The Belgian Invasion of Germany? I actually had to look that up.
Belgians kicked some serious German butt though with the French and other Germans under Napoleon. That's the main reason we had to really rub it in to the French by founding the German Empire in Versailles.
I'm going to disagree with you one one point, it's that the EU is not so much the project of the people up in Brussels as a scapegoat used by the governments. Right now, nothing get done without the Council (the organs made up of the relevant ministers). What happen is that this Council decide of stuffs in Brussels then each minister come back home and blame "Brussels" for what they just decided. Europe is largely a scapegoat for national governments.
Now we do need more democracy in there I'd agree with this. (Anyone remember the Irish referendum? Can you imagine Putin for example saying "I didn't like this result, you'll have to vote again."? But this is not what the UK wants. The UK has been pushing for less integration and see a democratic Europe a dangerously legitimate.
As far as the fiscal union goes, it's going to be negotiated inside the Eurozone anyway, so the UK will have no influence on that.
The expansion to Eastern Europe was, as far as I'm concerned, a complete success. Just compare the post-soviets countries that made it into the EU with those that didn't.
Finally, the UK has also been a major stumbling block as far as financial regulations are concerned. I'd be glad to see them out just for that.
I totally agree on that scapegoat thing, I don't think however that contradicts what I was saying. For most of our politicians the EU is still a sacred cow, no matter how much they blame it for stuff. And then there's also the commission, another institution that has a lot of power without being really legitimized democratically.
The fiscal union will come eventually, it will basically have to if we want to keep a common currency. Actually it turns out it would have technically been much smarter to do that first and then get a common currency. Currently I think it's too soon for that though, there is still too much imbalance between countries. Sure, it's negotiated inside the Eurozone, but when I was talking about a more pro-active UK, I was thinking of one that would consider joining the Eurozone at
some point in the future and thus be motivated to influence these developments.
I agree that the first Eastern Expansion was a huge success. Economically in any case and politically pretty much too, if Hungary doesn't act out. It's really remarkable if you look at Poland for example and see how well they've done since 1990. I think the last expansion, Bulgaria and Romania, was too soon however, they are not ready yet, both economically and politically. Sure they should join eventually, but if you look at Croatia, I don't even know if it will do much good for them to be in the EU now, with rising prices and all that. I think the EU needs to resolve a lot of it's own issues before expanding more, and some countries need to progress on their own for a bit before they are ready to join.
Finally, the financial regulations. It's understandable that the UK is blocking that, with their financial sector being so important. They are not the only ones however, ironically it was the Socialdemocratic government under Schröder that loosened many of Germany's regulations, allowing for much of the stuff with hedge fonds to happen in the first place. We will definitely need some sort of better financial regulations, how that should look, or rather what works and what is just a feelgood measure, I don't know.
Generally I think, a UK that would accept being part of the EU would be much more beneficial to everyone in the long term than a UK leaving the union and trying to do it's own thing, whatever that would be.
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Topic: Sheb's European Megathread: Remove Feta! (Read 1784912 times)