Comment by aestetix
2 days ago
Honest question. The EU was created as an economic and trade institution. How has it morphed into a wierd political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be?
The root question: how did an organization that ushered in things like the Euro become a body that decides whether Europeans are allowed to have personal privacy?
The answer is pretty simple. This decision isn't "the EU".
The European Commission has fewer employees than the Luxembourg government (and keep in mind, they're "running" a continent).
This decision was the Council, i.e. simply the national member governments. Don't let anyone blame "the EU" for this, the national governments are the ones that proposed this, pushed it through EU institutions, and might now try to override the EU parliament about it. Just because national (elected) governments are pushing it through EU institutions doesn't mean you should blame "the EU". It wasn't the "Eurocrats".
What you're describing is how the process in the EU works. So in essence it is "the EU".
It doesn't seem to have any limits or restrictions on what it can do as an institution. It forced idiotic bottlecaps on all of us for shit's sake... and it has little consideration for privacy laws or constitutions of individuals, otherwise this proposal would've been thrown out automatically each time, if there was anything resembling constitutional values governing the EU's mandates.
It's like being governed by a neurotic unhinged monarch.
But the national governments are the ones who gave themselves that power in the first place. Because they wanted to be able to do shit like this. Hopefully the EU Parliament will stop them.
But the takeaway from this shouldn't be: "screw the EU", it should be: make the EU more democratic, and give more power to the parliament and less to the backroom machinations of member states. That's exactly what the pro-EU reformists want to do. Or you could pass an EU Constitution that enshrines basic rights including privacy, which the pro-Europe activists tried in 2005 (it explicitly mentioned communications privacy) but failed due to anti-EU pushback and fears over "sovereignty".
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The EU almost certainly has protected privacy for most European nations than it has hurt it.
You simply need to look at the precipitous decline in privacy in the UK after it left the EU to see some of the most stark examples of this.
You speak as if the EU is somehow divorced from the national governments, and is imposing its will to the helpless states that compose it.
The commissioners that propose laws are appointed by each national government. The national governments of each member state is all in on this.
NATO is not a political institution. It is a defense treaty (this one completely outside the realm of democracy).
A defence treaty is obviously a very political institution.
Obviously not in the sense the person I was replying to meant, considering their claim is that the EU should not be considered one.
EU (and preceding organisations since European Coal and Steel Community) were created so that there will be no war in Europe. How exactly this objective is achieved is of secondary importance. It is economic institution, because someone calculated that this will be best shot, but if (or when) calculation credibly shifts (for example, that it would be better for them to be a religion, a feudal system, or a federation -- whatever), it will morph into something else.
I'd say that it has 100% fulfilled its primary goal that there is no military conflict between major European states for like 80 years and counting, which is longest period ever recorded and a historical anomaly. The means of how it was executed is obviously a matter of debate, mistakes were made etc., but we over here generally make love, not war.
ever closer union in the Treaty of Rome
the entire point is to build a country called Europe
and the EU is built on the "Monnet method", where it slowly ratchets forward taking more power from national parliaments and giving it to the EU council/commission
(with a useless parliament there to make it appear democratic)
the UK leaving is the only example of the ratchet being reversed
The useless parliament that’s stopped this legislation twice?
> a weird political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be?
NATO is a military alliance, not a government.
>How has it morphed into a wierd political institution
Von der Leyen, an autocratic fascist that is ruining this continent. She failed to push her agenda in Germany so she "failed upwards". Even how she got this position was highly controversial and went against the top candidate principle. The EU commission is exceeding their competencies. The EU is not democratic, there is no parliamentary oversight, the parliament can't even introduce legislative proposals. No one can vote for the EU commission, only the parliament can vote for or against all the proposed candidates (not one by one). Parliament is essentially a rubber stamp for the commission.
I could be jailed for this comment btw.
All of this is disinformation and propaganda.
There is parliamentary oversight, it's literally the next step in the process.
We all voted for the EU commission through our respective elections for national governments, who appoint the comission.
You could not be jailed for this comment, though sometimes I wish you could. Information warfare is real.
>All of this is disinformation and propaganda.
I suggest actually looking at how the EU operates instead of accusing others of "spreading disinformation and propaganda" which is a typical response when someone critizies EU institutions.
