EU: State Of The Union Speech: Slams UK, USA, Banks And Memberstates:

That's not what Barosso is saying. Guess you listened to an other speech. Never heard any such things.

Why are you more inclined to think that? Reading tha DailyMail or the Telegraph are we?

Yes, and everybody is resisting that.

How arrogant of you trying to portray the UK as the last line, or the only line, of defense against tyranny. Newsflash: WWII has been won over for about 65 years.

Meanwhile, British political class is totally corrupted and all y'all are doing nothing except criticzing (A.K.A. making stuff uf) about the EU.

Funny how you are blowing hot and cold wind at the same time. However, total and utter failure as far as I'm concerned. Sure, we ought to be the closest of friends, allies and partners and not fellow subjects in chains to absolutists masters. How could anyone be against that?

Nobody is pressing uniformity, and certainly the EU isn't when it comes down to nationalities or identity. Also, quite funny -- but last time I checked the Wels language isn't being used in Westminster. How come? Total uniformity coming from London?

Your nightmare scenario is incorrect, pan-Europeanism on the political level is quite new, never tried and can not be compared to anything else in the world.

What you are refering to is "union forced by military power" -- which has been tried by the Germans, the French, the Brits and the Spansh,...

It's quite clear, that the Europe's political leaders are not self-appointed, self-serving or corrupt.

The European Union on itself is not undemocratic at all, nor is it centrall controlled.

Your ignorace is quite amuzing.

 

It is, in effect, exactly what he is saying.

Hardly the kinds of publications that I would be reading!

Not at all. I am very much 'pro-European', and always have been. I am in favour of strong ties and partership across Europe. I am not, though, in favour of moves to centralise power within Europe - I am a de-centralist and believe in devolution of power to more locally accountable agencies. I am totally against the attempts by some within the EU to create a Superstate entity controlled from the centre, either through the commission or through an elected parliament that has responsibility over such a large area that any form of actual accountability is impossible.

I think you'll find that I have never claimed to be a great supporter of centralisation of power or control in Wetminster either! I am a de-centralist to the point of effective secessionism through progressive devolution within the UK, although not in any way a 'nationalist' that believes my country to be in any way 'superior' to anyone elses.

I believe that power rests with 'the people', and should be held at the smallest level which is practically possible, but exercised in a way which promotes communication and partnership across borders, but only so far as the democratically expressed views of the people of each of the smaller entities are in reasonable agreement. The current make-up of the UK is incompatable with those principles, and I have always argued in favour of devolution.

The push towards EU Superstatism is, however, far worse in my opinion. Every single group or region will inevitable become submerged beneath the vast scale of the whole organisation. Since that is the case, the only way for the whole to be controlled or maintained with any kind of coherency will inevitably be by its own central elite, dedicated to its own ideals and pushing forward to achieve them without reference to the people.

We have seen such scenarios before - states too large to be governable by anything other than its own central elite that is simply able to ignore the 'troublesome' diversity of opinion and declare itself to effectively be the 'majority' view that will prevail no matter what (with every objection being dismissed as a 'local issue' which can be ignored).

The method of attaining such a Pan-continental form of government is largely irrelevant - the effect is much the same - central control and domination by a political elite that is not effectively accountable to its people (much the same problem that I belive exists currently in the governmental system USA, in fact, and has produced much of the level of distrust that so many Americans have in their current politicial elite).

It is not clear at all that 'Europe's political leaders are not self-appointed, self-serving or corrupt' - quite the opposite. To whom are the Commision effectively accountable? Certainly not to the people of Europe as a whole, let alone to any smaller entity where accountability to the people could actually be exercised in any effective manner. Even MEPs are not directly accountable to their people in the way that members of less vast organisations are, by the virtue of the size of their individual electorate.

I am fully in favour of a community of European nations working closely together in all areas of common interest, trading openly with one another and so on. I am fully in favour of both Wales and the UK (in whatever form those may exist in future - clearly I have my own views on that issue!) being a part of such a community.

