Is the European Union (EU) a failed "project" or does it have a future?

[Lyllian]

Yeah. Only the Holy Roman Empire didn't have access to instantaneous communication across the globe, the ability for commoners to travel to any country in the world within 24 hours and its leadership was determined by bloodline rather by competence.

The Holy Roman Emperor was an elected position, not strictly tied to a specific bloodline. The Emperor was chosen by an Electoral Council, initially comprised of three archbishops and four secular princes, and then crowned by the Pope. In many ways the position was the medieval equivalent of an elected federal President.

[arel00]

It is not a failure, and, contrary to popular belief (or rather, populisms' propaganda) the only real solution is to make it stronger, not weaker. If you think it's too politically far-reaching now, you're in for a rough ride.

[Deleted]

The same thing can be said about any political regime....And EU isn't that corrupted, it is just stagnante and nothing is really hapening politically-wise, if you want corruption I hear China knows a thing or two.

Oh you are very wrong. There is only one place where you can find more lobbyists in the world than in Bruxelles.That is Washington. These EU communists decide what can or cannot be produced,imported or not to EU based on bribes from big corporations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFevdq4wZRw

[Reeve]

The Holy Roman Emperor was an elected position, not strictly tied to a specific bloodline. The Emperor was chosen by an Electoral Council, initially comprised of three archbishops and four secular princes, and then crowned by the Pope. In many ways the position was the medieval equivalent of an elected federal President.

In theory. In practice, it worked in dynasties, like any other monarchic system, though it was clearly more of a confederacy than a federal sort of deal.

[owbu]

I dont think it will fail or disolve or that its ideals are flawed.
To compete with giant countries like the US, China and Russia, europe needs to represent their intrest as a union instead of everyone for themselves.
The speed in which new progressive Ideas have been implented was just a little too quick for a lot of people, which leads to the conservative and or radical rightwing partys to gain voters.
But that is a completely normal democratic process and will just lead to the "main"partys to slow down their progressivness (Is that a word ?) a little, until the average guy has caught up with them again (mostly by old people dying).
So I just expect a few years of stricter immigration laws, more anti-islam regulation and people saying the phrase "conservation of Abendland Kultur" a lot.

[jordonus]

And giving USA the control over all Europe? Not happening sir.

Good joke. If the US wanted to control Europe, it would do it; having these countries organized under the EU makes no difference. Poverty-stricken Russia, on the other hand, is a level opponent and limiting the amount of aggression and intimidation, coming from them, towards individual countries in Europe is what the EU is good for.

[Deleted]

The speed in which new progressive Ideas have been implented was just a little too quick for a lot of people, which leads to the conservative and or radical rightwing partys to gain voters.

What progressive ideas are you talking about? I don't want gays to adopt children, i don't want this homopropaganda. I don't want islam in Europe. Those are the progressive ideas which EU communistic leaders are forcing upon nations.

[Independent voter]

Well, if you want a currency that is more competitive with the dollar, yen and yaun, then the euro is it. And the huge EU market. Also, the EU would have a bigger voice in world affairs than all those little countries alone. This just seems logical and I think it's why the EU was created in the first place.

[Deleted]

Exactly that : EU should only exists economy-wise not political. You can't make second USA out of Europe. Countries here are much older, developed their own traditions. You can't force multiculturalism upon them.

Besides i don't like the very idea that some communists in Bruxelles have higher authority that country gouvernments.

So were the nations that composed Italy.
So were the land-countries that composed Prussia.

So yes, in terms of being a federation, you can make a second USA out of Europe, and there will be one. Just because countries have their traditions it doesn't mean they need to abandon them due to the EU. Oh, if they have traditions based on corruption and hatred yes, they do, but then... those traditions do not deserve to continue existing.

Also, national governments should disappear. Only by giving full control to Brussels can the money be controlled and not have issues with it falling into endless holes like it does in Greece or being used for stupid things like in Romania.

[Revi]

So were the nations that composed Italy.
So were the land-countries that composed Prussia.

So yes, in terms of being a federation, you can make a second USA out of Europe, and there will be one. Just because countries have their traditions it doesn't mean they need to abandon them due to the EU. Oh, if they have traditions based on corruption and hatred yes, they do, but then... those traditions do not deserve to continue existing.

Also, national governments should disappear. Only by giving full control to Brussels can the money be controlled and not have issues with it falling into endless holes like it does in Greece or being used for stupid things like in Romania.

So basically "put Germany in charge of your country, because you can't be trusted to decide for yourself".

Guess I'm more interested in sovereignty than efficiency.

[Akylios]

It's actually a pretty strong force for outside elements to deal with. At least on the business side of things it is. As a random example, a lot of American businesses have had to treat their European customers much better than they treat their American customers, because they EU is powerful enough to force them to. With a more fragmented Europe, this was not so much the case, and in some countries big American corporations held much more sway over local law makers than they do these days. So at least in this case, a united Europe serves (a large portion of) its citizens better than a fragmented one does.

[jordonus]

Well, if you want a currency that is more competitive with the dollar, yen and yaun, then the euro is it. And the huge EU market. Also, the EU would have a bigger voice in world affairs than all those little countries alone. This just seems logical and I think it's why the EU was created in the first place.

