Do Countries Ever Unite?

[Elegiac]

The number of officals is dictated by the size of the country.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

Germany has the most and gets to call the shots. Plus, the parlament is useless.

Which is why the European Council exists, wherein every state gets one member. The problem with the Council is that its makeup is a reactionary one, not one that is set according to electoral cycles as in most Federal republics.

The people who benefit from a global market are the rich countries that can afford the EU taxes, regulations and bureaucracy. New members are usually failing to comply with all EU restrictions and their market becomes dominated by the richer countries.

Which would happen -regardless- of the EU. The difference is that in the EU, there exists the possibility for recourse. If the peripheral countries leave it, they will become just as if not -more- exploited and unable to do anything about it.

The CAP is there to make sure EU vegetables are able to compete with non-EU vegetables pricewise. CAP is also extremely hard to get and locked behind bureaucracy and regulations. This is why large companies have been cashing in and killing off traditional farmer's livelihood.

Which happens regardless of things like CAP. Corporate farms have the benefit of economies of scale; the "traditional farmer" is currently a niche market that ultimately will not survive the modern age.

The difference is the Scale. It's been happening more than ever before, because people are fooled by their EU citizen status failing to see that they are second class.

It's happening more because the global market is solidifying, which would be happening with or without the EU. The large states suffer because of unrestricted immigration between their countries and the peripheral ones, which causes significant social problems; as well as being forced to bail out smaller states that make poor financial decisions.

The fact of the matter is this; Federal states often go through economic and social birthing pains as they struggle to find the right balance between local and federal power, and while that process can be troubling in the short term, in the long run it forges a stronger and more closely-knit state.

[Ettan]

Which is why the EU government isn't composed of people elected by voters or appointed by those elected officials, right?

It does not matter if you get to vote, your nation still have to hand over their sovereignty to a foreign entity.
Is it somehow magically okey if I and 90 of my friends decide what you can and cannot do just because you aslo get to vote?
It is loss of freedom for the state and that is utterly unacceptable.
Our nation our laws our rules our freedom, do not expect us to hand that away; If you want it you must take it by force.

As for agricultural subsidies, it is so that wealthy nations subsidies their farmers far M O R E than Eu does. Simply because they are wealthier than most Eu nations. The farmers of those nations are there not for profit, they exist for stability/food security.
In a wealthy nation they cannot handle the competition due to their nations wages, yet that nation must also have local food produced.
In Norway & Switzerland the farmers get over 60% of their income in the form of subsidies, those two (wealthy non eu Nations in the eurozone) have the highest rate of agricultural subsidies of all OECD nations.
Naturally the farmers in those nations are and have always been strongly opposed to Eu membership.

[Elegiac]

It does not matter if you get to vote, your nation still have to hand over their sovereignty to a foreign entity.

Your point being what, exactly? You do not -lose- sovereignty if you federate, you create a new level of sovereignty that is shared with others.

Is it somehow magically okey if I and 90 of my friends decide what you can and cannot do just because you aslo get to vote?

You basically just described democracy.

It is loss of freedom for the state and that is utterly unacceptable.

Our nation our laws our rules our freedom, do not expect us to hand that away; If you want it you must take it by force.

Being a citizen of the EU doesn't make you inherently less free or less lawful than under a smaller, national government.

As for agricultural subsidies, it is so that wealthy nations subsidies their farmers far M O R E than Eu does. Simply because they are wealthier than most Eu nations.

Source please.

The farmers of those nations are there not for profit, they exist for stability/food security.

Which is why they can't compete in a modern, capitalist setting.

In a wealthy nation they cannot handle the competition due to their nations wages, yet that nation must also have local food produced.

The EU treats the EU as a whole as a domestic market; which it is, given that it is a common market.

In Norway & Switzerland the farmers get over 60% of their income in the form of subsidies, those two (wealthy non eu Nations in the eurozone) have the highest rate of agricultural subsidies of all OECD nations.

