Negatives of EU

live2thewire

What do ya say are the drawbacks at this time of EU?

For me it has to be this rotation presidency nonsense, I mean what the hell a change every 6 months? What up with that?

Scofflaw

live2thewire wrote: »

What do ya say are the drawbacks at this time of EU?

For me it has to be this rotation presidency nonsense, I mean what the hell a change every 6 months? What up with that?

Crikey, where does one start? The rotating Presidency is pretty silly, the ever-growing army of Commissioners, the way the CFP manages quotas, CAP in general, the not infrequently appalling attempts to be cool and down with the young people, the echo-chamber of Euro-heads who go to European events, the fumbling and uncoordinated responses to crises...the EU is its own worst enemy on a regular basis.

To be fair, some of those things are liable to plague any international, multinational, and intergovernmental organisation - and while, say, the CFP is an appalling way to manage fisheries, it's probably the only way it's realistically going to be managed.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

the not infrequently appalling attempts to be cool and down with the young people

Strangely enough I have fond memories of the EU black van that came to my small tipperary town when I was in primary school and we all got in the back and watched a brief 20 minute documentary on the formation of the EU and alot of praise for Schuman strangely enough which we kept getting mixed up with schuchmaker and kept asking the teacher did he drive formula one aswell? (yes our tipperary humour was god awful when you were six) also it was confusing because they were still changing everything over from EC to EU at the time.

But I had fondness for EU history and lessons growing up, it just seemed more positive then any other history. With the exception of Bismarck and DeValera during the *emergency* I think it was the only history I was thought where there was an actual motive to avoid war (Bismarck with his treaties, DeValera with neutrality)

On my negatives of the EU, I guess mine would be the same point I always say, the EU's inability to present itself to the general public without some form of ridicule or misplaced anger thrown at it. Mostly dregged up by the tightrope that it has to work as a inter governmental body and an organisation open to the people.

live2thewire

lol the eu 'black van' sounds interesting.

i never really encountered the eu much until i was in third year tbh, i can't remember much about it before that, but I read recently they plan on 'promoting' themselves to irish teeanagers in the near future.

af_thefragile

European Central Bank
and
Globalisation.

Sums up everything thats wrong with the EU!

BlitzKrieg

lol the eu 'black van' sounds interesting.

yes I was thinking when I wrote that, someone will mention the nazi gas vans in response I bet.



I guess I fulfilled my own prediction.

djpbarry

af_thefragile wrote: »

European Central Bank
and
Globalisation.

Sums up everything thats wrong with the EU!

It doesn't sum it up very well. 'Globalisation' is a pretty vague term; in what way does it sum up everything that's wrong with the EU?

turgon

Yeah doesn't the CAP distort competition for out-of-EU farmers? I believe that farmers in Brazil cant compete because of all the subsidies etc.

The EU is a pretty big organization, and the unique make up of it means there will be some things that ideally wouldn't be. A rotating presidency for example. It is pretty silly but what other way is there to do it? Its not like one could have direct elections for the post - people would just vote for their own candidate.

af_thefragile

djpbarry wrote: »

It doesn't sum it up very well. 'Globalisation' is a pretty vague term; in what way does it sum up everything that's wrong with the EU?

Bout the EU, basically globalisation is connected to the ECB.
Firstly central reserve banks in itself is not the best thing to have. Neither am i a great advocator of the Fiat monetary system. But thats a different story.

Its the concept in general where an external reserve banks controls the money for a whole continent. Thats wrong. And thats a part of globalisation.

And the rest, i can't really describe right now cuz i don't have enough knowledge how it all works but basically I believe in individual economies working towards progress rather than one mega-economy controlling everything.

sink

af_thefragile wrote: »

Bout the EU, basically globalisation is connected to the ECB.
Firstly central reserve banks in itself is not the best thing to have. Neither am i a great advocator of the Fiat monetary system. But thats a different story.

Its the concept in general where an external reserve banks controls the money for a whole continent. Thats wrong. And thats a part of globalisation.

And the rest, i can't really describe right now cuz i don't have enough knowledge how it all works but basically I believe in individual economies working towards progress rather than one mega-economy controlling everything.

Interesting, so you believe in an inverse relationship between economic size and the rate of economic advancement. It seems to me to be both counter-intuitive and counter real world observations. Do pray tell, how you came to this conclusion?