I am totally against the EU becoming a single state entity that can ignore and override the wishes of the peoples of individual areas/nations and push ahead with their own agenda, or even the agenda of an EU-wide 'majority' with which the people in individual areas may not agree.

If other nations within the EU wish the EU to become such an entity, I believe both Wales and the UK would have little alternative but to leave, and form another organisation with other like-minded countries that want to be a part of a group of democratic trading and political partners without surrendering their own democratic autonomy and accountability as sovereign states.

The situation of Wales and the UK having to leave the EU under such circumstances would sadden my a great deal, but it would be a decision without alternative, and entirely the fault of the Pan-Europeanists who seem to have gained such power and influence within the machinery of the EU. Actually, I don't believe the majority of the people of a number of other European states support their agenda either (of course, I might be wrong), but that is a matter, of course, for their people. If the EU elite does push ahead with some form of full union and single-statehood, personally I suspect a breakaway organisation will form which includes a number of current EU states.

 

Funny you should use Daniel Hannan's link to Verhofstadt's speech. This is what Hannan had to say about that speech ...

"Take a couple of minutes to watch the above clip. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who now leads the Euro-liberals, is responding to the position of the British Government (and, though he doesn't mention this, 11 other governments), viz that Brussels should not be whacking up its budget at a time when national administrations are trying to cut theirs.

"To remind you, Britain's net contribution to the EU budget rose by an almost unbelievable 74 per cent in 2010. Far from being grateful, however, Eurocrats have pocketed the concession and are demanding more – demanding it, as you can see, in hectoring and contemptuous tones.

"Listen to the sneering way that Verhofstadt keeps repeating the phrase "Her Majesty's Government". Listen to the way MEPs s(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and applaud when he says that the very fact that the UK opposes the draft budget is proof of its merit. Listen to the mockery in his voice as he says we should join the euro. (How's that working out for you by the way, Guy?)

"Listen, above all, to the reaction in the chamber when he finishes. Verhofstadt is not one isolated Euro-loon: he is the authentic voice of the European Parliament, which promptly voted by 468 to 134 for a five per cent budget rise.

"For what it's worth, I doubt that such an increase would enjoy popular support in any member state – even Mr Verhofstadt's Belgium. That, though, isn't my business. What is my business is our national interest. Does anyone seriously believe that we advance that interest by subordinating ourselves to people who so plainly despise us?"

The censoring software is a little sensitive. Link

 

No, you are just making stuff up.

In essence I'm a semi-Federalist -- and I believe that is the only correct position. Some things needs to be federalized, or centralized as you put it, among them are e.g. foreign policy, defense, energy policy, environmental policy, etc.

I understand some things are hard to swallow for the delusioned British populace who still believe in the second coming. Which is an anology to describe the dream of some of the re-installment of the British Empire. Among of these bitter pills, are the abolishment of the Pound Sterling as a financial currency, and thus the abolishment of the City as being a safe-haven for economical terrorists. Something the British political class is resisting, keeping 500 million Europeans as their hostages, including their own citizenry just so their Party's coffers or media exposure could benefit.

Disgusting.

I strongly believe the British need to get over themselves. If they are unable to do this, I believe they have to be given the boot since their obstructionist mentality regarding European affairs has become unbearable as far I'm concerned.

OK, I'm detecting much flashy words and hocus-pocus, in an attempt to hide your philosophical bankruptcy...

I'm Flemish, so I get this urge of de-centralization. But to reap the benefits, and as a defense against certain effects (!), of globalization, some things just need to be federalized, as I already pointed out above.

Yes, I believe the power rests with the people. But in the case you didn't notice, using a historical perspective, there always have been pirates on the coast. Nowadays we call them "Big Business", "Special Interest", etc.

I don't feel like rigging our library here, but when pressed I could make an academical assessment if you pleased, but it basically comes down to this: because of "schaalvergroting" (scale enhancment or something?) of companies -- especially in Europe (!), since when Europeans companies want to grow they need to take their business over the border literally, which BTW explains why Europeans companies are so good in market penetration, whilst American companies are better in the monoplization of the market -- a mere "loose" federation of European countries will quite surely lead to an impoverisment of the European citizenry since they will play-out European governments, the European peoples, against eachother, like in the 1970's.

