EU is awarded the Nobel Peace prize

Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Much of the problem in the UK was initiall caused by the political classes misselling the EU to the UK electorate. THey were told it was a common market, and the EU even agreed to be called the "Common Market" to add weight to this slight of hand. In Ireland, schoolchildren were told it was for "political and economic Union".

I don't think the "common market" was so-called in a sleight of hand, but the use of it as a synonym for the EEC in the UK was definitely political spin.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

However, we are where we are and the issue for the EU now, it seems to me, is that rather than the rest of Europe coming close and closer together, many across the EU are distrustful of its institutions and see it as a massive bureaucracy which serves itself and not the people of Europe.

True, there is that perception for some, even though it's not a 'massive' bureaucracy by any stretch of the imagination (the UK's Customs and Excise service alone is larger). I don't know whether the particular 'self-serving massive bureaucracy' perception is really a widespread perception across Europe. The lack of trust indicators we do have, and they've ramped up during the crisis in a completely unsurprising way, but, again, whether that's a persistent effect is open to debate - and, of course, it's matched by an equivalent fall in trust of national governments and institutions.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

While it doesn't really matter what these people think, as the EU is not a democracy and does not have to answer to them, the fact is that parties like UKIP are a very real threat to the EU, and that they seem to be gaining ground in the UK is worrying.

What they think does matter, because the EU is both increasingly a democracy in itself and answerable to democratically elected governments. If the trend represented in the UK by UKIP were a general one, we would see equivalent and increasing numbers of eurosceptic MEPs from other countries - but we don't.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

While UKIP are a single issue party, there seems little immediate prospect of them disappearing in the short term, and it might be a mistake to dismiss them as representing an old generation. Many young people right across Europe feel disenfranchised, and which the mroe established political parties talk in a convoluted politico speak, the apparant straight talking of UKIP in the UK is attractive to many of the younger generations. In Ireland we see something similar with Sinn Fein.

Yes...the thing is, though, that it's the role of the young to be discontented with the status quo and with the parties of the establishment, but the young stop being young. The younger generations of today probably still aren't even as radical as the the equivalent age group in the Eighties, never mind the generation before them. Yet here we are, with yesterday's young radicals now doing things like heading the EU Commission.

I'm always wary of drawing lines through a couple of years' worth of trends, and extrapolating them off into the future. It never works out like that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

SeanW

Scofflaw wrote: »

If the trend represented in the UK by UKIP were a general one, we would see equivalent and increasing numbers of eurosceptic MEPs from other countries - but we don't.

I suggest you look at UKIPs European parliament group, the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group. UKIP makes up less than half its members and Nigel Farage is only co-president of it.

Yet here we are, with yesterday's young radicals now doing things like heading the EU Commission.

Nothing really surprising about that - José Manuel Barroso is a Maoist who doesn't like democracy very much.

Jos&#233 wrote: »

Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

Now he's the dictator sorry "President of the European Commission" that makes laws to be imposed on 500 million people.

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't think the "common market" was so-called in a sleight of hand, but the use of it as a synonym for the EEC in the UK was definitely political spin.

Garrett Fitzgerald used to tell the British that they really didn’t understand what they had signed up to initially, and that if they thought it was to just a common market, then they were misinformed, as everyone else knew it was for political and economic union.

Had Ted Heath and others told that truth to the British electorate, it is unlikely they would have endorsed those aims and Britain then would have been unable to continue with membership. History becomes less relevant the further we get from it, yet in the UK there is still a sizeable opinion that the electorate were lied to by the politicians of the day (shock horror).

Scofflaw wrote: »

The lack of trust indicators we do have, and they've ramped up during the crisis in a completely unsurprising way, but, again, whether that's a persistent effect is open to debate - and, of course, it's matched by an equivalent fall in trust of national governments and institutions.

I agree that it is in times of crises when electorates become more actively involved in politics, and that’s what we have and are witnessing across the EU. We should all welcome more scrutiny of national politicians and institutions by the electorates, as ultimately either governments, whether they be national or supra national, have the authority of the people they make laws for, and raise taxes from, or else they do not and tries to force their will on those people.

Scofflaw wrote: »

What they think does matter, because the EU is both increasingly a democracy in itself and answerable to democratically elected governments. If the trend represented in the UK by UKIP were a general one, we would see equivalent and increasing numbers of eurosceptic MEPs from other countries - but we don't.

