Comment by matthewmacleod
4 days ago
That obviously makes no sense. A club isn’t a sovereign entity just because it has rules. Hungary is free to leave the EU and set a border policy that conflict with EU law if it wishes - but if it wants to remain part of that organisation, particularly one that has open borders thorough The Schengen area, then of course it needs to follow the rules.
> Hungary is free to leave the EU ...
And Poland and Italy and the Netherlands and Luxembourg etc. are all free to voice their opinion as being members of the club.
The EU is walking on thin ice: it doesn't exist since very long (at least not in that form) and the EUR is a very young currency that is already in serious trouble, with most members of the eurozone deeply indebted (and one that already partially defaulted on its public debt, Greece).
The hubris of people who think the EU can bully every single country into submission is insane. Many people aren't happy at all with what's going on in the EU. The EU screwed big times on nuclear (and recently acknowledged they fucked up on nuclear), became dependent on Russia for cheap energy (the US warned them this had potential to SNAFU and SNAFU it did) and now has one of the highest energy price in the world. Making it extremely hard for EU industries to compete with the rest of the world.
There are also many people in the EU who believe that massively importing people from Africa and poor middle-eastern countries (I'm not saying all middle eastern countries are poor: I'm saying middle-eastern countries migration into the EU is mostly from poor middle-eastern countries) won't raise the living standard of the EU.
The entire "we decide which size cucumbers should have, we decide to break encryption to protect the kids, we decide to flood the continent with migrants, etc. and you STFU or you can get out" is not an acceptable posture.
Also please let me laugh at the Schengen borders area: we saw how quickly those borders were closed during several occasion, including Covid. But lastly there have been police controls filtrating cars at the borders in Germany: got controlled twice last summer in Germany. So much for the free movement of people.
My bet is the EUR is going to die a quick death (one of the most stupid currency every invented: cannot work with different fiscal laws and different productivity in the various eurozone countries). And my second bet is that this is going to put a lot of pressure on the entire EU thing.
The EU is not doing well. The US and China's GDPs grew like crazy since the 2008 financial crisis while inflation-adjusted the EU barely moved.
At some point people should do well to wonder if the EU construct ain't the root cause of the problem.
No, EU is not the root of the problem, whatever the problem is. For example, countries are stronger, more resilient and business is more effective together than everyone trying to do it alone. And of course the EU is not perfect and there is room for improvement.
In my experience, one concrete problem is that so many people misunderstand or are unaware of basic things about the EU and why EU even exists. With the former I mean things like how the EU Parliament is put together, the relation of the EU Commission to the EU Parliament, how is the President of the EU Commission chosen (no, it's not "undemocratic"), what does Schengen mean, what is the Euro and WHY does it exist, why was there legislation which mentioned the curvature of cucumbers, and so on.
As there is no big picture, or it is rejected due to ideological reasons, the lack of knowledge and misunderstandings then manifest as fear of the unknown (=the EU). At this point, these people become against everything in EU: whatever new things are proposed from the EU side, it is somehow "lousy", "bad", "failing", "won't work anyway", and so forth. Any EU company has "bottom-barrel products" and "can't succeed", euro cannot work between countries, Europe is "weak" and "gay" and "collapsing".
Also, some people look at an individual member state and confuse it with the whole EU. For example, the nuclear power stance of Germany is seen as an EU-mandated position and then the whole EU is seen to be against nuclear power. This can also work in reverse: Poland sends generators to Ukraine, well done Poland and why is the weak and failing EU doing nothing (except the generators were from RescEU stores, and one such store was located in Poland, so EU was sending them).
When people understand what the EU is and know the basics, of course they might still disagree with things, that's normal, but at least the arguments are more factual.
It sounds like a system with little democratic buy-in.
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Are you really conflating the idea of Schegen with "keeping unlocked doors to your house"?
Very quick way to show you are not willing to engage in ideas in good faith.
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As UK showed, leaving EU is hard and EU will fight you on it as well as seek to penalize you
EU didn't fight UK. UK fought EU to not lose their exorbitantly privileged status and benefits while leaving the club itself. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. When they realized and decided that they will get none of the benefits, the finalization of the exit took merely weeks. EU is a huge privilege / opportunity for smaller countries. EU-6 doesn't need the other ones to be the second biggest market. If Hungarians want out, it can be done by the end of 2026 and you can enjoy being a proper vassal to neo-Soviets by 2027.
Press made it pretty clear one of the EU’s goals was to ensure nobody did this again. That fits the word “punishment.”
>EU-6 doesn't need the other ones to be the second biggest market.
That's where you're wrong. Where would German industry be today without the labor, suppliers, export market and cheap energy imports from the other non-EU-6 members? Especially after they denuclearized and derussified their energy sector and nuked their birthrates, and so rely on importing energy and workers from everyone to stay afloat. You can't claim you don't need them while you're importing their energy, labor, resources, doctors, etc. You can't treat your country like an economic zone, while ignoring all the economic transactions.
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The EU will fight you? If Texas tried to secede from the US, the government would send in the military. The EU "fought" them by not giving them a sweetheart trade deal on their way out the door?
It was super easy for UK to leave EU? No one tried to stop them. The ”hard” part was that they wanted to keep some benefits of the membership after canceling the membership.
Of course leaving the EU is hard. Membership has a significant effect on regulation and governance. The fact that something is hard also doesn’t mean you aren’t free to do it.
It being “fought” or countries being “penalised” is a matter of opinion but not one I share.
It was only hard because UK wanted to stop immediately to participate to budget while continuing to benefit from already agreed multi-years policies.
How, exactly, did the EU penalize the UK for leaving?
Please, elaborate, I'll be waiting.
That is incorrect. Leaving EU is super easy. Leaving written accords with USA is hard, and that's what UK tried to pull off. Since the oligarchs pushing for EU exit to hide their black money were dumb, they forgot they have an agreement with USA making a UK-Ireland border transparent. And they basically spent 4 years trying to either tear down a USA deal or EU law, without having any leverage for either, since they are dumb. Since there no such things in other EU countries, their leave can happen much faster.
Sounds like EU deliberately evil?