[Sivad]

As I mentioned, this is a left-wing argument against the EU and hence directed at left-wingers. Corbyn almost certainly agrees to a large extent with this.

The EU is an anti-democratic neoliberal nightmare, it's even worse than the federal superstate we got in the US and it's not even fully implemented yet. The real left wants to abolish all such technocratic monstrosities.

[noemon]

^Trumpian Babbitry in full swing.

The Trump administration not only dislikes the European Union, it is out to destroy it. The trip by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to Europe last week was episode three of the onslaught, designed to play on east-west divisions within the EU. Episode one was Donald Trump’s 2017 Warsaw speech, infused with nativist nationalism. Episode two was Trump’s 2018 moves on tariffs, and his tearing up of key agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. To which should be added his open encouragements to Brexiteers, and his decision to pull out of Syria. All of the above affect European (including British) interests in very concrete ways, unlike mere tweets or insults thrown at allies.

Europe is trying to put up a resistance. Angela Merkel, Trump’s favourite political target in the EU, received a standing ovation on Saturday at the annual Munich security conference for her speech on the virtues of multilateralism. But perhaps we have yet to fully fathom what the EU is dealing with in this new Trump era. The man now whispering into Trump’s ears is John Bolton, his national security adviser. His brand of anti-EU ideology was on full display during Pompeo’s tour of Budapest, Bratislava and Warsaw.

Pompeo has done two significant things. First, he in effect took possession of this year’s 30th-anniversary celebrations of the fall of communism in eastern Europe by waxing lyrical on US closeness to nations that fought for their freedom – all the while giving a free pass to rightwing populist governments that the EU has put on notice for their democratic backsliding. Second, through his choice of destinations, Pompeo amplified divisions between countries formerly behind the iron curtain and those that weren’t. This astutely plays on sensitivities, manipulated by demagogues, that have marred the EU’s capacity to unite in recent years.

Some of it smacked of 2003 when, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, coined the terms “old Europe” (bad) and “new Europe” (good). But one big difference today is that the European project is struggling to keep afloat; back then optimists believed it would “run the 21st century”. An article Bolton penned in 2000 helps to bring the Trump strategy into sharper focus. Headlined “Should we take global governance seriously?”, it reads today like a roadmap of the Trump administration’s intent to destroy the EU. In it, Bolton lashes out at “globalists” who seek to tie nation states into a web of international norms and agreements that restrict sovereignty. He says a truly democratic mandate can only exist at the national level. Along the way, he hammers NGOs and civil society (“which sees itself as beyond national politics”) and the “limitless” breadth of multi- or supra-national institutions.The EU, he says, is “the leading source of substantive globalist policies”.

Bolton goes further: he identifies the EU as a threat to US interests (last year Trump called it “a foe”). “European elites” are “not content alone with transferring their own national sovereignty to Brussels, they have also decided, in effect, to transfer some of ours to worldwide institutions and norms, thus making the European Union a miniature precursor to global governance”. And he depicts the EU as “tinged with a discernable anti-Americanism”.

Mike Pompeo and Viktor Orbán in Budapest last week. Photograph: Balazs Szecsodi/Hungarian Prime Minister’s Press Office/HANDOUT/EPA
Never mind that Trump has arguably done more to bolster anti-American sentiment in Europe than any other US leader. What this reveals is that conventional explanations often given for Trump’s attacks on the EU are only one part of the picture. Trump’s anger at the EU as a trading bloc, his tactics to boost US armament exports to the continent, as well as his personal aversion to Merkel, are but the translation of a wider ideological battle about global governance.

Beware of thinking Bolton’s 2000 writings are outdated. They will only appear so if you believe the Trump administration has no ideology whatsoever, only commercial interests. It’s true that it’s a bit of a stretch to think of Europe today as capable of challenging the US on the global stage: in comparison it is a military weakling, and has endured a decade of crises. Yet it embodies something Trump and Bolton detest. And some of its larger member states are now trying to stand up in ways that clearly irk the Trump team – as with the new mechanism to sidestep sanctions against Iran.

