Comments on: “Europe is not ambitious enough”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 11:01:55 +0000

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By: Nosemonkey

Nosemonkey — Tue, 31 May 2005 11:55:11 +0000

In short: it’s all very depressing.

But we knew that anyway.

By: EU Serf

EU Serf — Tue, 31 May 2005 10:54:56 +0000

I agree with Alex.

Most Brits have given up any hope of reform, which is why us Nutters are in the acendency. If Nosemonkey wants to change their minds, he has to hope that the Euro Elites take the right lesson from the French Non.

Judging by their responses, I’d say its not looking good.

By: alex

alex — Mon, 30 May 2005 20:37:10 +0000

Even many of the strongest Eurosceptics were in favour of “Europe” once. Most would be perfectly happy with a vision such as you lay out. The difference is that they don’t see how it will happen and prefer getting out to the alternative, whereas you want to stay in in the (vain?) hope that you can bring your vision about. Your way may give a better (but ultimately futile?)chance of your vision occurring, whereas there’s is (arguably) better if the ‘vision’ doesn’t happen.

By: Blimpish

Blimpish — Sun, 29 May 2005 13:03:52 +0000

Not to provoke an outbreak of violent agreement Nosemonkey, but I’ve got a lot of sympathy with you here, but also scepticism on the potential for any of it to happen. If the EU became an architecture for voluntary interstate collaboration, it would be great – but I just don’t see it happening. Too much history.

But the main thing you’re right on is what you say in the opening – that the Constitution offers no cause for enthusiasm. Even in terms of tangible achievements of the EU, the British Government is onto a loser – hard for them to evangelise the benefits of the Single Market when Customs are such aggressive impounders and harassers of people crossing the channel.

By: Nosemonkey

Nosemonkey — Fri, 27 May 2005 14:31:50 +0000

Just because a bunch of nutters make the arguments doesn’t necessarily make the arguments untrue. There is waste (though not as much as some claim) there is corruption (ditto) and the CAP is shit. But I persist in my naive belief that the EU is fundamentally a good thing nonetheless.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 27 May 2005 14:26:43 +0000

The arguments here are the classic sceptical arguments:
one size doesn’t fit all (obvious now from the economic state of Euroland).
There isn’t enough democracy.
A lack of emocratic accountability especially in the oversite, or lack thereof, of EU directives which have a nasty habit of crippling business (such as the small hauliers with the Working Time Directive).
There is no single European culture or vision of the future (hence countries should ba allowed to follow whichever path suits themselves best).

All you need are complaints about the massive amount of corruption, even more massive quantities of waste, how the EU’s main policy (CAP) damages the third world, (Plus some raving about cricket and warm beer) and you’ll have joined the Dark Side.