Comment by miohtama
1 day ago
It's not only Dutch. Instead of building sovereignity, the EU thought they could regulate their way and force everyone to bend the knee because of their share as a trading partner. This started 20 years ago. However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumbling, but the politicians have hard to grasp with the reality they could somehow dictate things globally. AI will only further accelerate this.
Only way to have control is to have domestic actors you can push around.
Europeans (and not just the EU) think they still have the influence on the world they had in the 1980s when their economies were a much larger proportion of the global economy. Europeans have no idea what the world looks like from Asia which contains most of the world's population and generates a third of global GDP.
Americans (and not just the US) think they still have the influence on the world they had in the 1980s when their economies were a much larger proportion of the global economy. Americans have no idea what the world looks like from Asia which contains most of the world's population and generates a third of global GDP.
It is a general western problem to some extent, but the US has a a faster growing economy than any of the big European economies. It is still a super-power.
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If both of these views are true (and they appear to be becoming more true every day): what happens?
I find it a little hard to believe that Russia or China or whoever in the East or South is quietly puppeting all the bullshittery happening now. Maybe a little less hard to believe that the West has just collectively decided to huff lead gas fumes and lose our collective minds for a generation.
Maybe this is just how corrupt capitalistic societies die and the East is happy to sit back and watch us burn ourselves to the ground.
But they do and you are bitter and sad that you can’t do a thing about it.
They also came to realize building, operating and maintaining a military force is extremely expensive. Free healthcare, 7 weeks of vacation, 36 hr work weeks, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, etc etc is all great when you don’t have the financial burden of protecting your home.
USA has said they will not support Europe in a military conflict so now you can slash your military and fire all those soldiers and have free health care etc. No? Sounds like ”protecting” Europe wasn’t what stood in the way of free healthcare, vacation, etc.
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Total EU defense spending is around $450M USD. The US defense budget, prior to 2027, is about $950M USD. Are you saying the US could have all those social policies for $500M USD?
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> However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumbling
Uh, no. The US soft power is turning to dust whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin.
What has happened the past ±30 years is that most EU countries cut spending on their militaries to the bone, because big brother USA would take care of it anyway. Now that we are returning to a multi-polar world, suddenly the EU is left scrambling for hard power that it doesn't have. That's why they can't play hardball when the US does a new ridiculous thing, because they simply lack the hard power to back up Ukraine.
The US is sorely going to regret their antics though. Long term, the EU is going to switch to their own stacks, both for military but also things like cloud and other tech. It's trillions of $ the US economy will be missing out on. And voting in a Democratic president, senate and house is not gonna change a thing about it, because the US has proven itself to be a fundamentally unreliable, if not outright hostile partner.
The US alone spends 1.5x as much on consumer goods (yes, adjusted for PPP) and nearly 2x as much on R&D as the entire EU. It’s very sweet that the EU is trying to decouple itself from the US economy, but I highly doubt its ability to become “leader of the free trade world” when it has so little money to throw around.
Yeah, we'll just up our EU debt to about 40 trillion USD, make up some money and continue. Sounds a lot like US right? Living in perpetual debt as a nation.
> The US alone spends 1.5x as much on consumer goods (yes, adjusted for PPP) and nearly 2x as much on R&D as the entire EU.
Given that by PPP the EU and the US are about the same, that necessarily means the EU spends more on other things.
"the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin"
At its usual pace ... do you know when the negotiations with Mercosur started? Year 2000. Only now we have an agreement. Still, better than not doing anything at all. But I wonder how many of the original negotiators are still alive.
It also yet remains to be seen what happens if China puts a real pressure on us. Our list of allies is now somewhat thin and we have to cozy up to India, which indirectly funds the Russian war against Ukraine by importing Russian weapons and Russian oil/gas, the latter in huge quantities. Still, better than cozying up to China, because the possibility that Beijing teaches Brussels some cool tricks to keep the population under perfect surveillance scares me.
>Still, better than not doing anything at all
How is Mercosur better for the EU citizens?
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>Uh, no. The US soft power is turning to dust whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin.
To quote when harry met sally - I'll have what she's having.
He's having a dish called "Watching Trump from a distance", you should definitely try it.
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It is difficult to think of an economic region that is more opposed to free trade than Europe (that isn't a comedy country). Possibly some countries in South America?
Trade within Europe has massive restrictions. I have no idea why, given the stated aims of Europe...we are posting this on a post about the Netherlands trying to protect office software ffs, people think this isn't the case. One of the reasons why the EU created a trade bloc, and the same reasons why you see the same attempts in areas of the world like South America, was to limit the impact of free trade. This should be completely obvious given that the EU is not competitive in areas where they lack the ability to limit competition.
Also, I will point out: US policy is for the EU to do exactly the thing that you are suggesting. This has been the consistent position of Trump since 2016. The main blockers for this have been politicians in the EU. I am not sure how you equate being unreliable with subsidising EU defence spending to the tune of multiple trillions so that EU countries can spend on welfare either.
The EU self-image is totally bizarre, it is so out of touch with reality. Hostile to all forms of change and innovation: actually one of the greatest free traders there has ever been. Xenophobic and hostile to certain countries: possibly one of the greatest allies to these countries ever. Never gets any support on Ukraine, would be a leader if the US weren't such bastards: spent multiple decades fuelling Putin's state.
> Hostile to all forms of change and innovation
I don’t understand how you can believe that about the EU. The union has been evolving so much since its creation. It is itself one of the greatest innovation in governance ever created. GDPR is an innovative framework making the EU leader in privacy protection. European open banking initiatives/frameworks are unique and have been leading the way forward for the past 20 years, and we are now reaping all the benefits with the latest payment system developments (PSD2 and others were already awesome but the payment standard is what makes the day to day citizens actually see the results). The 28th regime[0] in development is innovative. Schengen/TFEU Art. 45 is such an innovative policy. Where else can you move freely between so many countries?
That’s only from the top of my head and the few examples I’m familiar with
0: https://the28thregime.eu/
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The only people that think global free trade is a good thing are the top .001% net worth individuals which use it to wield power.
Trading blocks (like the European single market) are specifically designed to protect their members from shit that global corporations or other nations attempt to get away with.
I'm not sure what "Trade within Europe has massive restrictions." means without context. Compared to some Randian capitalist utopia where there are no rules and no governments? Or compared to before the creation of the European single market?
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There are still some protectionist issues on the single market itself.
For example, Poland defends its rail operator, PKP Intercity, against foreign competition by a series of dirty tricks, including "just never registering a sale of a depot to a competing corporation in the land registry".
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> whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin
In the same way America is stuck in its military heyday past, the EU is stuck pretending its brand of multilateralism is still a thing outside its own borders.
What? In this case the problem isn't that EU wants to dictate things globally, but US laws that do just that. EU laws just apply to Europe. As time goes on and European agencies get their shit together and actually start to follow their own rules, it will mean a shitton of business will leave US companies.
The problem for the EU is being so consumer centric but having a weak currency and diminished manufacturing (thanks to Russian invasion).