Meanwhile, though liberal central Europeans may hope for positive US engagement in the region – such as Pompeo’s promise to support an “independent media”, and Nato deployments facing Russia – that glosses over what I’d describe as the “newspeak” contained in last week’s visit. Words such as “freedom” and “independence” flowed from Pompeo’s mouth as he paid tribute to those who broke away from communist dictatorship. But there was no mention that the EU helped to anchor democracy. The value-based dimension of the EU is arguably stronger than that of Nato – an alliance that for years included authoritarians (think Portugal’s Salazar regime, and the Greek colonels in power in the 1960s), and does again with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Pompeo’s talk of freedom, above all, echoed Bolton’s thinking. “All Americans celebrate their own individual freedoms, and are at least well wishers for others around the world to enjoy the same freedoms,” Bolton noted in 2000. However, attacking the EU, he added that the “‘human rights’ rubric has been stretched in a variety of dimensions to become an important component of globalists’ effort to constrain and embarrass the independent exercise of both judicial and political authority by nation-states”. Today, that thinking fits perfectly with rightwing populists in Warsaw and Budapest who complain about the EU’s response to their curtailing of independent judges and media.

With less than 100 days before the European parliament election, Pompeo had dinner in Hungary with its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who wants to redraw Europe’s political map to suit his vision of “illiberal democracy”. They may have disagreed on Russia, and it’s true Pompeo did also meet NGO representatives in Budapest, but there was little sign of divergence with Orbán over values. It’s true also that Pompeo visited Slovakia, whose government thinks of itself as a constructive member of the EU, not a disruptor. But this was possibly aimed at drawing Slovakia deeper into the embrace of European illiberals, not the other way around.

Pompeo’s visit was a vindication of the enemies of a values-based EU, and another attack on the EU’s very existence. Postwar Europe was able to build itself up as a collective project thanks to US protection and financial support. Today the EU is the target of multi-faceted political offensives from both Washington and Moscow, not just because of what it does, but what it is. The earlier Europeans take stock of this, the better.

But why are the US globalists so vexxed by the EU one might ask and that is because for the US globalism is just US nationalism and they feel that they have the sole right to define international relations.

Globalism refers to 2 things:

a) in a political sense it refers to the American World Order built around the dollar, US interventionism around the world, global capitalist trade, the World Bank, the WTO and so on and forth.

The word itself came into widespread usage, first and foremost in the United States, from the early 1940s.[10] Many of these early uses of the term "globalist" in American English were pejorative uses by marginal political groups like the KKK and neo-nazis and anti-Semites like Henry Ford and are not connected to later academic uses of the term in political science.[11]

Or Rosenboim find that the modern concepts, although not the terms themselves, of "globalism" and "globalisation" arose in the post-war debates debates of the 1940s in the United States.[12] In their position of unprecedented power, US planners formulated policies to shape the kind of postwar world they wanted, which, in economic terms, meant a globe-spanning capitalist order centered exclusively upon the United States. This was the period when US global power was at its peak: the country was the greatest economic power the world had ever known, with the greatest military machine in human history. [13] As George Kennan's Policy Planning Staff put it in February 1948, without using the terms "globalism" or "globalisation": "[W]e have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. […] Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity".[14] America's allies and foes in Eurasia were suffering the dreadful effects of World War II at this time. [15]

And b) in a pejorative sense it is a trigger word used by the KKK and antisemites to blame the Jews for "immigrants", "Blacks" "global finance", "communism" and so on and forth which is the use that ZN is quite fond of, albeit in a Jewish-free sense in which he has simply imagined "elites" instead of "Jews".

As I have said many times in here: Globalism is basically American nationalism and racial segregation and racism did not prevent the US from exporting globalism around the world.

[Hong Wu]

What if I told you

That globalism is capitalism, that's why all the big companies support it.

[Rugoz]

You claim that the EU's empowerment of nation-states to participate in the formulation of European and Global policy, a power reserved for EU nation-states is merely a carrot while totally ignoring that such an empowerment has never existed before institutionally and that it totally contradicts your argument that the EU threatens the existence of nation-states when in actual fact it literally empowers nation-states to levels that these nation-states had never exercised before.

That may have been true for the European Community until the foundation of the EU with the Treaty of Maastricht. If the goal is to defend the economic interests of member states on a global level while retaining as much national sovereignty as possible, we would have to go back ~30 years, at least.

[noemon]

That may have been true for the European Community until the foundation of the EU with the Treaty of Maastricht. If the goal is to defend the economic interests of member states on a global level while retaining as much national sovereignty as possible, we would have to go back ~30 years, at least.

This is the bit that most definitely remains true and which you ignored from my previous post:

It is the lack of power and the lack of a platform to exercise that power that actually threatens the integrity of nation-states and that is why even nations such as Turkey beg to join the EU because they know that it is empowering and not reducing their power and influence as you and the author you quote erroneously claim.

