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Kaninchen
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Only to Breitbart.
I am a supporter of the movement "pro-life" and at the same time I am a supporter of the EU, but I noticed that most of the pro-life is anti-EU
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phil19034
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Believe what you will. But the creation of the EU has been something that the European elite have been trying to do since Napoleon.phil19034:
No, it isn’t simply anything. It’s a selection of mutual agreements between sovereign states on particular issues.
Stop imposing US models/arguments on the rest of the world.
They have wanted to reform the Roman Empire for some time. The 1800s was will with wars that hopes to restore the Empire and that is ultimately what World Wars 1 & 2 were about.
That’s also why Italy sided initially with Hitler and why Hitler called his govt the Third Reich. Like Napoleon, Hitler and Mussolini both wanted to rule a new “Rome.”
NOTE: I’m not saying the the EU is nefarious. I’m simply saying that there are interests in Europe that would like to see the continent unified under one nation.
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Kaninchen
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The real problem is that the EU stands in the way of the American plutocratic elite.
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phil19034
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No international organization offers citizenship. Through the history of the world, Citizenship is granted by national / imperial governments only.phil19034:
No, it isn’t, it’s the imposition of American interpretations on the rest of the world while ignoring anything else.
This changed with the European Union. The European Union is a federation. It has much more in common with the United States under the Articles of Confederation than it does with NATO or the UN.
The EU might not currently call themselves a nation or empire, but they are sure acting like it by having their own currency, granting citizenship, etc.
NOTE: they have a powerful reason NOT to officially call themselves one nation (unlike the US, USSR before it): The UN.
If they officially become one nation, they will lose 27 votes in the UN and lose a seat or two on the UN Security Council.
Today, if/when the EU votes as a block in the UN, they carry 28 votes and significant pull & power. But if they officially become one nation (instead of the quasi-nation they are today) they will lose 27 votes and be no more powerful than the US.
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phil19034
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Yeah, I don’t like them. They need to be stopped - esp the socialist & Marxist ones.phil19034:
The real problem is that the EU stands in the way of the American plutocratic elite.
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Kaninchen
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All this speaks of the typical American Conservative desperation to find excuses to hate the EU.
Enough.
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PickyPicky
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So it is, if you define European conservatives as centre-left or socialist, which from an American perspective no doubt they are. From a European perspective the Christian Democrat politicians who have largely driven the exercise are conservatives. It may be that the American perspective is the outlier.
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phil19034
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Yeah, that’s not me. I don’t like the way the US is today. Too much power in Washington.phil19034:
All this speaks of the typical American Conservative desperation to find excuses to hate the EU.
Enough.
I don’t like the EU because it’s too much like the US.
And they interfere with my family from Spain, England and Italy.
And if truth be told… I would much rather seen an unified Italy, Spain broken back into separate Kingdoms, the UK broken up, etc.
And even US broken into 50 nations, etc. << that’s not your standard US conservative view
I used love centralized government, but now I don’t. It think it’s dangerous and makes it easy for the elite to control us again.
Ok, I’m out - have work to do
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Kaninchen
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I expect they’ll be delighted to hear that and will put measures in hand.
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PickyPicky
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Ah, then I have just the people for you …
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phil19034
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LOL - I would go that far. I would just like to see England and Scotland split. And allow Northern Ireland the choice if it stays with England, comes its own nation, or returns to Ireland.
Same with Wales
But I obviously have no say. But I’m just pro local government and think smaller nations are better than big ones (but I obviously understand why larger ones were founded)
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Vouthon
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The European Union is, properly speaking, a ‘delegated’ supranational union. It lies between a confederation and a federation. So yes, it has elements more commonly associated with federations - flag, citizenship, common identity, legislature, executive, judiciary, common legal system - but also with a confederation - intergovernmental negotiations in the European Council and Council of the European Union.
