directly elected, the EU government is not.


For the nth time, the EU government is composed of our elected national governments.

It's not just your national government, you've ceded control to 27 other national governments when you can barely manage your own.


But my national government has a veto and direct representation at every EU level, if I do not like something I can force my government to veto just like we have done several times. The same applies to the other 27.

How so? If you have democratic deficits in your national systems then that's only going to be compounded in a supranational system administrated by those undemocratic national systems.


But these deficits can only be looked at the national level, not the EU level. This forum exists to discuss all these things, but a topic cannot discuss everything every time you guys lose the argument.

Victoribus Spoila wrote:If this were the case, then why would anyone ever want to leave the EU?


Indeed.

Victorbus Spoila wrote:That is, you seem to be saying that the EU is a mere confidence club and trading bloc created so that no individual european state could be bullied by the big meany USA ever again! :lol:


Indeed it was created to counter US economic & political dominance among other things. How come are you not aware of this? If a member country is threatened by another country all EU member countries are required to support it.

I see you are ignoring my simple question:

Victoribus Spoila wrote:I really don't know what the fate of the EU is and I don't care that much as American with my own political concerns; however, I generally view decentralization, secessionism, and cultural preservationism as de facto moral goods so my leanings should be evident in this matter.


Are you saying that you support the break-up of the United States and the breakup of the United Kingdom? Both entities far less democratic, far more centralised, and far less culturally diverse than the European Union. Is that also what you are saying Ter?
#14978984
noemon wrote: if we do away with the European Union, that will not stop our countries from making international treaties with each other, before we had cannon diplomacy, colonisation and serfdom. Our countries had to take orders from whoever was the Hegemon of the time. Our countries mattered for nothing.


How is that any different from being dominated by transnational technocrats through the EU?

I understand that Americans would prefer it this way because they would then proceed to control us all. But please do not pretend that you are arguing this in the name of democracy.


Yeah, I'm secretly all about dominating small European countries. My lust for imperial dominance won't be satiated until Estonians are praying to America. :lol:

Now our countries have direct representation at every single level and control every single gubernatorial & legal process of the union.


There's no direct representation outside the parliament and the parliament can't initiate legislation.
#14978987
noemon wrote:Indeed.


Why do you think it is? You really do not see any serious concerns from the other side at all?

Besides, if its such a small matter, such an informal club of sorts, then who cares if anyone leaves?


noemon wrote:Indeed it was created to counter US economic & political dominance. How come are you not aware of this? If a member country is threatened by another country all EU member countries are required to support it.


Well, I never heard anyone say it quite as plain and as honestly as you have.

I find it kind of amusing, but fear of others has been one of the greatest motivations for a process of centralization and eventual tyranny.

Here is question for you; under that same justification for creating the EU in first place (as you have just stated); would you not also have to support a EU defense force and military with a central command as a check against the threat of the USA?

:eh:

After all, unity is better than disunity.

noemon wrote:Are you saying that you support the break-up of the United States and the breakup of the United Kingdom? Both entities far less democratic, far more centralised, and far less culturally diverse than the European Union.


Absolutely. I didn't know that was even a question, i'm an ANCAP at all, I want to see all modern states broken up. :lol:

My fear for the EU member states, is that if they want to see their future 100 years from now as EU member states; they just need to look at the individual member states of the USA. Such a union was formed under similar justifications and the states even had a very extreme autonomy and sovereignty at the start. Now look at us. :hmm:
#14978988
Sivad wrote:How is that any different from being dominated by transnational technocrats through the EU?


You need to seize the propaganda and repeating yourself like a broken record. Our elected governments that form the EU government are not transnational technocrats but our own elected governments.

Sivad wrote:Yeah, I'm secretly all about dominating small European countries. My lust for imperial dominance won't be satiated until Estonians are praying to America. :lol:


This is the moment when you should realise that you are merely a pawn, totally brainwashed by your own media who have convinced you that the EU countries should do away with the EU in the name of democracy when in fact they have convinced you to parrot their corporate propaganda in order to undermine the sovereignty of EU nations. The last remaining democracies in the planet who are not directly run by corporations. The only place that taxes corporations, the only place that forces Israel to behave by for example forcing it to distinguish between Israeli products and products from Occupied Palestine(such as East Jerusalem for example!) seriously vexing Israelis, the only place where unions exist and participate in the political processes....the place with free education and free healthcare....

VS wrote:Besides, if its such a small matter, such an informal club of sorts, then who cares if anyone leaves?


Would you not care if one of your best friends, did not want to be friends anymore? Would that not undermine the pack? Would you not be sad about it? And try to convince him that we are all buddies? Would it not be even worse if that friend left for a "lying bitch", such as Murdoch's corporate media?

Here is question for you; under that same justification for creating the EU in first place (as you have just stated); would you not also have to support a EU defense force and military with a central command as a check against the threat of the USA?


Of course I do. It has already been formed, and Greece being a frontier nation as well as one of the most powerful military states in the EU is at its forefront.

Victoribus Spoila wrote:My fear for the EU member states, is that if they want to see their future 100 years from now as EU member states; they just need to look at the individual member states of the USA. Such a union was formed under similar justifications and even had very extreme autonomy and sovereignty at the start. Now look at us.


This is indeed an excellent argument originally made by One Degree. Well there is no guarantee for anything, but the EU members taking example from the US have already imposed constraints so that this does not happen. These constraints are that they(EU members states) hold the initiative to legislation and not a centralised EU institution, in the US you have ceded that right to Congress. In the EU this cannot change unless all 28 unanimously vote to change it, which when and if it is brought about, then we should all stand against it. But let us not pretend that if the EU break that EU member states will become more sovereign, they won't, they will simply become easy pickings and they will not have any veto to disagree with the big boys.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 14

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]

@JohnRawls What if your assumption is wrong??? […]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

Only Zionists believe that bollocks and you lot ar[…]

There is no reason to have a state at all unless w[…]