Of course that is also the reason why European nationalists/patriots and advocates of national strength and sovereignty do not wish to see Turkey getting empowered by joining the EU which makes this whole blame-exercise totally hypocritical because once the matter of EU membership for Turkey is broached the very same right-wing people who argue that the EU allegedly damages national power flip their own switch and argue that the Turkish nation should not be empowered by joining.

[Rugoz]

It is the lack of power and the lack of a platform to exercise that power that actually threatens the integrity of nation-states and that is why even nations such as Turkey beg to join the EU because they know that it is empowering and not reducing their power and influence as you and the author you quote erroneously claim.

Poor countries want to join because they get lots of money. Their citizens want to join because they can travel and work freely in the EU and because the EU might force their governments to fight corruption and become more democratic.

It has nothing to do with gaining sovereignty, rather the contrary. Needless to say for rich countries those benefits do not apply, so the loss of sovereignty is a major concern.

What I concur with is that a common trade and anti-trust policy gives European countries more weight on the international stage. On the other hand, a trade policy independent from the EU is still seen as a slight advantage where I live. That may change if the world becomes less committed to free trade though.

[noemon]

It has nothing to do with gaining sovereignty, rather the contrary.

Yeah man because rule-makers have less sovereignty than rule-takers. And somehow they even have more leverage too...

On the other hand, a trade policy independent from the EU is still seen as a slight advantage where I live.

Is that the excuse you tell yourselves to justify the extremely racist and anti-feminist society that you hail from? The Swiss have voted against the women's right to vote, against German immigration even though they are quasi German themselves and against the EU consistently. Just because the Swiss are rich it does not mean they are not backwards or that their choices are based on anything other than their own backwardness. I highly doubt you even believe or agree with what you have just written. Your "independent trade-policy" hardly justifies the fact that you simply copy-paste EU rules into your laws and that you have no say in anything that goes down.

[Igor Antunov]

I have always supported the notion of a united Europe. But the EU is the very worst way of going about it. It should be a Europe ruled by an Imperial regime, a Europe that seeks to conquer the world again. The EU is the sorriest, saddest outcome. It is self destruction of all that is European.

[Atlantis]

@Igor Antunov, because imperialism worked so well in the 19th and 20th century, or because Russia has become an international pariah because of its imperialist policy in Ukraine, or because US/UK imperialism worked so well in Iraq and the greater ME.

Imperialism always is self-destructive. The EU is a union of small countries against imperialism. Why would the Dutch, Lithuanians, Croats, .... want imperialism. There is not a snow-ball's chance in hell that they could build empires against their bigger rivals.

People rant against the EU to get some unilateral advantages, but deep down, everybody (except the Brits) knows that there is no alternative. That's why the EU is indestructible.

And all the national wealth empires have to sink into non-productive military investments doesn't count for anything against the normative power of the EU.

Putin would love nothing better than be admitted into the EU, or at least sign some sort of free trade deal because he knows that his corrupt imperial wannabe country that relies to 60 % on its fossil fuel economy is a basket case.

[Rugoz]

Is that the excuse you tell yourselves to justify the extremely racist and anti-feminist society that you hail from? The Swiss have voted against the women's right to vote, against German immigration even though they are quasi German themselves and against the EU consistently. Just because the Swiss are rich it does not mean they are not backwards or that their choices are based on anything other than their own backwardness.

I can tell you're losing the argument.

I highly doubt you even believe or agree with what you have just written. Your "independent trade-policy" hardly justifies the fact that you simply copy-paste EU rules into your laws and that you have no say in anything that goes down.

Well, I didn't come up with it. The existing trade deals are considered better for us than the deals the EU has. Needless to say joining the EU would still be economically beneficial because it would give us more access to the EU's internal market, but that is beside the point. The question is whether the EU (or whatever the EU was 30 years ago) improves the position of members vis-a-vis third countries.

[noemon]

I can tell you're losing the argument.

It would be something losing an argument without any argument in fact even if your argument were true that the Swiss EU set-up(rule takers, copy/pasting everything and pretending they are unique) is better than the German or British setup(rule-makers) because of your "independent trade policy" my argument would still not be "lost" in any way. But your argument is not true anyway and nor is that the actual reason that the Swiss voted against the EU and ended up with this Frankenstein system of copy/pasting EU law every few months and that was not because of the "independent trade-policy" as you claim, it was because of what I said earlier and the government is merely trying to juggle around since then ending up with what you have right now.

Well, I didn't come up with it. The existing trade deals are considered better for us than the deals the EU has. Needless to say joining the EU would still be economically beneficial because it would give us more access to the EU's internal market, but that is beside the point. The question is whether the EU (or whatever the EU was 30 years ago) improves the position of members vis-a-vis third countries.