Probably the only thing keeping them viable, really.

Naturally the farmers in those nations are and have always been strongly opposed to Eu membership.

Because they benefit from government protectionism; a highly selfish reason.

[Ravenblade]

[...]

Fair. 20 years was an overstatement. After the finantial crisis that wiped away the savings of 3 generations of people (including my grandparents and parents) people have been voting for different parties, but they all followed orders from Brussels and Berlin. Our currency was pegged to the Deutsch Mark in 1999. Every institution has been monitored.

http://www.euractiv.com/enlargement/...dossier-188292

Since 1997 every government has been bending over backward to please the EC. So it's been 16 years, not 20. However the end result has been terrible and a waste.

You make it sound like there were physical threats involved when it was all done by your own choice. First off in 1997 your govt. under Kostov decided out of own conviction that pegging it to the DM was an entry card to the Euro and will make it easier for German investments. After the crisis you were in dire need of economical revitalization and the only way to get it and they chose the most proper way by turning to the strongest economies and choosing the DM was seen as pragmatic choice with symbolic character as well. There was a concern about losing fiscal sovereignty but your prime minister said it would be no problem because that already happened when banks crashed and the Lev with it in March 1997. So basically they accepted the dark reality that they have to submit in order to grow. You also had a lot more problems like mafias and wanton corruption and no means to combat it so you even had the German police training your officers...because you asked.

Also despite all this entering the EU in 2007 was also no problem, you registered growth once again until the global financial crisis caught up with you in 2009 but only after the Gazprom dispute with the Ukraine exposing where your true dependencies lied. Your GDP shrank and your people elected a new govt. which promised to combat the crisis. Note: fiscally conservative parties tend to apply fiscal discipline turning out to be unpopular. This would have happened with or without Berlin because fiscally conservative is fiscally conservative. That you got praises for it from Berlin doesn't negate the fact you would probably have done so anyway, it wasn't the only country to praise you by the way.

The only difference now is that your currency is now bounded to the Euro anyway you can afford the luxury of being more realistic and delay joining the Eurozone an option which should be taken. But all in all without the crises of the past 6 years you would probably still be staring at Berlin and with the crisis you are now glaring at Berlin. It is human nature to shift the blame of others even if we are all having the capability of free will and reason and therefore the capability to say 'No' even against the odds.

Even though the article quoted said the course of our current govt. is expressing the national character of the country behind - which is an absurd and populist statement no matter how you look at it - it is not.
The fact that the one with the most votes has the most say is the byproduct of the EU's system which only becomes an issue if everyone submits to the one leading by votes as it happened during the Euro crisis. The whole idea of the EU was that noone can rule the entire EU on its own but everyone would need eachother and cooperate in order to succeed. When the financial crises hit the EU the whole zone was sort of in a rigor and even Berlin was in a state of perplexity. In the end they were just asked to lead and this happened, first with reluctance but when France and UK encouraged them this really got them energetic and this is why - in absence of a better model - thought the German fiscal policy is best. Not all Germans agree with the one-glove-to-fit-them-all policy first but they are in minority and will stay in minority because it requires some insight which most people never have - actually in any country people can't think out of the box and only in their own national boundaries. I don't agree with the policy because each country has a distinct individual character which influence economical performance as well and because I think that because a policy seems flawless it doesn't mean there are no flaws or were no flaws in the calculations made leading to the decision to opt for it. You can't say your model is best and never fails, all human-created models have a tendency to fail if they hit a state that model was not designed for.