Whether the EU is a democracy is for each of us to decide for ourselves. It may be for you, and I, that there is enough democracy in the EU, but it may also be for many others there is not. It may well be for others to have their own (often distrusted) politicians picking the EU politicians is not democratic enough.

Democracy means different things to different people, and Mugabe, for example, claims to have been democratically elected, and many Stalist satellites used to call themselves “the peoples democratic republic of …” and what is important here is that the people of the EU see, and believe, that the EU is democratic. While I have no issues myself, it can’t be denied that many do consider the EU is not democratic, and don’t consider that their politicians choosing the leaders of the EU to be either open, or democratic.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Yes...the thing is, though, that it's the role of the young to be discontented with the status quo and with the parties of the establishment, but the young stop being young. The younger generations of today probably still aren't even as radical as the the equivalent age group in the Eighties, never mind the generation before them. Yet here we are, with yesterday's young radicals now doing things like heading the EU Commission.

Certainly that has been the view for many years. However, there are signs that it’s the middle aged and even the pensioners across the EU are now much more radical than the younger demographics. As these two groups are usually those who are more likely to vote, and who are more likely to make demands on politicians, it may be that politics is in for a much rougher ride in the coming years than it is used to.

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm always wary of drawing lines through a couple of years' worth of trends, and extrapolating them off into the future. It never works out like that.

Many trends do work like that, so to claim they never do seems a brave claim, but I’d certainly agree trends in the political world don’t always develop into a progression which could be accurately predicted.

However, abnormal times often create abnormal happenings politically. So, for example, parties like UKIP or Sinn Fein may well capitalise on growing discontent with other parties (“ah sure they are all the same”), and I’ll bet you they will both do better at their next general elections than they have done in the past.

Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Garrett Fitzgerald used to tell the British that they really didn’t understand what they had signed up to initially, and that if they thought it was to just a common market, then they were misinformed, as everyone else knew it was for political and economic union.

Had Ted Heath and others told that truth to the British electorate, it is unlikely they would have endorsed those aims and Britain then would have been unable to continue with membership. History becomes less relevant the further we get from it, yet in the UK there is still a sizeable opinion that the electorate were lied to by the politicians of the day (shock horror).

Sure.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

I agree that it is in times of crises when electorates become more actively involved in politics, and that’s what we have and are witnessing across the EU. We should all welcome more scrutiny of national politicians and institutions by the electorates, as ultimately either governments, whether they be national or supra national, have the authority of the people they make laws for, and raise taxes from, or else they do not and tries to force their will on those people.

Also true.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Whether the EU is a democracy is for each of us to decide for ourselves. It may be for you, and I, that there is enough democracy in the EU, but it may also be for many others there is not. It may well be for others to have their own (often distrusted) politicians picking the EU politicians is not democratic enough.

Democracy means different things to different people, and Mugabe, for example, claims to have been democratically elected, and many Stalist satellites used to call themselves “the peoples democratic republic of …” and what is important here is that the people of the EU see, and believe, that the EU is democratic. While I have no issues myself, it can’t be denied that many do consider the EU is not democratic, and don’t consider that their politicians choosing the leaders of the EU to be either open, or democratic.

Oh, I didn't say it was "democratic enough", but that it was democratic. We clearly do at the very least desperately need more democratic control over the actions of our governments in Europe - it's somewhere we're extremely poorly served both by the national political processes, which haven't really evolved to keep up with the Europeanisation of decision-making, and likewise by the press, who haven't either.

We'd still get more pages on a County Council disagreement than we would on a European Council disagreement in the Irish media. The Germans, for example, are better served by their parliament here, although it's possible a German would disagree.

That the European Council is probably at the same time the most opaque, and the most important as well as most politically interesting, EU institution, doesn't help. It's easy to come away with the impression that the Commission makes EU legislation, the Parliament either accepts or rejects it, and the Council is this shadowy body that somehow exists to the side, which is a very inaccurate reflection of the process and power balance in EU legislation.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Certainly that has been the view for many years. However, there are signs that it’s the middle aged and even the pensioners across the EU are now much more radical than the younger demographics. As these two groups are usually those who are more likely to vote, and who are more likely to make demands on politicians, it may be that politics is in for a much rougher ride in the coming years than it is used to.

