My Europe just grew larger.
I live in Berlin, just some 50Km from the Polish border, where the European Union ended until 5min ago. Now, the eastern border has moved several hundred Km to the east, the US/USSR-divided Europe has overcome the iron curtain.
This is one great day for me. Growing up with the constant thread of nuclear extermination, then watching my home-country reunite, and now looking at the most successful attempt at peacefully uniting a bunch of very traditional nation states growing even larger - well it gives me the shivers. It is history in the making, something that will endure (I am sure) still after I have ceased living.
Here's to the EU - beaurocratic as it may be, it has been vastly successful. So much so, that countries are flocking to join - even beyond the geographical limits of Europe.
This is one great day for me. Growing up with the constant thread of nuclear extermination, then watching my home-country reunite, and now looking at the most successful attempt at peacefully uniting a bunch of very traditional nation states growing even larger - well it gives me the shivers. It is history in the making, something that will endure (I am sure) still after I have ceased living.
Here's to the EU - beaurocratic as it may be, it has been vastly successful. So much so, that countries are flocking to join - even beyond the geographical limits of Europe.
Comments
It's good to see the EU arise. As the EU gets stronger Nationalism takes a back seat, instead of loyalty to your country it's loyalty to the EU. It's nationalism that gave us, oh let me see, World War I & II. It's nationalism that's f*in up the US. Whatever happened to isolation?
but continentalism it might have.
An european have the feeling to belong to a family (the european one). An american have the feeling to belong to a countrie : the US.
Originally posted by Crusader
It's good to see the EU arise. As the EU gets stronger Nationalism takes a back seat, instead of loyalty to your country it's loyalty to the EU. It's nationalism that gave us, oh let me see, World War I & II. It's nationalism that's f*in up the US. Whatever happened to isolation?
I could be wrong (usually am)... but, I think that the EU probably started as a means to compete with the US on a global market. Since the US is the only superpower and controls so much... the European countries had little choice than to team up.
Originally posted by Akumulator
I could be wrong (usually am)... but, I think that the EU probably started as a means to compete with the US on a global market.
Actually, you are wrong indeed
The EU was founded mainly to stop by peaceful means the tradition of war that existed for centuries. The founding fathers (Adenauer and De Gaulle) believed a common market was the ideal way to achieve this, since for once France and Germany as the most powerful nations would have a common interest instead of being rivals. After all, most european wars since the dark ages involved Germany and France - and on different sides. It is hard to believe today, but my grandmother was still tought that France was, is, and would ever be our mortal enemy. This kind of thinking was to end and it is gone today - this is what I believe is the most important achievement of the EU.
In our time, a similar step would be a common market with a perspective of a later supra-national state between Palestine and Israel. Inconceivable? Yes, as long as the current crop of blood-thirsty old men are at the helm there.
Scott: yes, what about european nationalism? Care to contribute?
Originally posted by Scott
What about EU nationalism?
Enlighten us!
Originally posted by Scott
What about EU nationalism?
What about it?
Originally posted by Harald
Enlighten us!
No, spare us.
- T. I.
Originally posted by Smircle
I live in Berlin, just some 50Km from the Polish border, where the European Union ended until 5min ago. Now, the eastern border has moved several hundred Km to the east, the US/USSR-divided Europe has overcome the iron curtain.
This is one great day for me. Growing up with the constant thread of nuclear extermination, then watching my home-country reunite, and now looking at the most successful attempt at peacefully uniting a bunch of very traditional nation states growing even larger - well it gives me the shivers. It is history in the making, something that will endure (I am sure) still after I have ceased living.
Here's to the EU - beaurocratic as it may be, it has been vastly successful. So much so, that countries are flocking to join - even beyond the geographical limits of Europe.
I have read what i can about the EU, but there is one thing I dont get, is the EU a tight network of nations, or is it one nation with each former country acting as a state (I.E. like the 50 states here in the USA)?
Originally posted by a_greer
I have read what i can about the EU, but there is one thing I dont get, is the EU a tight network of nations, or is it one nation with each former country acting as a state (I.E. like the 50 states here in the USA)?
A group of independent nation states bound by economic and social treaties. These treaties see an increasing amount of European law applicable in individual states. Some of these nations share the same same currency (the euro) but some do not. Some wish to see a federated union, exactly like the US, and again, some do not. It has a Parliament, elected by citizens of its members, and a rotating 6-month presidency. Currently Ireland. It's young. It's changing.