This is outright unacceptable.

Geez.

I'm not a Liberal (we all are civilized people, so we -- non-Americans -- still understand what "a Liberal is) but I surely subscribe to Popper's credo: "Optimism is a moral duty".

In short, I don't believe in your nightmare-scenario. For instance, the Committe of the Regions can be given re-vitalized and given some firm muscle. We could push for a full wave of democratization and, among other things, install a bi-cameral EU: the federalized European parliament and the more intergovermental, de-centralized Committee Of the Regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_the_Regions

Uhm, Europe is quite small when compared with e.g. Canada, Russia, the USA or China. If they can keep their sh!t together, I'm quite certain we can too.

Uhm, no -- I just don't describe to your Frankenstein-scenario. It's utterly ludicrious.

Also American society and respective European socities are completely different. There is way much more hysteria and ignorace over there (with the notable exception of the UK). Also, because of linguistic factors alone there always be a so-called break of the consolidation of a super-state.

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This is hilarious!

The Commissionars are accountable towards the entire population of the European Union who chose their representatives in the form European Parliament. And may I remind you that a MEP has more more political power than a regular MP from any national assembly for the simple reason that the EU isn't paralyzed by party politics. The Leglistative branch is there to, among other things, to control the Executive branch -- something that mostly has been lost in all of our national parliaments. In the EU, the Parliament actually still excercises that roll.

Again, a "loose federation" à la EFTA doesn't work, if it were only because of unfair hidden competition.

Quite undemocratic of you, almost facist I would say. Please, Cenydd, you are a good person (with aweful taste is music! ) but please, don't go down that road.

Behail the British-Russian Union! I hope your PM doesn't get poisened with KGB-sent polonium...

 

I can't quite imagine the EU's reaction to being held entirely responsible by the UK for their decision to leave.

But the situation has some comedic potential

 

Because we're not "one people" we're a bunch of different tribes, all competing with each other for dominance over each other according to Hobbes' Law.

But it seems in today's bull (*)(*)(*)(*) educated society no one even remembers who Hobbes was, in favor of teaching bull (*)(*)(*)(*) marxist theories about "one world, one people".

Hobbes Law: All Nation States will continually seek to expand power and influence at the expense of other Nation States. China obviously hasn't forgotten.

 

Says who? A 16th century English philosopher? Hardly any sort of benchmark; he was commenting on what he say at the time, which was the turbulent European intrigues.

Right. So temperance and cooperation is now equivalent to Marxism? So how does it work out in your head that you can advocate an Anglican Union of sorts, if we are all of a BC tribal mentality and incapable of overcoming pettiness? Surely the UK and, say, Australia would butt heads in their search for dominance within that institution (and suffer all that entails) -- clearly, that idea of yours is an abject failure, by your own logic.

 

I support free trade among the anglosphere. One doesn't have to give up nationalism to engage in trade.

The EU is a trade organization that is screwing the UK people, abolishing Democracy in Europe, and replacing it with an unelected technocratic oligarchy that favors the Continental powers and (*)(*)(*)(*)s the UK over.

 

What does any of this have to do with why nationalism is virtuous? I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why I need to believe that America may do no wrong and why I should think that, no matter what, it is superior to, say, Switzerland, or Iceland, or South Korea, or Australia, or so on. What purpose would such thoughts serve me?

And the EU is much more than a trade bloc.

 

I disagree completely. Those things should never be handed over to any kind of central 'authority'. They are things that individual sovereign states should seek to work together on, where they agree according to their electoral mandate. Individual states, according to the will of their people, should be free to agree or disagree on particular issues and parts of issues, and free to work together where they agree and go their separate ways where they don't. the alternative is a central authority that can override the democratically expressed wishes of the people of those states, and that is something I fundementally oppose. I am opposed to any form of centralised authoritarianism.

I'm hardly someone interested in seeing a return of the British Empire, since I fully support the further rolling back of it even within the UK! That is not what my objections are about.

