Europen Union

[csThor]

The problem is that this European identity and culture will not develop further without a strong policy of exchanges, not only for the economy, but also for all the internal policies... in short, it will not progress without a stronger overall european policy.

That's seems to be the story of the chicken and the egg... but in fact EU was build by political will, and will progress only by political will.... and this political will is either stagnating, or worse diminishing in almost all the oldest EU members.... except maybe in Germany (but you may also correct me there if I'm wrong).

 

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Without a fundament (common identity as Europeans and a strategic culture that's the same all over the EU) no policies can be "common" beyond the smallest common denominator. Implementing more top-down structures at least raises skepticism (as seen in the UK) and/or anti-european sentiments and renationalization. This is the fundamental construction error of the EU - it wanted to build a "superstate" without the cultural, political and societal fundament and through a top-down approach whereas history taught us that nations grew on such a fundament over a long time. I'm afraid if those suited bunglers in Brussels keep it up they'll be watching the ruins of the European idea before too long, because they focus on building a bureaucratic and institutional EUrope without the ordinary Europeans. And such a thing is destined to be a stillborn.

Edited March 13, 2014 by csThor

[Rama]

You're right on the fact we fundamently disagree....

 

All nations of the world (except maybe the smallest) were built only by political will (and mostly on corelative wars, annexions, etc....). All nations include a multicultural diversity with a lot a very diverse regional identity. This is true even for France with his strongly centralized state and his 2-century policy to fight all local cultures and identities.... 

 

The problem of EU construction, and the reject of its bureaucraty and rules isn't an identity and cultural problem, but a problem of an unpersonnal power.... the problem is that the power isn't represented by any humanly identified peoples. The wrong choice made by Europ is the "government by the norm", instead of a "government by the peoples". When rules are only the product of a normative bureaucracy, then the rules are rejected. When the political power is controlling the normative bureaucraty, then you have a chance that the rules may be accepted... at least if the rulling peoples are known, democratically choosen and accepted. The problem of the European commission is that it isn't elected, and the Europeans have the impression that they are only rulled by commission servants, and that's exactly what they can't accept.

 

BTW, the nation politicians know this, and now often play with it... it's quite common in France that the same politicians that lobbyed and pushed the commission to create a new directive (that will be converted in a national law), when then faced with a popular criticism, decline their responsability with a "it's not my fault, it's an european directive, it's the will of the european commission, I can't do nothing than to accept it".... and thus even reinforcing the scepticism toward Europe.

 

Europe will exist when it will be ruled by a president and a government made of known and choosen (by election) peoples. It's the only way. And it will only happen by strong political will, by politicians persuaded that it should be and that national european power fate is to disapear..... but I think there's no politician left with this idea and will, they're all dead now, and the second world war is now too far away, that nobody any more feels the need for a united Europe.

Cultural and identity diversity is just an excuse generally used by peoples not wanting to build Europe (something I can understand), but not a real problem for European construction.

The real problem is that the will to build Europe has vanished, and that it will not comme back, except maybe if a strong threat (internal or external) was affecting all Europeans.

I just splitted this from the Ukraine topic (to avoid off-topic)

[Zak]

Another political discussion, oh, what a day! Locked. I think I should start warning you ppl.