The Union will never become a “nation” or a unitary “state” because its powers exist as a result of transference of sovereignty from the member states, rather than a federal state determining its own competence at the federal level (i.e. US Congress decides to amend the constitution and give federal level xyz power)…
Institutionally, what that means is that the member states as sovereign nations have decided that they would like to pool their sovereignty together under common institutions by a process of delegating certain competences in areas where they have determined that united action at a higher level would be more efficient and effective at addressing a certain issue.
There are European “federalists” - I and @PickyPicky among them, more or less, give or take some differences - but we do not desire that “ever-closer union” mean a single European nation-state. We don’t want it to cease being a delegated Union where the nation-states are the masters of the Treaties who decide what powers the Union should exercise and enjoy the sovereign right to leave it if they no longer wish to pool sovereignty with their neighbouring member countries.
Nothing will ever change the EU’s essential nature as a supranational union, because it is for the Member States to decide what the Union is and will be.
In my humble opinion, it is one of the greatest achievements by any continent in human history, and despite its faults and institutional shortcomings - and I have my fair share, even as an ardent Remainer - I think we Europeans should take a certain pride in the peace, fraternity and mutual economic interdependence that we have created together out of a previously war-torn region of the world.
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Elf01
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Scotland got a vote and voted to stay in the UK.
With Brexit it and Northern Ireland may vote to leave.
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phil19034
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Right. Which is why I compared it to the United States under the Articles of Confederation (pre US Constitution when each state had its own currency) & before the Civil War (after the Constitution), but not the United States of today.phil19034:
The European Union is, properly speaking, a ‘delegated’ supranational union. It lies between a confederation and a federation. So yes, it has elements more commonly associated with federations - flag, citizenship, common identity, legislature, executive, judiciary, common legal system - but also with a confederation - intergovernmental negotiations in the European Council and Council of the European Union.
The Union will never become a “nation” or a unitary “state” because its powers exist as a result of transference of sovereignty from the member states, rather than a federal state determining its own competence at the federal level.
Institutionally, what that means is that the member states as sovereign nations have decided that they would like to pool their sovereignty together under common institutions by a process of delegating certain competences in areas where they have determined that united action at a higher level would be more efficient and effective at addressing a certain issue.
There are European “federalists” - I and @PickyPicky among them - but we do not desire that “ever-closer union” mean a single European nation-state. We don’t want it to cease being a delegated Union where the nation-states are the masters of the Treaties who decide what powers the Union should exercise and have the sovereign right to leave of they no longer wish to pool sovereignty with neighbouring countries.
Nothing will ever change the EU’s essential nature as a supranational union.
It is one of the greatest achievements by any continent in human history, and despite its faults and institutional shortcomings - and I have my fair share, even as an ardent Remainer - I think we Europeans should take a certain pride in the peace, fraternity and mutual economic interdependence that we have created together out of a previously war-torn region of the world.
Also, the United States technically is the only federated nation in the world where the sovereignty is granted to the Federal Govt from the member states.
The US States give the US Federal govt it’s power and if 2/3 of the states want to take power away from the Federal govt, they can do so without approval from Congress.
In other federated nations, the Federal govt grants the regional govts to exist, but in the US the states grant the federal govt the right to exist.
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Kaninchen
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Nothing will ever change the determination of American Conservatives to define everything in their terms and expect discussion to take place within such definition.
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Vouthon
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Your constitution, though, is amended by the US Congress at federal level (so far as I know). Because its a federal state, as opposed to a supranational union of states.
I know a two-thirds majority of states can request an amendment, but it’s still achieved at the federal level, whereas in the EU the member states could decide right now just to reform the treaties and get together in the European council to get that ball rolling.
In the European Union, because it is based on Treaties, the Member States are the only ones who can decide to implement what we call “Treaty change” - as a collective - that grant or remove competences conferred at the Union level. The most recent example of this was the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.