Anyway, that's my take on it. In the end however I think you won't get out of this if you continue to constantly victimize yourself and demonize the others. They won't share your views anyway and might even repulse. You have to ask yourself how dependant you are from others and whether sometimes accepting the lesser evil for a time is a more pragmatic course. Divide et impera if you wish. Work out your problems from top to bottom instead of trying to fall into a state of self-commiseration, unarticulated antagonism and blaming. This is also the problem with countries like Greece. In the end to recover they will need the investments from the countries they have chosen to despise. I see your reaction as one of those who have become more sober after realizing that their previous hopes were just bubbles, the EU was not what it was to be.
But this perfectly relates to the topic at hand again: When the re-unification did not turn out to be as promised ("blooming landscapes"), and misery, rampant unemployment, corruption, deterioration, instability and crime were the norm a lot people voted radical parties in the hope they did something but they apparently did not, they demanded the Wall back and they wanted their old system however bad it was back. They fell into a state of collective nostalgia. We had to accept to get paid less and get less benefits overall. A lot people emigrated to the Western part leading to economical desertion in a lot parts of the East, former industrial powerhouses were now completely forlorn ruins. The East is still worse off than West but significantly less worse than 10 years ago. My point is that sometimes to go forward is not just to go backward but sometimes just to go forward.

[Cybran]

Anyway, that's my take on it. In the end however I think you won't get out of this if you continue to constantly victimize yourself and demonize the others. They won't share your views anyway and might even repulse. You have to ask yourself how dependant you are from others and whether sometimes accepting the lesser evil for a time is a more pragmatic course. Divide et impera if you wish. Work out your problems from top to bottom instead of trying to fall into a state of self-commiseration, unarticulated antagonism and blaming. This is also the problem with countries like Greece. In the end to recover they will need the investments from the countries they have chosen to despise. I see your reaction as one of those who have become more sober after realizing that their previous hopes were just bubbles, the EU was not what it was to be.

http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archi...0,9299732.html

Bulgarien hat seine fiskalische Souveränität schon im März verloren. Seitdem halten wir uns an die Regeln des Währungsrates. Natürlich ist die begrenzte Währungssouveränität der Regierung eine objektive Bedingung, die die Beweglichkeit der Entscheidungen jeder exekutiven Macht einschränkt. So werden auch die Autorität und das Selbstbewußtsein desjenigen geringer, der diese exekutive Macht ausübt. Aber schließlich ist das die Realität, und wir werden in diesem Rahmen arbeiten und die Geschichte unseres Landes vorantreiben.

Well, this sums up what has been happening for the last 16 years. Every step towards joining came at the expense of sovereignty. Even our text books were changed and iconic works were removed, because they lacked "European values". I am not victimizing myself, though. I have been extremely fortunate. But it pains me to see how the rest of the people here suffer and pay the price of the EU. I don't believe it was worth it and I hope we manage to save what little left we got.

[DieFichte]

Well, this sums up what has been happening for the last 16 years. Every step towards joining came at the expense of sovereignty. Even our text books were changed and iconic works were removed, because they lacked "European values". I am not victimizing myself, though. I have been extremely fortunate. But it pains me to see how the rest of the people here suffer and pay the price of the EU. I don't believe it was worth it and I hope we manage to save what little left we got.

Related news: you loose sovereignity without being in the EU, the only solution to keep it is to fence/wall of your piece of land and live without any outside influence and contact.

And crying over the loss of traditional "values" within a country is just retarded. Switzerland and some of its cantons lost quite some of our "cultural identity" over the last 50 years, just because we didn't see it as "worthy" to preserve.

Swiss products are still sold in stores not because we are not a member of the EU, but because swiss consumers decided to buy swiss products, instead of european.
The EU didn't kill of your small farmers and businesses, they just gave you a crashcourse in worldwide international economics ballgame. If you want to blame someone for that, blame the world, or your own government. Because do you think we have 60% of a farmers income on subsidies because we are not in the EU? No we have it because we want it this way, and because we can pay it. Because I want to go to the store in the morning and get swiss milk. (not that it makes any difference from a nutritional standpoint, but I just trust our swiss farmers more than someone 1000km away)

[Gothicshark]

Just something that popped into my head the other day; there's lots and lots of cases of countries splitting off or seceding, such as South Sudan becoming its own country just last year, to name one example. But does the opposite ever happen? Are there any cases of countries (ones that are already countries, not like the US binding its colonies into one country) joining together to form a single country? It should happen more often, I think, than it does. People can usually get along fine in many areas, and it'd be a nice way to break the trend! :P

East and West German is a recent example, Scotland Joined England over Debt 300 years ago, it happens peacefully every now and again, but it is more common for one nation to invade another and annex the territory as its own.