>There is parliamentary oversight
A rubber stamp is oversight I guess. Laws like the DMA and DSA give the commission way too much power without being kept in check.
>it's literally the next step in the process.
Ah yes the "informal trilogue" where all parties meet behind closed doors and the public and most parliament members are excluded. Only ten members allowed! Did you know that from 2009 to 2014 at least 93% EU-wide laws were "debated" this way?
>We all voted for the EU commission through our respective elections for national governments, who appoint the comission
That's a very generous definition of "voted". As I said people can't vote for the EU commission nor can the parliament vote for the members of the commission. Remember that the EU commission is the ONLY one that can propose laws, the parliament CAN NOT do this even though it's their job.
>You could not be jailed for this comment, though sometimes I wish you could
Yes let's jail everyone for online comments you do not like. How about that German journalist that critizied a politician regarding free speech and got probation? Or when the police raided someone's home because he called a politician on Twitter a "dick"? Is this your idea of democracy?
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> The EU was created as an economic and trade institution. How has it morphed into a wierd political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be?
That is not the case.
The 1957 Treaty Establishing the European Community contained the objective of “ever closer union” in the following words in the Preamble. In English this is: “Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe …..”.
> The root question: how did an organization that ushered in things like the Euro become a body that decides whether Europeans are allowed to have personal privacy?
Sensationalist framing aside, how does any government become a body that decides anything?
> Sensationalist framing aside, how does any government become a body that decides anything?
Powerful people get together and decide that they know what's best for people. Then they claim that there is "consent" because people are given the right to vote and that there is a "social contract" that no one actually has signed, which everyone should still abide by.
That treaty was established just over a decade after Hitler surrendered, when there were two Germanys, an Iron curtain across Europe, and a lot of other things which changed significantly after the Wall fell. Surely you would agree that those words meant something quite different then than they do now?
I don't think my framing was sensationalist at all. Chat Control is using the threat of child porn to make people forget the reasons why the ECHR cares so deeply about privacy. I'm not sure why Denmark is pushing it so hard, but governments have long feared and hated encryption.
Not only are you moving your goalposts from "this wasn't the original purpose" (it was - it's part of the founding document!), but it has been reaffirmed and strengthened over and over again since: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
Don't get me wrong - I, too, care about privacy and think Chat Control is a horrible idea, that thankfully seems to be getting shut down. That doesn't mean the EU is somehow not legitimate as a governing body.
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"contained the objective of “ever closer union” "
Such words in any Preamble are usually meant as a lofty declaration of some ideal, not a concrete political goal.
After all, "ever closer" does not even mean federation, it means a unitary state, which is "closer" than a federation or a confederation.
If you believe that a single sentence in a 1957 treaty can be used as a ramrod to push European federalization from above, you will be surprised by the backlash. European nations aren't mostly interested in becoming provinces of a future superstate, potential referenda in this direction will almost certainly fail, and given the growth of the far right all over the continent, I don't expect the governments to agree to any further voluntary transfer of powers to Brussels.
Also, the European Commission is not a government and is not meant to act as a government that can decide "everything".
The countries that formed the EU have only agreed to transfer some powers to Brussels. Not give it an unlimited hand over everything. And Chat Control is a major infringement of constitutional rights in many countries, where inviolability of communication except for concrete warrants has been written into law for decades.
Imagine a situation if the German Constitutional Court says "this is illegal by the German Grundgesetz, and German law enforcement may not execute such laws". Do you believe that German authorities will defer to Brussels instead of its own Constitutional Court? Nope. Same with Poland etc. Local constitutional institutions have more legitimacy among the people than the bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels.
I don't think a mere Federalization should happen. I think a unitary state is - as you said! - what we all signed up for and what we should get.
There's a reason the "ever closer" phrasing has been repeated over and over again - in the 1983 Solemn Declaration, the 1997 Maastricht Treaty, the 2009 Lisbon treaty etc etc.
Look at China's rise and our fall - a direct consequence of centralization and the lack thereof.
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> Local constitutional institutions have more legitimacy among the people than the bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels.
Repeating this bullshit over and over does not make it true.
The EU has a parliament that approves laws. The commissioners are appointed by the democratic elected governments. It has a legitimate mandate.
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