Well, we can certainly hope so.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Many trends do work like that, so to claim they never do seems a brave claim, but I’d certainly agree trends in the political world don’t always develop into a progression which could be accurately predicted.

It's hard to think of an example where you really can draw a line though a couple of years and plot it off into the future successfully. I suspect you mean that there are some trends where multi-year data allows you to get a decent ballpark estimate of future conditions, but even those tend to be subject to caveats. In politics, I can't think of any such trends at all.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

However, abnormal times often create abnormal happenings politically. So, for example, parties like UKIP or Sinn Fein may well capitalise on growing discontent with other parties (“ah sure they are all the same”), and I’ll bet you they will both do better at their next general elections than they have done in the past.

On that note, it's interesting to see support for Sinn Fein slipping back to Fianna Fáil in the most recent polls. After all, there's a real sense in which Sinn Fein and UKIP are themselves just more of the same. We'll see, though!

cordially,
Scofflaw

View

SeanW wrote: »

I suggest you look at UKIPs European parliament group, the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group. UKIP makes up less than half its members and Nigel Farage is only co-president of it.

Nothing really surprising about that - José Manuel Barroso is a Maoist who doesn't like democracy very much.

Now he's the dictator sorry "President of the European Commission" that makes laws to be imposed on 500 million people.

FYI, Sean

EU ordinary legislative procedure.

And:

EP procedural rule on electing the President of the European Commission

Both are based on provisions of the EU Treaties the adoption of which the electorate here have been democratically approved in various referenda.

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

Oh, I didn't say it was "democratic enough", but that it was democratic. We clearly do at the very least desperately need more democratic control over the actions of our governments in Europe - it's somewhere we're extremely poorly served both by the national political processes, which haven't really evolved to keep up with the Europeanisation of decision-making, and likewise by the press, who haven't either.

We'd still get more pages on a County Council disagreement than we would on a European Council disagreement in the Irish media. The Germans, for example, are better served by their parliament here, although it's possible a German would disagree.

The problem is unlikely to come from those of us who have no real issues with the democratic accountability of the EU, and more likely to come from those who do not consider the EU is democratic.

I don’t think their issue is about the reports of the news media, and more that they consider the institutions are not democratically accountable.

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's hard to think of an example where you really can draw a line though a couple of years and plot it off into the future successfully.

I’d have thought, for example, the greening of politics was one issue where it was fairly predictable, but I am not claiming that it was 100% completely predictable.

Scofflaw wrote: »

On that note, it's interesting to see support for Sinn Fein slipping back to Fianna Fáil in the most recent polls. After all, there's a real sense in which Sinn Fein and UKIP are themselves just more of the same. We'll see, though!

I’ll still bet you that both Sinn Fein and UKIP will increase their share of the vote at the next general election in which they are both involved.

Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

The problem is unlikely to come from those of us who have no real issues with the democratic accountability of the EU, and more likely to come from those who do not consider the EU is democratic.

I don’t think their issue is about the reports of the news media, and more that they consider the institutions are not democratically accountable.

True enough. One issue there, though, is that short of directly electing nearly everybody involved, some people will never accept that the institutions are democratically accountable. In Ireland, for example, there's a tendency to presume that the fact that Ministers are elected TDs means the government is democratically accountable, which is in fact completely wrong.

That, in turn, conjures up the possibility of ending up in a situation where the general public understanding of "democratically accountable" could be served, and result in a decrease of real democratic accountability. That may not come about, though, because not every European country has the same (mis)understanding of what democratic accountability actually means.

And then, of course, there are people who only accept that national democracy is really democratic - behind which lies various "blood, soil and nation" conceptions of the demos and other such wriggly things.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

I’d have thought, for example, the greening of politics was one issue where it was fairly predictable, but I am not claiming that it was 100% completely predictable.

If one drew a line through, let's say, the fact that the EU Commission first proposed real action on climate change in 1992, one might expect that we would by now have seriously meaningful action on it - so I would, on the whole, say that the trend of talking about it is rather more solid than the trend of ding something about it! And the progress has been far from steady on any environmental issue - instead it has gone forward and backward in fits and starts, depending on how pressing environmental constraints have been.

Which would suggest that the "greening of politics" isn't a political trend as such - it's a response, and a variable one, to the sort of "mechanical" trend for which such forecasting is appropriate, in this case the resource impact of increasing prosperity and population effects.

