United Europe would it work?

[The PIT]

Some in europe would like a united states of europe. Would this work? To be honest I don't think it would. Why?
People are strongly nationlistic. How could you guarentee that you voice would be heard. How would european taxes be decided. Already theres preasure to unify them. Would smaller countries be swept aside by larger countries like Germany France and Britain.
The dangers are that countries would feel that they were being dictated too and there national needs and identies eroded. Just look at how London has treated Scotland and to a lesser degree Wales in the past. Only now have they got a little of there own rights back.
If you had a United europe it would work for short while then countries would want a bit of there independance back.

[mdhome]

Hello Pit
Spot on. Unfortunately this is a problem we have to resolve as a specis, and it has to start somewhere

regards md

[alessandro]

Ofcourse EU will work, PIT.
But you see right now your country is the one who doesn't really help the EU to complete its targets

[The PIT]

alessandro. I think you'll that all the larger players like to defend there own interests.
If Europe becomes fully intergrated how much say do you reckon Greece will have in it's internal affairs. How would you like some faceless person deciding what laws you should have what taxes you pay.

[az]

i'd really like that to happen, but there are a few things that need to be settled beforehand:

- ALL nations must accept the rulings of the EU, and NOT threaten to blockade decisions

- to accomplish that, unanimity (which is contrary to the eu's constitution btw) has to be gotten rid of, we need majority decisions (i'm not sure about the grammar here, please correct me if i'm wrong, i always want to learn your beautiful language better )

- ALL nations need to accept the euro as their currency

- agrarian subsidies must stop (and must do so almost completely, it can't be that 50% of the EU's money goes into that because 5% of the people don't want to change their job!)

these matters won't be solved easily, and not in the near future either, so sadly i don't see it happen anytime soon... but i think we just need to work closer together, and for once forget about lobbyism and nationalism - we need to create a european nation, this would benefit all us europeans!

AZ

P.S. sorry if i didn't use the right words, my knowledge of political english is almost non-existant and babelfish isn't exactly the best place to look, so please correct me if i'm wrong so i can do better next time

[Pace]

Well, as someone said it'd be nice for it to work - possibly a stepping stone onto a united world...

However, why does it matter who sets our taxes? Surely if we have a united group of nations exists as one, then the ruling body would be setting rules and regulations for us all - in the best interests for us all equally. However, I'm assuming that current Gov'ts do that already...

Paul.

[Raptor^]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
- ALL nations must accept the rulings of the EU, and NOT threaten to blockade decisions

- to accomplish that, unanimity (which is contrary to the eu's constitution btw) has to be gotten rid of, we need majority decisions .
</font>

Yes I agree completely there, but also

- ALL nations must actually follow these rulings once they are made and not choose to ignore them when it suits them.

I'm not going to name names (thats something else thats done far too often and just creates animosity between countries).

------------------
Unreal Fortress developer

[The PIT]

Every Country has different requirements therefore taxes have to be set locally. Some countries are poorer than others so you cannot expect them to pay a unified tax.

[Pace]

Yea, but what's wrong with Bush making decisions for most of America? Their system seems to do quite well - why can't we use that idea?

I see that some decisions must be made 'locally', but as it is, there is effectively no real governing body over and above individual nations - this will take a long time to change though, but a US of E would be a stepping stone.

As for the sovereignty of the Pound Sterling, I don't really care...but I'm not going to throw away British money by jumping onto the Euro at the moment. (well, from a voter's stance, I'm soundling like a PM there )

P.

[az]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Pace:
[B]Yea, but what's wrong with Bush making decisions for most of America?</font>

That it's bush who makes the decisions

back to the topic...

you couldn't rule europe as one state now, because the different countries are too different now... but it would be possible to start efforts to make them more equal (more equally rich, i mean) and thus make it possible to centrally rule them.. and of course even then would every region receive additional help (money) according to its needs (because you simply can't make all regions perfectly equal.. there will always be those more depending on agriculture and those more industrialized, but that's ok), so there'd be no problem..

AZ

[Admiral]

Yes, you do need to make them more equally rich, but you also need to make them more equal in voting.
I do understand that larger countryes like GB, Germany and France need more representation due to their larger population, that's what deputies are for. Like in every other country, the deputy chamber is there to represent the number of population and each county has more or less representatives depending on its population.

The senate has only one or two or a limited number of representatives per county (the US has two senators per state if I recall), but all counties have the same number, they are equal. In our case we don't have a senate (by us it's also called "corp ponderator", ponderating body) but we do have a council of ministers.
Here is our problem, we don't have equality here, not every member state has the same number of votes in this "body". GB, Germany and France have the most (claming they have a bigger population, makes you wonder what the deputies are there for), ensuring them a double majority. Spain and Itally want the same number of votes as them, they also use the population argument, nobody thinks at the smaller states. As larger states don't like smaller ones to make decisions for them nor do smaller ones like larger states do for them. And let's face it, in Europe larger states have decide for centuries what smaller countryes should do. The current situation only gives it a so called democratic face.

The best solution would be to give each member state one and only one vote in the council of ministers.

[paulcs]

Most decisions that effect people's daily lives in the US are made locally. Even so, from a federal perspective, governing a land mass this large is not without it's perils. There are regional and state rivalries that will always exist. It can get pretty nasty.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[az]

admiral: i disagree, and not because i live in a big state... but if every state had just the same power in the councils, then 80million people (germany) would only count as much as 8 millions (bulgaria)... obviously unfair, don't you think? i think states should have power exactly proportional to their population, after all it's the people that it's all about...

AZ

[Admiral]

If it's the people it's all about (which I agree), then we should get rid of the council and keep only the deputies. Have the deputies as the legislative power and the rotative presidency as executive, and in time when parties with the same orientation all over Europe will unite making one European Liberal Party, one European Conservatory Party, one European Democratic Party, One European Green Party, One European Social-Democratic Party (you get the picture ), dump the rotative presidency and make a European government formed by the party who wins the elections, going by popular vote, eliminating the nationalistic element. People all over Europe will vote for a party that suits their orientation, not for which people in their country would represent them (the country) in the European parliament.




[This message has been edited by Admiral (edited 25 March 2001).]

[az]

that'd be great, but it's a long way to go there... i think what MUST happen for people to accept the eu is transparency... no one understands how the eu really works (me too), so it isn't accepted by the people... if they accept the eu, we can talk again about one european state...

AZ