France and Germany (two beautiful countries) are probably the closest; on occaision the President of France has represented Germany at the European Parliament -- incredible, and showing the reason for th EU in the first place, when you consider European history. England is sceptical, partly due to the fact that the Murdoch papers keep telling people how shit Europe is.
The project was launched as a single common market, a capitalist (as in, not socialist) project, although the driving force behind it originally (France and Germany) have a social outlook: this means that there is less poverty, drug abuse and violent crime, FAR better health service and more worker's rights then (say) the United States -- although the economies of those countries have grown at a smaller rate then the US and there are fewer mega rich people in European countries. Some like this, some don't.
It is now the largest free market in the world. It just grew by 70m people; particulary the ex-communist countries offer us enormous potential for growth. Welcome in fellows!
Originally posted by Smircle
I live in Berlin, just some 50Km from the Polish border, where the European Union ended until 5min ago. Now, the eastern border has moved several hundred Km to the east, the US/USSR-divided Europe has overcome the iron curtain.
Here's to the EU - beaurocratic as it may be, it has been vastly successful. So much so, that countries are flocking to join - even beyond the geographical limits of Europe.
Hey Smircle. I'm with you on this one. Welcome in, fellahs. Iron curtain? Pah.
You have the founding of the UN right after the war. We more or less got it right the second time with the Marshall Plan as opposed to say the Treaty of Versaille. You have the development of nuclear weapons and MAD. Nuclear nations do not fight directly which impacts France and the UK directly and thereby anyone who would mess with them. You have the natural alliances resulting from the Cold War split resulting in peace among each team of allied nations . Moreover you also have a continuation of the disentanglement of European nations from many of their former colonies thereby removing a source of past friction as they postured to control the galaxy. You have the emergence of democracy, in [W.] Germany among others and democracy tends for the most part to be a system which results in internationally peaceful nation states. The US perhaps being the main exception. You have basic population trends which impact both the numbers of able bodied men available for war, the economic requirements to support them changing, as well as the corresponding decreased militancy of an aging society. You have the socio-psychological impacts of WW2 which undoubtedly were particularly acute in Germany. You have the growth of international trade and transit which requires peaceful stability and relatively open borders etc. You have the growth of mass media making the realities of war more immediate. Etc Etc.
In fact I'd argue that the EU follows as an effect of those factors which also led to where we are at now more than the EU being a primary factor instigating that change.
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
The EU is a nice idea. But I think people, or rather Western Europeans, tend to give it a wee bit too much credit as a factor in the relative peace they have enjoyed for the last 60 years. While the EU was a positive idea in principle, it also came about at the same time as a variety of other developments which would have combined to have the same effect IMO even without the EU's existence.
You have the founding of the UN right after the war. We more or less got it right the second time with the Marshall Plan as opposed to say the Treaty of Versaille. You have the development of nuclear weapons and MAD. Nuclear nations do not fight directly which impacts France and the UK directly and thereby anyone who would mess with them. You have the natural alliances resulting from the Cold War split resulting in peace among each team of allied nations . Moreover you also have a continuation of the disentanglement of European nations from many of their former colonies thereby removing a source of past friction as they postured to control the galaxy. You have the emergence of democracy, in [W.] Germany among others and democracy tends for the most part to be a system which results in internationally peaceful nation states. The US perhaps being the main exception. You have basic population trends which impact both the numbers of able bodied men available for war, the economic requirements to support them changing, as well as the corresponding decreased militancy of an aging society. You have the socio-psychological impacts of WW2 which undoubtedly were particularly acute in Germany. You have the growth of international trade and transit which requires peaceful stability and relatively open borders etc. You have the growth of mass media making the realities of war more immediate. Etc Etc.
In fact I'd argue that the EU follows as an effect of those factors which also led to where we are at now more than the EU being a primary factor instigating that change.
This elements are important, and are included in EU (at the beginning it was only an economic zone exchange). But 50 years ago, the hate was still present between many countries. Some great mind of Europe of the time, thinked that it was time to stop. That's why they created Europe step by step.
Europe can only contain democratic countries (it's a necessary condition), with sufficiant respect of humans rights.
So this elements are very important, and was promoted by the idea of europe itself.
The EU was founded mainly to stop by peaceful means the tradition of war that existed for centuries.
Geopolitical, economic and military technology factors have a bigger effect on whether or not wars happen than does any feeling of enmity or kinship between nations or peoples. Erasing centuries of hate just makes it easier to get along but other realities would have forced Europeans to get along at least peacefully anyway. Being bosom buddies or not doesn't really have all that much to do with why wars are fought or not; it just makes them a shade easier to sell to a populace. See US versus Iraq as opposed to no war between the US and Saudi Arabia for example. The reasons one set of parties went to war and the other didn't has nothing to do with our fondness for each other. But you probably get better service at Oktoberfest due to the EU plus you can pay for your draught in Euros. So it's good for something at least.