The popularity of the EU, or of mainstream political parties, on the other hand, represents the popularity of ideas, and I wouldn't care to draw a line through that trend myself.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

I’ll still bet you that both Sinn Fein and UKIP will increase their share of the vote at the next general election in which they are both involved.

So noted. We'll see - that's a lot of weeks in politics, after all.

cordially,
Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

True enough. One issue there, though, is that short of directly electing nearly everybody involved, some people will never accept that the institutions are democratically accountable.

I agree, and the hope is that the numbers of those who so think don’t increase to worrying numbers. As the good times continue to elude much of the continent, it is entirely possible that this will give rise to all sorts of problems which would not arise in times of prosperity.

Scofflaw wrote: »

The popularity of the EU, or of mainstream political parties, on the other hand, represents the popularity of ideas, and I wouldn't care to draw a line through that trend myself.

That’s spot on, and one thing which is apparent is the very evident lack of ideas both nationally, and in the EU, to get a grip and return to prosperity. In the past that has more often than not given rise to extremism, and one worry might be that extreme ideas will again gain ground. We can all hope that will not happen.

poeticseraphim

Scofflaw wrote: »

Sure.



Also true.



Oh, I didn't say it was "democratic enough", but that it was democratic. We clearly do at the very least desperately need more democratic control over the actions of our governments in Europe - it's somewhere we're extremely poorly served both by the national political processes, which haven't really evolved to keep up with the Europeanisation of decision-making, and likewise by the press, who haven't either.

We'd still get more pages on a County Council disagreement than we would on a European Council disagreement in the Irish media. The Germans, for example, are better served by their parliament here, although it's possible a German would disagree.

That the European Council is probably at the same time the most opaque, and the most important as well as most politically interesting, EU institution, doesn't help. It's easy to come away with the impression that the Commission makes EU legislation, the Parliament either accepts or rejects it, and the Council is this shadowy body that somehow exists to the side, which is a very inaccurate reflection of the process and power balance in EU legislation.



Well, we can certainly hope so.



It's hard to think of an example where you really can draw a line though a couple of years and plot it off into the future successfully. I suspect you mean that there are some trends where multi-year data allows you to get a decent ballpark estimate of future conditions, but even those tend to be subject to caveats. In politics, I can't think of any such trends at all.



On that note, it's interesting to see support for Sinn Fein slipping back to Fianna Fáil in the most recent polls. After all, there's a real sense in which Sinn Fein and UKIP are themselves just more of the same. We'll see, though!

cordially,
Scofflaw

In terms of the mechanisms both social and political to empower and inform an electorate having many cultures makes it hardr. I assume language and cultural differences would make this so difficult. Europeanization of political culture at a domestic level requires a distinct culture accross Europe or understanding.

Have you noticed how we baffle our neighbours politically? It is no wonder institutions made up multiculturally baffle Europeans. It is not even possible really for politcians to 'Soap Box it' in a pan European context. Language and lack of sovereign knowledge gets in the way.

The electorate needs to be more educated about Europe...but also how to communicate and move within other political cultures.

The media institutions and social mechanisms to serve a pan European people on a domestic level are only coming about.

It is getting the core of the political culture and institutions of Brussels that is a mind bender.

It is the treaty after treaty approach the fact that it does mean knowing the inetersts of other sovereign nations even when they oppose our own and trying to come to the greatest mutual success.

True balance needs movement...some countries need more rope at times ..then less. Germany has needs we understand ..Spain has needs we understand....

But the spannish electorate cannot ommuniate to the Germans ad visa versa.

My impression is the frustration is not with Germans or Greeks...but actually at wild schemes and the lack of ability to negotiate society to society in the best interests of all.

SeanW

View wrote: »

FYI, Sean

EU ordinary legislative procedure.

And:

EP procedural rule on electing the President of the European Commission

Both are based on provisions of the EU Treaties the adoption of which the electorate here have been democratically approved in various referenda.

Yes, the sole right to propose legislation to the European Parliament lies with the European Commission, currently headed by a Portugese man named Jose Manuel Barroso, or should that be "Chairman Barroso" because he spent his youth leading a Maoist faction in Portugal. Maoism is of course the most extreme form of Communism that it is possible to find, responsible as it was for the deaths of 25,000,000 Chinese people. Surprise, surprise, he doesn't like democracy very much.

