sikacz wrote: Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:41 am
Personally I would like to see a few other countries pull away from the EU, especially Finland.
I totally disagree. But Poland and Hungary need to be expelled if they keep violating that basic principle of EU membership: That of being a true democratic republic. Greece was an associate member of the EEU, but in 1967 was expelled because of the Junta. Spain was denied membership until well after Franco died, as was Portugal because they were dictatorships.
The EU and its predecessors, the 3 European Communities, the EEU, ECSC, and EurAtom, have kept the peace for over 70 years among members that have been regularly been at war with each other for millennia.
The problem isn't the Union, it's how the Union is organized. It tries to be both a Federation and a Confederation. Imagine if the USA could only change or make a law if all 50 state governments agreed to it! Think it's bad now?
This was, in fact, why the ORIGINAL USA, under the Articles of Confederation, failed. Confederations are basically at the mercy of their members.
Europe, because of its original organization, when there were only 6 members: France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, allowed veto powers to all 6. Even when the UK, Ireland and Denmark joined in 1972, it was still plausible, barely, with 9.
The EU and the previous communities, were ALWAYS seen as a threat to Moscow, and the Soviets were always trying to split them up. That hasn't changed with the fall of the USSR, although had more former Soviet state, including Russia, fully embraced Western-Style Democracy, they might WELL have been welcomed into the EU, as were the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. So were Poland and Hungary, the real problem children.
Brexit is so fucking stupid it's hard to imagine--like America electing a lying, raping, grifting, tax-evading sociopath. Brexiters labored under the fantasy they could escape Brussels, yet still keep all the bennies of EU membership, and their leaders fed that fantasy knowing full well it was a total lie. When you deny reality and rely on "alternative facts" a major shit-storm is what you'll always get.
The REAL answer to the EU's problems is a total re-organization. Whether or not the "Grand Compromise" of our Constitution is a reasonable model or not is for them to decide. Once again the smaller, more numerous states are terrified of being totally controlled by the bigger, giant states....because they are! In fact, the Kaiser's and Hitler's goal of Germany dominating Europe wasn't reached militarily, it was by economics and peaceful, friendly relations with the other states of the EU, to work and trade WITH them, not against them.
I don't have the final answer. The problem was there, just as much as today, when I was 20, at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, in 1976 and there were only 9 members in the 3 Communities. Even then, everyone knew the High Commission was eventually headed for disaster unless major changes were made. And here it is!
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."