Comment by saubeidl a day ago
I'm curious - how do you see Europe surviving if not through further integration?
How do you envision, say Lithuania standing up to Russia, China or the US?
What is your preferred model? All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers?
Also, the National Rally is clearly far-right. It was founded by former Waffen SS-members, for chrissake.
The threat isn't just military and it's not just coming from Russia.
Think about economic extortion from the US and China, how would little Lithuania defend against that?
Two of those three little countries have to follow EU law without having any say in it - my point exactly!
> Two of those three little countries have to follow EU law without having any say in it - my point exactly!
The same is true for any treaty. The same is true for internal negotiations within the EU.
> Think about economic extortion from the US and China, how would little Lithuania defend against that?
Could the EU do much better than the larger countries can do by themselves? Especially in the long term its much lower growth rate means its going to be a relatively smaller and smaller economy compared to the US or China.
Despite all the expansion, the EU at the time the UK left was a much smaller proportion of the global economy than the EU at the time the UK joined.
>I'm curious - how do you see Europe surviving if not through further integration?
I don't, with or without further integration. Not everyone or everything is meant to survive. Everything has a shelf life. The Roman empire also collapsed. Rearranging the deckchairs of the titanic doesn't change the outcome.
>What is your preferred model? All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers?
A union is good, but the EU only worked at preventing another world war between members, not at helping us be united against foreign entities, because you can't force unity between different dethatched cultures just because we're neighbours, as proven by Yugoslavia, the USSR, etc.
Every EU member is still driven by self interest and own group preference, which will be the EU's doom. Like Spain doesn't really care as much about the Eastern war as Poland or Romania do because they're far away from the war and don't see why they should pay more taxpayer money for it. Germans care more about something happening in Austria than about what's happening in Bulgaria. And so on.
>I don't, with or without further integration. Not everyone or everything is meant to survive. Everything has a shelf life. The Roman empire also collapsed. Rearranging the deckchairs of the titanic doesn't change the outcome.
Why have strong opinions if you're really just a doomer?
Yugoslavia broke up mainly due to ethnic not cultural differences, it wasn't Croatian Serbs against Bosnian Serbs.
And the entire point of a healthy relationship is to compromise and try to understand the other side, which is the point of the EU.
So Spain contributes to the east as a compromise for getting heavy subsidies themselves.
>Why have strong opinions if you're really just a doomer?
Are you the opinion police?
>the entire point of a healthy relationship is to compromise and try to understand the other side, which is the point of the EU
The problem with compromise is that everyone becomes equally unhappy. And when everyone is unhappy strange results come at elections.
EU member states are so different, that you can't have regulations that benefits an economy like Denmark and also simultaneously one like Romania. Which is how places like Romania now have German energy and grocery prices but Romanian wages and pensions. Not exactly a great compromise for a lot of Romanians.
>So Spain contributes to the east as a compromise for getting heavy subsidies themselves.
It doesn't matter how it is in reality, what matters is how Spanish voters perceive it come election times. Elections are always won on vibes and feels rather than facts and arguments.
>Are you the opinion police?
For asking a question?
>The problem with compromise is that everyone becomes equally unhappy. And when everyone is unhappy strange results come at elections.
And the alternative is exactly what?
Compromise is not a negative or a positive otherwise healthy relationships wouldn't be defined by those who find compromises.
>EU member states are so different, that you can't have regulations that benefits an economy like Denmark and also simultaneously one like Romania. Which is how places like Romania now have German energy and grocery prices but Romanian wages and pensions. Not exactly a great compromise for a lot of Romanians
What specific regulation is causing tremendous benefit to Denmark but is causing harm to Romania?
And if Romania pays a lot for energy spot price then that is on Romania, similar to Germany, on top of this grocery prices are not regulated by the EU.
>It doesn't matter how it is in reality, what matters is how Spanish voters perceive it come election times. Elections are always won on vibes and feels rather than facts and arguments.
Then the fault is at those who do understand facts for not approaching vibes with better vibes, I can agree with you that neo politics has been the biggest catastrophe for Europe.
But the only reason why people follow vibes is because of the lack of social, political and cultural issues being part of what it means to be political and instead politics is portrayed as at best as a numbers game and at worst technocratic (just look at chat control, sounds wonderful when your experts are the police and lobbyists but sounds awful if politicians were invested in social perspectives).
The fallacy is obvious right there...
Why would "Europe's survival" be at stake without further integration? Why would Lithuania need to stand up to Russia, China, or the US? (In terms of defense there are military alliances. They have never required political union or giving up sovereignty)
Edit as you added things:
> Also, the National Rally is clearly far-right.
Making outrageous claims does not make them factual.
> It was founded by former Waffen SS-members, for chrissake.
That's the FN that preceded the RN, some other founders were involved in the Resistance, too. That's the typical FUD narrative I mentioned, which takes the situation in 1972 and uses it to describe 2025. Are you saying that the majority of French MPs are Nazis? That's obviously ridiculous. Most US founding fathers were slave owners, so obviously the US are pro-slavery, like the Democratic Party that used to support slavery... Equally ridiculous. Again, today the RN is the main party of the right, nothing more. Their positions today would have made them in Chirac's rightwing government in 1986, not in the FN of the time.
The situation today is more like this: "Why Serge Klarsfeld, the renowned Nazi hunter, says he's ready to vote RN" [1] clearly a little different from your claims...
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/06/23/why-se...
Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?
What you're asking for is effectively to become a client state of one of the above.
I notice you didn't address the elephant in the room regarding the National Rally, i.e. its founders being actual Nazis. (like, the Hitler kind, not just random right wing extremists).
Changing their name does not make this any less true - hell, one of their founders was talking about putting a Jewish singer in the oven (!!!) only a few years ago.
>Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?
Do you think Lithuania, or other such small countries like Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, etc, can negotiate on equal terms with the EU?
I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.
Lithuania doesn't need to negotiate with the EU, they are the EU.
The others can't, of course. That's the point! We become one of the predators instead of staying prey like them.
> I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.
Exactly! That's why we need to build our own empire based on our own rules instead of letting foreign dictators gobble us up.
What do you mean by "Europe"? Yes, Lithuania has a problem, but the UK, France and Germany do not.
> What is your preferred model?
There are lots of alternatives to turning the EU unto a federal state with its own armies. Alliances for one. It has been NATO that filled this role for over 70 years, and successfully so against a far more powerful threat than Russia.
> All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers?
Lots of "insignificant little countries" seem to do rather well. Switzerland, Singapore, Norway,.....
I can see the nationalist appeal of belonging to a big powerful country, but it does not really do the people of a country much good.