Nody

1) Subsidies to countries - Sorry but the amount of cash paid out is silly; let the farmers fail and put the money to better use. Same goes for roads etc.

2) Translations; no, there should not be a need to translate every single document into 15+ languages to make all languages equal. Translate them into English and then let the respective country pay for the translation to their local language IF NEEDED (I'm saying this as a non English native speaker).

3) Lack of punishment for breaking the rules, Italy for example had more sheep killed in one year then there where sheep in Italy! What about breaking the requirements for support ala Bulgaria etc.? Start putting in hefty fines and remove countries who fail to meet the requirements repetively; clearly they are not EU material then.

4) Size - Takes to long to make the required decisions in EU and the decisions go through to many levels of votes. Votes matter if people there actually learned what the question was about but usually they will vote along party lines with out knowing what they are voting on and hence it is a waste of money

af_thefragile

sink wrote: »

Interesting, so you believe in an inverse relationship between economic size and the rate of economic advancement. It seems to me to be both counter-intuitive and counter real world observations. Do pray tell, how you came to this conclusion?

I just don't believe in the idea of one centralised monetary system for a whole continent. Every economy should have its own monetary system which they should be free to control the way they want to. Libertarianism.

I don't believe in an inverse relationship between economic size and rate of economic advancement. I just don't believe in centralised economies for a whole continent. It takes power away from the individual state economies and feeds it one of central economy. Its like socialism. It kills small local economies while big multinationals grow. I don't support that. Its just inevitably leads to job losses, unemployment and increased taxes.

Again i'm not an economist to tell you how exactly this works but from what i've seen and notices, this is what's happening.
If it wasn't for globalisation, we wouldn't give a toss about how america screwed over its economy as it wouldn't effect us at all.

View

Nody wrote: »

2) Translations; no, there should not be a need to translate every single document into 15+ languages to make all languages equal. Translate them into English and then let the respective country pay for the translation to their local language IF NEEDED (I'm saying this as a non English native speaker).

Why English? German is the first language of more people in the EU than English is by a long shot.

It would make our referenda even more fun, wouldn't it? We all be arguing about the meaning of legalese written in German rather than English!

lmtduffy

af_thefragile wrote: »

I just don't believe in the idea of one centralised monetary system for a whole continent. Every economy should have its own monetary system which they should be free to control the way they want to. Libertarianism.

well libertarianism would ask for less than that, but due to economic progress and maturity it has become beneficial in the long run to integrate our economies through our institutions as their is no way around the fact that nations economies have and always will integrate with each other any ways,

I don't believe in an inverse relationship between economic size and rate of economic advancement. I just don't believe in centralised economies for a whole continent. It takes power away from the individual state economies and feeds it one of central economy. Its like socialism. It kills small local economies while big multinationals grow. I don't support that. Its just inevitably leads to job losses, unemployment and increased taxes.

Its not like socialism, its a basic premise of social contact this is going back to along time ago, the idea that we can all function better if we all surrender similar actions to another body, in this case the ability to set interest rates and print money to the ECB.
Taking away the ability of governments to do these things force them to be more responsible with their own countries economies. as if they acted irresponsibly changing the money supply or interest rates to avoid making hard decisions about the actual economy as opposed to the factors that control the value of our currency. It is in all the EU's interest to do this as if the countries were to get into a mess a la Iceland it would be the Eu that would eventually have to bail the failed state out,

Again i'm not an economist to tell you how exactly this works but from what i've seen and notices, this is what's happening.
If it wasn't for globalisation, we wouldn't give a toss about how america screwed over its economy as it wouldn't effect us at all

yes it would affect us, in exactly the same way if not worse, a la Iceland again. The only difference there would be is that we would not have the Eu's support.

Id recommend that if this is an area of interest to you or that concerns you that you should give economics a look, at least just browse topics on wikipedia,

the issues of globalisation is essentially an issue of margins, ie we are now more integrated outside of our nations borders, where once upon a time we might not have been integrated outside our own counties, their are costs to this but with good governance these can be minimised and the benefits in the long term will always out weigh the cost in this situation.

WooPeeA

af_thefragile wrote: »

European Central Bank
and
Globalisation.