Chairman Barroso wrote:

Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

You go to great lengths to mention that all of this has been democratically approved ... a claim that may be partly true but demonstrates a questionable grip of reality. With the exception of the last treaty on budgetary rules, every recent treaty proposed to give more power to the E.U. has had to be run in Ireland twice, because we said NO the first time and that was not acceptable so we had to go back and do it again. And even then only because our Constitution demands it, whereas the political classes of every other Member State are able to ram these treaties through into law without ever asking their people.

That includes the European Constitution eh ... "Lisbon Treaty" that was rejected in France and the Netherlands (both the only places that had referenda, and even then only because it was called a constitution). They just put a new title on the same document, called it the Lisbon Treaty to circumvent the need for referenda (except in Ireland) where even our NO wasn't good enough.

European law is imposed on nation states from the top-down, potentially against the wishes of their peoples, by being directives that must be transposed into all national laws, national parliaments can never refuse to transpose a law, and they can never repeal a law that has passed down to them from their European masters.

That's why we have workers being told "you can only work X hours a week," insurers being told "this is how you're going to set insurance premia" and to give a good idea of just how far this thing has descended into a bureaucratic farce, we now have a proposal to impose a uniform code on hairdressers.

You just couldn't make this up!!

Speaking of democracy, I don't recall ever having been asked if I wanted myself and 500 million other Europeans to be ruled by Chairman Barroso. How democratic. And there's a very good reason for that, my response would have been very blunt "Go to hell. P.S. Give me back my country."

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote: »

That's why we have workers being told "you can only work X hours a week," insurers being told "this is how you're going to set insurance premia"...

...government departments being told they can't force women to retire when they get married, mobile phone companies being told they can't rip us off with roaming charges... where will it end?

...and to give a good idea of just how far this thing has descended into a bureaucratic farce, we now have a proposal to impose a uniform code on hairdressers.

Quick tip: when a British newspaper says "the EU wants to do <insert nasty thing here>, it's usually a good idea to do some fact-checking.

You just couldn't make this up!!

And yet, people keep making it up. Go figure.

Speaking of democracy, I don't recall ever having been asked if I wanted myself and 500 million other Europeans to be ruled by Chairman Barroso. How democratic.

Leaving aside the rather bizarre idea that we're being "ruled" by Barroso, I don't remember ever having been asked if I wanted myself and four million other Irish people to be ruled by Brian Cowen. How democratic.

SeanW

I didn't realise that the Irish government would again force women to retire on marriage, but for our rule by Brussels. One of us must have missed something, as Ireland has changed quite a bit since the 1950s. But your right, the supra-national government in Brussels is solely responsible for women not being forced to retire on marriage in Ireland in the 21st century.

In much the same way that the E.U. can take credit for a democratically rebuilt Germany not trying to destroy France again, clearly the German people are insane glazed eyed warmongers who'd elect another mustachio'ed Austrian sign painter and start the whole thing up again but for the subjugation of their country by the E.U.

At least that's what the Nobel committee seems to think, and its' why I now think that organisation has no credibility left (not IMHO that it ever had much in recent years).

SeanW

Leaving aside the rather bizarre idea that we're being "ruled" by Barroso

Chairman Barroso and his gang have the sole and exclusive right to propose legislation to the European Parliament. If passed (a process that excludes national parliaments) such legislation is imposed on the Member States, and there is nothing any such Member State or its national parliament can do about it. Ever. Such as the bizarre rules on insurance premium criteria set to become law in Ireland shortly, despite it being completely insane and having the singular effect of raising insurance costs for most, in some cases all the European people, we're stuck with it and there's nothing whatsoever Dail Eireann or any other national parliament can do, except rubberstamp the legislation.

I don't remember ever having been asked if I wanted myself and four million other Irish people to be ruled by Brian Cowen. How democratic

Fianna Fail contested the 2011 elections. They were pulverised.

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote: »

I didn't realise that the Irish government would again force women to retire on marriage, but for our rule by Brussels. One of us must have missed something, as Ireland has changed quite a bit since the 1950s. But your right, the supra-national government in Brussels is solely responsible for women not being forced to retire on marriage in Ireland in the 21st century.

It's mildly funny to see every positive thing the EU does dismissed with a handwaving "sure we probably would have done that eventually ourselves", especially juxtaposed with hysterical nonsense from the Euroskeptic British press.