If an EU member state doesn’t want the proposed treaty change then it can’t pass. Any single state can stop it because approval of every state is needed.
Thus, also, any Member State can withdraw from the EU simply be deciding that it wants to and informing the European Council. US states cannot do this because they are part of a wider, super-state.
And that isn’t going to change on either side.
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PickyPicky
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Does England get a vote in any of this?
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Vouthon
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Actually, I’ll grant that you have a germane point here (upon reflection) but in practice all 33 amendment proposals have come from the Congressional level, historically speaking.
I’m not denying that one can draw instructive parallels between different federal or quasi-federal systems - comparative political science and constitutionalism is very fruitful, and indeed even courts in different parts of the world consider non-binding precedents from other legal jurisdictions to guide their judgments, if an issue has been adjudicated elsewhere (as part of inter-judicial dialogue transnationally) - but the EU should still be understood on its own terms and in its own context primarily.
Can one draw meaningful parallels between the European integration and the American process of forming a more “perfect union”? Of course, such parallels have also been drawn between the EU and Canada (interestingly, the EU has a more integrated single market between its Member states than does Canada, an actual federal state) by constitutional law scholars and many other polities, but there are still significant differences (the very concept of ‘supranationalism’ being one, which outside Quebec and First Nations isn’t as prominent of an issue for Canadian constitutionalism or jurisprudence, although much more so than it is for the US, making it a better comparison in some ways). Switzerland and Germany are other commonly used examples (the Council of the European Union, the upper house of its bicameral legislature, has compelling similarities to the German Bundesrat).
Because the EU is more than a confederation but not a federal state, there is no stage in the American process of integration that I can think of - whether the original Articles of Confederation or the latter US federal constitution ratification - which is exactly akin to the institutional reality of the EU today, since it is sui generis (“one of a kind”).
Given that it is sui generis, we are in uncharted territory and cannot simply point to the US model and say, “aha, so that’s where the EU is going to end up”.
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phil19034
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phil19034:
Your constitution, though, is amended by the US Congress at federal level (so far as I know). Because its a federal state, as opposed to a supranational union of states.
I know a two-thirds majority of states can request an amendment, but it’s still achieved at the federal level, whereas in the EU the member states could decide right now just to reform the treaties and get together in the European council to get that ball rolling.
In the European Union, because it is based on Treaties, the Member States are the only ones who can decide to implement what we call “Treaty change” - as a collective - that grant or remove competences conferred at the Union level. The most recent example of this was the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.
If an EU member state doesn’t want the proposed treaty change then it can’t pass. Any single state can stop it because approval of every state is needed.
Thus, also, any Member State can withdraw from the EU simply be deciding that it wants to and informing the European Council. US states cannot do this because they are part of a wider, super-state.
And that isn’t going to change on either side.
- No, that’s not how the Constitution is amended. Congress can’t do it. The States alone approve all Constitutional Amendments.
Then, the states vote on the amendments and the amendment is only passed when 2/3 of the states ratify it.
Congress cannot approve any amendments by themselves, but the states can adopt amendments without Congress
- what you say about withdrawal is one of the reasons why I keep saying “before the Civil War.” The Southern States (and Northern Democrats) strongly believed that states had the legal right to leave the Union. Lincoln and the Republicans did not believe that to be so. So the Civil War broke out. However, even today, there are some US Constitutional lawyers who believe that states do have the right to leave the Union even today and that Lincoln was wrong by claiming the states didn’t have the right to leave. Because this has not been tried again and the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on it, the States are technically allowed to leave the Union If they vote to leave because The US Constitution grants all power to the States unless specifically granted by the Constitution (or the Supreme Court’s understanding of the Constitution).
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Vouthon
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Yes, note the above post (I got there before you!) - on reflection I noted that you made a genuinely good point in this respect.
I forget the ins-and-outs of American constitutionalism, given that I haven’t looked at it in detail since university.
I appreciate your helpful explanations above.
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