I knew that you did not believe your own stuff, it is not besides the point, it is a fact that you are clearly aware of, that if you joined the EU the Swiss nation and economy would be better off than it is now and that is not besides the point, rather it is the point. Besides as far as regulations and immigration are concerned you are quasi EU members already but you do not have representation in the EU like EU members do.

[Rugoz]

I knew that you did not believe your own stuff, it is not besides the point, it is a fact that you are clearly aware of, that if you joined the EU the Swiss nation and economy would be better off than it is now and that is not besides the point, rather it is the point. Besides as far as regulations and immigration are concerned you are quasi EU members already but you do not have representation in the EU like EU members do.

No, you just misunderstood what I wrote, as usual. You're intellectually incapable of following my arguments. It's always the same.

[noemon]

I did not misunderstand at all, I am just fully aware of the fact that you know you are wrong and that is why you are scared to spell something out properly because as soon as you try to quantify something, it will get trashed immediately and that is why you try to make an extremely vague argument, something about independent trade-policy "being better" but you don't to say in what way it's better, and how much added trade you get out of that that you would not get as EU members or how that in your view offsets your lack of representation in the EU.

[layman]

Those who support a united Europe but dislike the eu miss the point.

The eu is broadly a middle ground representation of its individual governments. If they were to become more left wing, the eu would follow.

There is nothing inherently right or left wing about the project. It’s only hard principle is peace and unity within Europe. It can change with its members and its populations.

[Rugoz]

I did not misunderstand at all, I am just fully aware of the fact that you know you are wrong and that is why you are scared to spell something out properly because as soon as you try to quantify something, it will get trashed immediately and that is why you try to make an extremely vague argument, something about independent trade-policy "being better" but you don't to say in what way it's better, and how much added trade you get out of that that you would not get as EU members or how that in your view offsets your lack of representation in the EU.

Oh really, when was the last time you quantified anything?

I'm not aware of any recent study quantifying the economic benefit/loss of having an independent trade policy (for Switzerland). So yes, my statement was qualitative, but not uninformed. For starters, EFTA countries still have it and want to stick to it (most FTAs we have are EFTA agreements), including politicians in my country. To give an example, we have lower tariffs on industrial goods than the EU, which in return gives us better access to markets like Japan, China and South Korea. On the other hand, we have higher tariffs on agricultural goods, meaning we have worse deals with Mercusor for example (source in German). Of course the protectionism of the agricultural sector is politically wanted (because it's not competitive), but economically bad. If I had to sum up, I would say an EU-independent trade policy is politically beneficial and economically about equal (at this point).

There is nothing inherently right or left wing about the project. It’s only hard principle is peace and unity within Europe. It can change with its members and its populations.

Eh what? The European treaties of full of "hard principles". They can be changed when all 28 members agree to change them. Or by leaving.

[Dr Cosmo]

PRO !

United States of Europe - Music Video

[Atlantis]

The EU has been a powerful magnet for countries to shed dictatorship and join the democratic club. The prospect of EU membership has consolidated fledgling democracies and the rule of law and helped new members to prosper.

Slovenia and Croatia developed a lot better than non-EU Balkan countries.

[redcarpet]

The EU has been a powerful magnet for countries to shed dictatorship and join the democratic club. The prospect of EU membership has consolidated fledgling democracies and the rule of law and helped new members to prosper.

Slovenia and Croatia developed a lot better than non-EU Balkan countries.

EDIT: Serbia & Turkey are drifting towards dictatorship so I doubt they'll join in the short term. Hungary will have to be expelled

[ingliz]

Hungary

Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and has been part of the Schengen Area since 2007.

[Atlantis]

EDIT: Serbia & Turkey are drifting towards dictatorship so I doubt they'll join in the short term. Hungary will have to be expelled

You are right about Turkey, but I think Serbia will join in less than 10 years together with most other Balkan countries.

After 100 years of Ataturk's secular Turkey, Erdogan is now taking the country back to fundamentalist republic with neo-Ottoman ambitions. That cannot end well, especially since he cannot stop the decline of the Lira and the Turkish economy. The EU had a narrow escape since EU membership would probably not have tempered Erdogan's imperialist ambitions.

Orban is a problem for the Hungarian people to sort out. As long as he stays within certain limits, the EU can tolerate Orban in Hungary and the PiS in Poland. Orban is no ideologue. He is an opportunist who knows how far he can push it. Expulsion from the EPP would be a first step. The fact that he is fighting expulsion from the EPP shows that he is prepared to compromise if it serves his purpose.