The problem is with having a state that has developed its own economic model over many years having its economic affairs run for the 'greater good' of an entire continent where the economic circumstances may not be the same. We have, for example, vastly different rates of home ownership across Europe - the effects of economic policy when certain tools are used will be different on the populations in the UK (home ownership of 69%) and Italy (home ownership 78%) than they will be in Germany (home ownership 42%) or France (home ownership 55%). There are different factors within the local economies of EU countries, which Iis why I believe handing economic policy over to one central power trying to operate for everyone is an incredibly bad idea. I think the curent problems within the Euro zone support my belief.

And here is another problem - others in Europe seeing the UK as being simply 'obstructive', when in many cases they have just been trying to get the rest of them to see the sense of prioritising practicality of Pan-European dogmatism. Most people (and governments) from the UK want to see a positive engagement with a strong Europe, but believe that the EU in its current form is getting it wrong, and going in the wrong direction. The Eurocrats, of course, want to simply paint a picture of the UK being 'obstructive' and 'wanting to return to the British Empire' and so on, when the truth is the UK is trying to warn about the dangers of Pan-Europeanism and the centralisation of power within the EU.

No, they really don't. We simply need to be able to work together on them WHEN WE AGREE about them, not all be forces to accept a 'majority view' drawn up by a relatively unaccountble elite that simply dismiss any kind of dissent as being simply 'anti-European' and 'obstructive'.

I am a 'liberal' (and also understand what the word means!), hence my fundemental objections to the creation of massive and unaccountable Super-state entities. Power should be localised, and people should work together across borders. That really doesn't need to mean centralisation of power - quite the opposite. 'Optimism' is all very well, but assuming that the best possible outcome must be the inevitable and only outcome of any plan is extremely dangerous!

What is the point in centralising power just to make new attempts to re-distribute it again?! There is no need to centralise it in the first place. All that will do is breed a population who are entirely disaffected with their remote government, while creating a political elite who are so remote that they can and will ignore the wishes of the population almost completely. I repeat, government and authority should exist at the smallest and most local level that is practically possible, and those small units should work together where they agree (and be free to not work together on issues where they don't, without that creating any kind of 'rift' between them, or accusations of them being 'obstructive' or 'anti-European').

I believe all of those examples are firmly on my side!
Canada may be physically large, but has a population of only a little over half of the UK.

Russia has been regarded as too big to rule effectively since the days of the Tzars. Even in todays world of improved communications, it has never managed to have anything other than an authoritarian government. It has never managed real, practical and uncorrupted democracy. It is hugely centralised, and hugely dictatorial (with much of the population feeling pretty remote from their government).

China is more or less the same - as a single entity, it is too big to effectively operate as anything other than an authoritarian state, run dictatorially from above according the wishes of the 'ruling class', not according to the will of the people.

The USA, even with its far more distributed system of states, still has huge problems of remoteness of government and distrust between the people and the political elite which has developed, and a political system which emphasises 'Us vs Them' thinking and divides the country to such a huge extent that everyone is fighting each other while the corporate and political elite (involved in both political parties) carry on regardless - a brief look through the pages of this forum should be enough to warn about the dangers of remote and centralised government even in the democratic form it exists in the USA.

Every example demonstrates that a single state entity with too large and diverse a population (and Europe is far more diverse in population than any of the above examples) cannot maintain an effective democratic system, and struggles to maintain itself even under authoritarian government, since so many people want to go in different directions on so many issues and become frustrated when they aren't allowed. Other examples would be those of Empires - they inevitably become to large to be sustainable, even under authoritarian rule, and they inevitably collapse.

Europe is simply far, far too big, and far, far too diverse to be operated as a single Superstate (even if it is in some way relatively 'federal'). Power becomes centralised in the hands of an elite, remote and unaccountable to the people, every single time. The 'unification' of Europe is an impractical proposition, and will only lead to friction and frustration.

 

Nonsense - of course it is. The 'parties' may be 'blocks' or 'groups', but the principle is just the same. An individual MEP has no more (or less) influence ever the entire EU parliament than an MP in a national parliament does - in order to do anything, he (or she) has to group together with like-minded others and form some kind of 'party'.