Sums up everything thats wrong with the EU!

What's wrong with ECB and globalisation? I like both.

ionix5891

WooPeeA wrote: »

What's wrong with ECB and globalisation? I like both.

libertas

libertarian

i see trend emerging

towel401

all the ridiculous regulations that come out of the freaking EU by a bunch of clueless politicians who can't even change their own light bulbs.

there's a law to regulate every aspect of our lives now. its freaking crazy, if it was just the lads in dublin in charge they'd be too busy worrying about tribunals to bother making laws that only annoy the rest of us.

lmtduffy

towel401 wrote: »

all the ridiculous regulations that come out of the freaking EU by a bunch of clueless politicians who can't even change their own light bulbs.

there's a law to regulate every aspect of our lives now. its freaking crazy, if it was just the lads in dublin in charge they'd be too busy worrying about tribunals to bother making laws that only annoy the rest of us.

Yeh Im sick of all these rule too!
Ensuring our food isn't poisonous, that our cars dont blow up, and dont even get me started on the whole human rights ****é.../misinformed apathy

Oh and the light bulb guys are different guys, their our locals not our Euros.

Capt'n Midnight

towel401 wrote:

there's a law to regulate every aspect of our lives now. its freaking crazy, if it was just the lads in dublin in charge they'd be too busy worrying about tribunals to bother making laws that only annoy the rest of us.

yeah look at all the health and safety laws, and working time directives, and freedom of information and lots of stuff that benefits joe public , very little of it originated in Dublin, most was forced upon us by EU ( data protection was forced by USA )

towel401

health and safety doesn't do much for us. it only makes it harder for businesses because they have to pussyfoot around health and safety laws that only exist for the sake of political correctness and were designed by politicians who don't have a clue about the real world.

it also suppresses some of the more unusual cars. now all that matters is the NCAP rating and any design that looks out of the ordinary will be banished because it's less safe for pedestrians who get hit by it. anything that emits more than a few grammes of CO2 is bad so instead we get a boring car thats no fun to drive.

any oldschool buildings open to the public are now plastered with generic looking safety notices and fitted with all sorts of modern safety equipment that looks out of place and generally ruins the whole old fashioned look and feel. paternosters are no longer allowed to be built because some boring old sod decided they were not safe enough compared to an elevator that says 'doooors opening'. the few remaining have so many safety notices plastered on it that it might as well be closed.

life is always going to have risks and there is no point in trying to regulate them out of existence. at some point this health and safety stuff becomes a replacement for common sense, it has definitely created a trend towards making things more boring and unauthentic.

ionix5891

towel401 wrote: »

health and safety doesn't do much for us

:eek: :pac:

rofl

sorry i dont even know where to start, perhaps you can go and fix that electric cable out on the street, make sure not wear safety equipment while your at it and do the world a favour

Hitman Actual

towel401 wrote: »

all the ridiculous regulations that come out of the freaking EU by a bunch of clueless politicians who can't even change their own light bulbs.

there's a law to regulate every aspect of our lives now. its freaking crazy, if it was just the lads in dublin in charge they'd be too busy worrying about tribunals to bother making laws that only annoy the rest of us.

Whatever about your strange attitude to health and safety, don't forget that a lot of regulations/directives are very beneficial to the average guy- cheaper EU flights through the opening up of the market (a direct result from an EU ruling in the 90's, iirc); increased roll-out of broadband and competition in the market (still not enough of an improvement there, but blame Eircom and the government for that); the opening up of the mobile market giving increased competition, and cheaper EU roaming charges in same; opening up of the electricity market which shouold benefit the consumer through increased competition (Bord Gais springs to mind). Those are just a few quick ones off the top of my head. My point is that the EU regulations/directives that benefit the consumer are always ignored in threads like this.

ionix5891

Hitman Actual wrote: »

that benefit the consumer are always ignored in threads like this.

Negative campaigning works as we learned last year

Dannyboy83

View wrote: »

Why English? German is the first language of more people in the EU than English is by a long shot.

It would make our referenda even more fun, wouldn't it? We all be arguing about the meaning of legalese written in German rather than English!

Given that more people in the EU (& on Planet Earth) share English as a 2nd language than any other language, English is the global language and the accepted standard in Aviation, Science and Software, and the fact that the EU is supposed to be about common ground.........English would seem like the most sensible option.