In much the same way that the E.U. can take credit for a democratically rebuilt Germany not trying to destroy France again, clearly the German people are insane glazed eyed warmongers who'd elect another mustachio'ed Austrian sign painter and start the whole thing up again but for the subjugation of their country by the E.U.

Yes. That's right. Germans in 1930 were insane glazed-eyed warmongers. That was the problem.

What was that about not being able to make stuff up?

At least that's what the Nobel committee seems to think...

Nope. It's just what you think they think, which isn't remotely close to the same thing.

SeanW wrote: »

Chairman Barroso and his gang have the sole and exclusive right to propose legislation to the European Parliament.

And the legislation they propose is informed by the political direction and priorities of the EU, which are decided by the European Council, whose members are elected by their respective electorates.

Can you cite any examples of the Commission proposing legislation that was completely at odds with the wishes of the Council?

If passed (a process that excludes national parliaments)...

...but includes the European Parliament, which is directly elected by the people of Europe.

...such legislation is imposed on the Member States, and there is nothing any such Member State or its national parliament can do about it. Ever.

I'm sure that's why we regularly see revolts in national parliaments, with riots in the chambers as they react furiously to the diktats that are being handed down from on high.

Except, we don't. Because the national parliaments are implementing legislation that has been agreed by the democratically-elected Council before the Commission proposes it and the democratically-elected Parliament passes it.

The rabid opposition to EU legislation exists mostly in the pages of British tabloids, and most of what they're opposed to, they've made up anyway.

Such as the bizarre rules on insurance premium criteria set to become law in Ireland shortly, despite it being completely insane and having the singular effect of raising insurance costs for most, in some cases all the European people, we're stuck with it and there's nothing whatsoever Dail Eireann or any other national parliament can do, except rubberstamp the legislation.

Are you talking about the fact that insurance companies can no longer discriminate based on sex (as a result of an ECJ ruling)?

How can it raise insurance premiums for everyone? Insurance companies will still have to insure the same risks; they just won't be able to take sex into account when calculating premiums. If the overall risks don't change, why should the overall cost of premiums?

Leaving that aside for a moment, you're complaining about the EU Commission, and then - out of the blue - you're complaining about the ECJ. It's hard to see all this as anything other than a general-purpose anti-Europe diatribe.

Fianna Fail contested the 2011 elections. They were pulverised.

Before the election, our democratically-elected parliament voted for Brian Cowen as Taoiseach, in accordance with our Constitution, which was ratified by popular vote. The democratically-elected European Parliament voted for Barroso as Commission president, in accordance with the EU treaties, which we have ratified through successive popular votes.

What a radical difference.

SeanW

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's mildly funny to see every positive thing the EU does dismissed with a handwaving "sure we probably would have done that eventually ourselves", especially juxtaposed with hysterical nonsense from the Euroskeptic British press. Yes. That's right. Germans in 1930 were insane glazed-eyed warmongers. That was the problem.

No, of course not. But it seems to me to be the position of the Nobel Committee that we as Europeans, living in democratic post-war nation states, would all be out slaughtering each other again but for the advent of the international government of the E.U, despite this organisation not having been fully formed until 1992. IF that is their position, then it is quite bizarre, and frankly a brazen insult to the peoples of Europe.

It's also extremely incredible given what has happened to Greece, a country that has been effectively destroyed because of its involvement with this European Project, a nation that is suffering a man-made economic catastrophe and a humanitarian crisis, that is having much the same effect on Greek politics as similar hardship in Germany had in the 1930s, with the ascent of the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, as well as the KKE and Syriza on the left. Greece only now has a stable government because of a pecularity in Greek law that gave New Democracy a 10 seat bonus because it won a plurality, allowing it to form a coalition with Pasok.

And the legislation they propose is informed by the political direction and priorities of the EU, which are decided by the European Council, whose members are elected by their respective electorates.

Multiple layers of abstraction from the people.

I'm sure that's why we regularly see revolts in national parliaments, with riots in the chambers as they react furiously to the diktats that are being handed down from on high.

Considering how many of them go from national offices to European positions, like Herman van Rumpouy and Chairman Mao Tse Barroso, for that and other reasons I don't have much faith in many European national political classes to say boo about EU diktats, even when they have cause to do so.