After 1945 Europe was too exhausted and powerless, and so regained some lucidity. The threat of soviet expansionism, as well as the protection and stability afforded by the presence of U.S. troops, assisted Western European countries in re-orienting their efforts toward reconstrcution (which was very successful) and continental integration: economically first, and politically later (although to much a lesser extent).
While it seems mostl reasonable for them to work toward a ?United States of Europe?, it's still very even from a Swiss-like level of confederal integration.
The addition of the new members states, with their substantial needs but small economies will divert energies from the effort required for actually building such aforementioned ?U.S.Eu?.
A common currency is a step in the right direction, but there remain the obstacles of residual nationalism, as well as the perplexity about the whats and hows of achieving a democratic union with a plural albeit coherent identity; thet's where Europe could learn some from India.
And another thing: the E.U. can ill afford the folly of confornting the U.S.A., as some currently suggest it should.
Both sides of the Atlantic still share the same foundations: representative democracy and a temperate liberal economy (in Romance languages even the acronyms are similar: la U.E. for Unión Europea and los EE. UU. for Estados Unidos), the values of ?76 and ?89, and their interests are mostly convergent, along with those of other democracies in Asia and the southern hemisphere. For the E.U., seeking alternative partnerships with the likes of Russia or China (which are yet to achieve such foundations) will be detrimental to said interests.
It is the fragmentation between those democracies which actually achieved first-world level of political and economical development, and the petty discords between them (mostly for short-sighted pretexts) which in my opinion is a greater cause for concern, even more than the malevolent intents of those who seek to destroy those democracies (and the latter are well aware of this fragmentation and are keen on using it).
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
You have the founding of the UN right after the war. We more or less got it right the second time with the Marshall Plan as opposed to say the Treaty of Versaille. You have the development of nuclear weapons and MAD. Nuclear nations do not fight directly which impacts France and the UK directly and thereby anyone who would mess with them. You have the natural alliances resulting from the Cold War split resulting in peace among each team of allied nations .
Obviously the EU was not the sole force sculping the continent, however, I think you are too short sighted.
Yes, mutually assured destruction (aptly abbreviated MAD) provided the stability that was needed to build western europe. But at what price?
The eastern block was by no means peaceful among itself. Insurgencies raged in Poland and Ukraine until the early 50s, then the rebellion in the GDR in 53, then in 68 CSSR and Hungary, and finally worker unrests Poland since the early 80s. So, in Europe, peace was limited to the western part. And what about other countries in this part?
Spain, Portugal, and Greece turned to dictatorships in the aftermath of WW-II. They were accepted to the EU only after returning to democracy - and since then, in none of those countries, any attempt I am aware of has been able to threaten the democratic foundations. This is by no means a natural course of things - if you look at Byalorussia or Ukraine (and to some degree Russia), you can see how frequently a new dictatorship emerges after an old one has been purged. This has never happened in any country belonging to the EU - to the best of my knowledge it hasn't happened to any of the candidates as well.
You have the socio-psychological impacts of WW2 which undoubtedly were particularly acute in Germany. You have the growth of international trade and transit which requires peaceful stability and relatively open borders etc. You have the growth of mass media making the realities of war more immediate. Etc Etc
Again, nothing of this is a given. Germanys try at conquering the world fell flat on its face. But that this resulted in a turn to democracy instead of mistrust and hatred towards the west is due to both the Marshall plan (thanks a zillion, America) and France not seeking revenge (mercy beaucoup, mes amies).
Trade alone is not enough. If you take a look at South America or Africa, you can see examples of countries where trade and transit have brought poverty and war, not stability and democracy. And, but this is my very personal opinion, in the near east we see racism at work poisoning the relationships between arab states and Israel - not only racism in the minds of the people but as state policy. And this is despite more or less functional mass media and democracy.
For all its near-glacial speed in integrating countries, the EU is imho an example of how a UNO 2.0 could be successful:
- allow only democratic states in which fulfil certain criteria (human rights, free trade, thoroghly democratic constitution, no capital punishment)
- make them give up some parts of their souvereignity and have them implement common laws, standards and norms.
- establish a free-trade zone and lock out the other guys (taxes at the borders, few most-favored nations)
- establish a common currency and pour money into developing underdeveloped parts.