Try explain this to the French.;)
(anybody watch the Eurovision )

Dannyboy83

Nody wrote: »

1)
2) Translations; no, there should not be a need to translate every single document into 15+ languages to make all languages equal. Translate them into English and then let the respective country pay for the translation to their local language IF NEEDED (I'm saying this as a non English native speaker).

I think the Scandanavians tried something similar, but I think its about jobs really.

I heard the Scandanavian nations come to these various conferences and have their interpreters for their own languages.
At the after party, everybody just speaks English and they generally speak English flawlessly.
I suppose there will be the odd guy who made the mistake of learning French or Spanish instead of English

Besides, Ireland are just as guilty (if not more) than anybody.
Most people in Ireland don't speak Irish, but we have websites and documents translated into Irish.

I guess its giving somebody, somewhere a source of income.

Capt'n Midnight

translating ?

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

into Russian and back became.

The vodka is good but the meat is bad.

And you can't automate this stuff "It's hard to wreck a nice beach"

Capt'n Midnight

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Given that more people in the EU (& on Planet Earth) share English as a 2nd language than any other language, English is the global language and the accepted standard in Aviation, Science and Software, and the fact that the EU is supposed to be about common ground.........English would seem like the most sensible option.

Try explain this to the French.;)
(anybody watch the Eurovision )

English might, but it is a bastardised language full of bits from here and there. Yes it has a huge vocab, but the words don't have unique meanings. Try translating the phrase "I love my dog" into any other language and you will find they have different words depending on the level of affection used. And no I'm not talking about the 20 words of snow myth. In German technical words are usually compound descriptive words, in English they might as well be trademarks in a lot of cases.

English as a second language is still far less than Mandrian and about the same as Spanish or Hindi

BUT Spanish and Portugese are very similar and combined beat English and would be far easier to learn for the speakers of other romance languages, including about 28 million Romanians, most of those languages use phonetic alphabets so no confusion on spelling and the words haven't changed as much. Apart from us English speakers most people in Europe / Africa can speak another language , probably applies to Asia outside Russia / China too. Americans North and South probably have a little Spanish / English so it could be doable.

Capt'n Midnight

View wrote: »

Why English? German is the first language of more people in the EU than English is by a long shot.

It would make our referenda even more fun, wouldn't it? We all be arguing about the meaning of legalese written in German rather than English!

Must dig up "George Bernard Shaw's" proposed spelling reforms.

Scofflaw

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

English might, but it is a bastardised language full of bits from here and there. Yes it has a huge vocab, but the words don't have unique meanings. Try translating the phrase "I love my dog" into any other language and you will find they have different words depending on the level of affection used. And no I'm not talking about the 20 words of snow myth. In German technical words are usually compound descriptive words, in English they might as well be trademarks in a lot of cases.

French is worse, having translated French scientific papers. The same word was often used throughout the paper to mean a variety of quite different things depending on context.

cordially,
Scofflaw

towel401

Hitman Actual wrote: »

Whatever about your strange attitude to health and safety, don't forget that a lot of regulations/directives are very beneficial to the average guy- cheaper EU flights through the opening up of the market (a direct result from an EU ruling in the 90's, iirc); increased roll-out of broadband and competition in the market (still not enough of an improvement there, but blame Eircom and the government for that); the opening up of the mobile market giving increased competition, and cheaper EU roaming charges in same; opening up of the electricity market which shouold benefit the consumer through increased competition (Bord Gais springs to mind). Those are just a few quick ones off the top of my head. My point is that the EU regulations/directives that benefit the consumer are always ignored in threads like this.

yeah its not all bad, but its not all good either. i don't like the concept of a bunch of lads in brussels making laws for places they know nothing about.

are you saying that every health and safety law has to be good, no matter how extreme or ridiculous it is? like the safety bar on the lawnmower - i'm sure the muppet who came up with that idea never mowed a lawn in their life. they probably paid some lad to do it for him. maybe they didn't even know they had a lawn

PopeBuckfastXVI

Buy some twine and tie it closed. Your stress levels are obviously at a dangerous height from restarting your mower so often. Oops... sorry for worrying about your health & safety... :pac: