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.
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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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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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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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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.
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 only hard because UK wanted to stop immediately to participate to budget while continuing to benefit from already agreed multi-years policies.
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.
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?