Some countries did not need the Euro and it certainly didn't help at all to lock the health of their economy to failures among the EU. As for a bigger voice? Not likely, they still have to compete with all the other countries internally to be heard. Not much has changed for a lot of the countries that joined the EU, in terms of global influence... except that many of them are in a worse position now because it's very much a subservient, "Brussels leads and we follow", kind of relationship.

[Deleted]

So were the nations that composed Italy.
So were the land-countries that composed Prussia.

So yes, in terms of being a federation, you can make a second USA out of Europe, and there will be one. Just because countries have their traditions it doesn't mean they need to abandon them due to the EU. Oh, if they have traditions based on corruption and hatred yes, they do, but then... those traditions do not deserve to continue existing.

Also, national governments should disappear. Only by giving full control to Brussels can the money be controlled and not have issues with it falling into endless holes like it does in Greece or being used for stupid things like in Romania.

Prussia and Italy were same ethniticy more or less and they had no immigrants from Middle East. Besides i don't wanna have gays raising kids.You can't give Brussels full authority unless you want to companies to rule the EU not the sovereign nations. Do you even know how corrupt EU is? Besides i'd rather have the market to rule the economy not some communistic entity.

And i don't like the idea giving the Germans control over whole EU :>

[jordonus]

It's actually a pretty strong force for outside elements to deal with. At least on the business side of things it is. As a random example, a lot of American businesses have had to treat their European customers much better than they treat their American customers, because they EU is powerful enough to force them to. With a more fragmented Europe, this was not so much the case, and in some countries big American corporations held much more sway over local law makers than they do these days. So at least in this case, a united Europe serves (a large portion of) its citizens better than a fragmented one does.

This has nothing to do with the any perceived power on the part of the EU. It has to do with the fact that American corporations are corporations. They love money and they want to bleed the rest of the world dry. They will appease whatever laws they have to, within reason, in order to get a foothold and open shop. Individual countries make laws that these corporations follow all around the world, the EU is not special and is certainly not required for this; the countries could do this on their own. At the end of the day, as long as they are making a large profit they don't care much; but make the hoops too absurd and it's just not worth it to them anymore, see Spain & Google News.

[Mihalik]

The EU has an image problem. Every time it does something wrong it is massively highlighted in newspapers and on the internet. When it does something right, nobody gives a shit, so it appears as if it only ever screws up.

This.

Without the EU, Europe would become the next South America in no short term.

The EU is an absolute necessity, both as a political and an economic entity. We have enough problems competing with the Chinese, keeping the Russians in line, counter balancing the US, affecting change in Africa and Middle East together, as a bunch of bickering micro states we would be reduced to irrelevance.

[Wildtree]

the EU...... I like to look at it in a metaphoric sense...

It's like a Formula 1 race car, pre season... A lot of work, a lot of tuning, a lot of test laps, until it runs like a clockwork..
Eventually we're getting there.

[Reeve]

The EU has an image problem. Every time it does something wrong it is massively highlighted in newspapers and on the internet. When it does something right, nobody gives a shit, so it appears as if it only ever screws up.

I totally agree. I think this is a problem most governments have. People only see the things that impinge on their desires without seeing everything the governments do that create environments that are good to live in.

[Akylios]

This has nothing to do with the any perceived power on the part of the EU. It has to do with the fact that American corporations are corporations. They love money and they want to bleed the rest of the world dry. They will appease whatever laws they have to, within reason, in order to get a foothold and open shop. Individual countries make laws that these corporations follow all around the world, the EU is not special and is certainly not required for this; the countries could do this on their own. At the end of the day, as long as they are making a large profit they don't care much; but make the hoops too absurd and it's just not worth it to them anymore, see Spain & Google News.

Individual European countries had a much harder time actually dictating anything to big multinational corporations, than a union of these same countries has been able to. I'm not sure which country you're from, but if you've been doing regular business across Europe over the past few decades, you'll easily have noticed the European Union's impact on how business is conducted across the continent. So far, for the most part, the EU has been a balancing force in the struggle between public and corporate interests. Various legislations over the past couple of decades have not only directly benefited the average citizen (as both a consumer and a worker), but also the average business owner, as the EU has a (comparatively) pretty strong stance against anti-competitive practices.

That last part has been of great benefit to myself, may I add, as I now have a much easier time doing business in various EU countries where, in the past, big multinational corporations (from almost every continent) essentially did things such as (just one example) price out all their competitors by selling their product at a loss (for as long as they needed to, to get rid of any competition). Even though some of these countries did in fact have laws against these kind of business practices, they tended to be enforced extremely sporadically (if at all) until the EU became a real force to be reckoned with.

So yeah, what exactly do you perceive as 'power' in this case, if bending the biggest money makers in this world to your will does not qualify?

[madmanx]

Since when was the uninformed and emotional opinion of uneducated loudmouths a deciding factor if anything has failed or not? The biggest failure of the EU is that we did not do something about all the "Hitler Lite" people when they started showing their ugly faces. Racist and too chickenshit to admit it....lovely!

[FuxieDK]

I noticed that "the public" and politicians in different EU countries see this very differently.

For example, here in the Netherlands many people concider the EU a failed project and expect it to dissolve at some point in the (near) future. The people in the UK also don't seem to be very positive about it. Then there are for example the Germans and Polish who seem to favour it.

I would like to hear from you all what the general idea/vision is about the EU in your country and if the public and politicians have the same view or if its very different!

MAJOR FAILURE...

Politicians just refuse to admit it..