The difference between and MP and an MP is one of accountability to the people and remoteness from the people. The electorate of an MEP can be up to a million people. For an MP in the UK it is more like a tenth of that. People can gain direct access to their elected representative much more easily in that 'national' context - he or she is not a remote figure that lives and works in another country, but someone who can actually be spoken to directly and can be much more active within the community they represent. Government that is remote from the people becomes inevitable less accountable to the people - government should be as close to the people as possible, at as local a level as possible, and the people should always have relatively free direct access to their representative in the top tier democratic institution.

Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact - it's entirely democratic of me - democracy should be run for the people, by the people, be close to the people, and be accountable to the people. That is simply not possible in a vast Superstate covering an area as large and diverse as Europe.

I come form a country that has long suffered the effects of being run not according to the wishes of its own people but according to the wishes of a larger number of people from another country who might have entirely different opinions. In Wales, our economic policies, social policies, defense (or attack!) policies, etc., etc. have been run according to the wishes of the English people, even (until 1999) in areas of policy which effect only Wales itself. It is a horrible way to have your country run, even if it is theoretically 'democratic' in that the majority of the UK decide. That is the situation that would exist across Europe in a superstate scenario, for the entire population of Europe - they would lose the effective say over how their countries are run and become subject to the will of a remote central political elite over which they, as a nation, can exercise no control whatsoever.

It's not being 'anti-European' to point out the dangers of such a thing, or to oppose such a scheme. On the contrary, it is being 'pro-European', since I believe that such a thing would be the worst solution possible for the entirety of the continent and its people.

 

Sorry, I missed these posts, and I hope so too.

For the first time at the last election we had televised "leaders" debates, three of them, but only between Brown, Cameron and Clegg, ie three pro-EU party leaders. They were ratings winners but with most policies being decided in Brussels, having only pro-EU leaders debate them was a farce. I'd have loved to have seen Farage up against Cameron, Clegg and Brown, but the pro-EU establishment and the media didn't want that. The Greens should have been included too.

People here vote tribally. They are very loyal to the party they support, but that is changing.

 

Nigel Farage is hardly a credible politician, he's just a marginal euro-sceptic who read 1984 and smoked too much pot.

Simple truth is the UK is becoming very marginalised and has lost most of the power it once had (as have most European nations). The only international and economic power the UK can hope for is on a European stage, and as such we should be helping to form the condition for unification not fighting it at every step.

The Scottish National Party think you can afford to fracture political ties devolve fiscal responsibility, but RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) was based in Edinburgh and was at one point the world 5th largest bank! Scotland would be in the mire with the Irish, Greeks and Portuguese if the SNP had had there way.

Everything is becoming globalised, we have limited resources so the only way forward is more Europe not less. It's in American interest to have European stability and that is only going to happen through further integration. Any process of break up would be a catastrophe for international financial markets and the resultant shock waves would be felt in the US.

Americans are desperate to blow the whole euro-zone crisis out of proportion to keep the markets off the us dollar and the massive budget hole in US spending.

They say the Depression only truly came to an end due to WWII, perhaps Obama sees Iran as an opportunity to get the US war machine and economy on the move again?

 

Nigel Farage is a very credible politician. What he predicted regarding the European Union has come true, as opposed to his opponents who predicted milk and honey from it. Give me Farage over models of apparent sobriety like Cameron, Clegg and Milliband every time, who all denied a referendum on withdrawal from the EU and expected their MPs to follow them.

Simple truth is that the UK was marginalised after the war, but has allowed the EU to marginalise it still further by putting its trade policies under the auspices of the EU, and, now with the Lisbon Treaty, its foreign and security policies. It can still be independent nevertheless.

That's for the Scots to decide. Try Viv or Highlander.

Everything is becoming globalised, but most other countries, sensibly, still retain their independence.

What makes you think that? I disagree. I get the impression the US wants the EU to get the eurozone crisis sorted out. Naturally, the crisis adversly affects global trade and the US is the biggest backer of the IMF which is a big backer of the eurozone.

I expect that's one of the reasons.