---------- Post added 2013-04-20 at 03:45 PM ----------

the United States before it was formed was pretty much 13 different countries no one was sure if wed all join into one nation, then there is The Republic of Texas, i believe california and hawaii also did like Texas

Yes California was an independent republic for 30 days. Much like Texas a group of people from the USA moved in to Mexican territory waged war and seceded from Mexico and Joined the USA. Fortunately in California the war was fairly civil and the Mexican Governor surrendered before too many Mexican Solders got hurt. Unlike Texas which had a real war. Granted when Mexico refused to acknowledge the treaty signed by the Californian Governor the US invaded Mexico to find that Mexico didn't have a functioning government at the time.

[Cybran]

Swiss products are still sold in stores not because we are not a member of the EU, but because swiss consumers decided to buy swiss products, instead of european.
The EU didn't kill of your small farmers and businesses, they just gave you a crashcourse in worldwide international economics ballgame. If you want to blame someone for that, blame the world, or your own government. Because do you think we have 60% of a farmers income on subsidies because we are not in the EU? No we have it because we want it this way, and because we can pay it. Because I want to go to the store in the morning and get swiss milk. (not that it makes any difference from a nutritional standpoint, but I just trust our swiss farmers more than someone 1000km away)

It's hypocritical to talk about the "benefits" of the EU when your own country refuses to join it.

The Swiss have brought their economic practices largely into conformity with the EU's, to enhance their international competitiveness, but some trade protectionism remains, particularly for its small agricultural sector. The fate of the Swiss economy is tightly linked to that of its neighbors in the euro zone, which purchases half of all Swiss exports.

Since we are already in the EU we can't help our farmers compete. It's against EU rulations.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article...cy-/70836.aspx

Central and eastern European countries share a common goal of overturning the unequal farm subsidy regime. The current system, based on historic calculations, disadvantages newcomers: a Greek farmer can get around six times more money per hectare than his Latvian counterpart. Farm payments to the EU10 are on an upward trend, but even by 2016, when they will reach their highest point, the gulf remains wide.

Our farmers get 4 times less money than the Greek and Spanish. They get 7-8 times less than the German or French which makes our products non-competeable. There is nothing "Common" about the CAP. It is killing off the new member states farming industry benefiting the old ones.

And crying over the loss of traditional "values" within a country is just retarded. Switzerland and some of its cantons lost quite some of our "cultural identity" over the last 50 years, just because we didn't see it as "worthy" to preserve.

I am not crying over traditional values. I am crying over our the young people that are driven out of the country.

[DieFichte]

It's hypocritical to talk about the "benefits" of the EU when your own country refuses to join it.

Why? Because we don't have to deal with it because we are not in it? That's your ilusion? Yes you can't pay subsidies to your farmers, we do it because the EU made us do it (or atleast raise the subsidies, because you know, our pricing on products is not immune to the world), we totally not have opened our border, we are not part of I don't even know how many treaties with the EU about several stuff. And our national reserve didn't actually print 80 billion swissfrancs in 2009 to buy Euros so we can devalue our currency to be competitive on the market.

We are not a member of the EU, but we have to compromise on almost every level of international relations with the EU, because we are a part of europe.

You talk like your country would have never experienced what it have now without the EU, well, live in your world then. Your farmers still would have gone out of business because you can't pay subsidies in the magnitude Norway and Switzerland does, because you don't have the money for it. The exploitation of foreign workers happens anyway, as it happend in the last 50 years. (you know those 1.6 million foreigners here are totally all germans that work in high paying jobs! Honest!)