Except, we don't. Because the national parliaments are implementing legislation that has been agreed by the democratically-elected Council before the Commission proposes it and the democratically-elected Parliament passes it.

But only the Commission can propose legislation - there is not for example a means to have a Private Members Bill, or for any bog-standard MEP to propose legislation, it all has to come through Chairman Barroso and his gang.

Are you talking about the fact that insurance companies can no longer discriminate based on sex (as a result of an ECJ ruling)?

Yes.

How can it raise insurance premiums for everyone? Insurance companies will still have to insure the same risks; they just won't be able to take sex into account when calculating premiums. If the overall risks don't change, why should the overall cost of premiums?

There are two aspects to a common-sense conclusion that this is bad for consumers.
The first is very simple - AFAIK our insurance companies have made it clear that car insurance premiums are going up for women and that's all that's going to happen.

The second point is a bit more nuanced and I don't expect supporters of big government bureacratic meddling to understand, but I'll try anyway. It's the concept of Moral Hazard. That states that if you insulate someone from the true risks of an activity, they will do so more often and in a more risky fashion. We saw it with the "regulated" "guaranteed" banks, and we may see it with young men drivers.
It is generally accepted that young male drivers are one of the biggest, if not THE biggest risk groups on the road for accidents and subsequent insurance payouts.
Assuming for a moment that this ruling would mean lower car insurance costs for men - lower than that demanded by an un-interfered with market - that will mean that young men wishing to drive will be able to afford to do so at a younger age than currently. Assuming also that it is reasonably cost efficient to insure a young woman on a high performace car, e.g. a lightweight car with 1.6 petrol engine, having a very high Power to Weight ratio, then it can be assumed that risky young men will 'benefit' by having easier access (insurance-wise) to these higher PWR cars.

That may have the effect of increasing the number and severity of road accidents, raising insurance payouts, and having the effects of increased road fatalities. In an extreme case, the rise may also provoke national governments to bring in more harsh regulations on motorists in an effort to curb the increases. Something which, given the way Irish road law has gone over the last 10 years or so, is something I would like to avoid given any reasonable possibility to do so.

Leaving that aside for a moment, you're complaining about the EU Commission, and then - out of the blue - you're complaining about the ECJ.

If I understand correctly, the ECJs' job, like any other supreme court, is to arbitrate disputes and make findings relating to European Union law. Remind me again who has the sole right to propose EU law?

It's hard to see all this as anything other than a general-purpose anti-Europe diatribe.

Calling people who favour nation-state democracy "anti-Europe" is both infantile and bizarre - I'm not anti the continent of Europe, indeed I have quite a fondness for the Continent in general, have holidayed there a number of times and would move there in a heartbeat if it meant a better life, what I am skeptical of is the need for this bizarre notion that nation-state democracy is not good enough and we have to be locked into this project of political union.

Before the election, our democratically-elected parliament voted for Brian Cowen as Taoiseach, in accordance with our Constitution, which was ratified by popular vote.

True, but Bertie Ahern was Taoiseach for a part of the last governments' term and we knew that much in advance when we voted for Fianna Fail. A mistake, to be sure, but we knew what we were doing.
Then of course B.A. resigned and Cowen was installed instead. We got a chance to vote on that particular arrangement a short time later and delivered our democratic verdict - we tossed the ****ers out. Enda Kenny was/is the leader of Fine Gael, and again we all knew that very well when we went to the ballot box.

The democratically-elected European Parliament voted for Barroso as Commission president, in accordance with the EU treaties, which we have ratified through successive popular votes.

This is another bizarre statements considering that:

1. Generally speaking, only the Irish people get to vote on further integration into the European Union (or "Europe" as you call it). And even that is only because our constitution demands it.
2. The European political class doesn't take NO for an answer. They wanted a European Constitution, the French and Dutch voted NO. They changed the title to "The Lisbon Treaty" (and I understand that it was a cosmetic change ONLY) specifically so that they could ignore the democratic will of the people of those countries.
3. It's the same in Ireland, with Nice and the European Constitution ... eh "Lisbon" we rejected both treaties until we were told, basically "do it again and come back with the "right" answer."

A claim that this is democratic suggests a very loose interpretation of that term.

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote: »

No, of course not. But it seems to me to be the position of the Nobel Committee that we as Europeans, living in democratic post-war nation states, would all be out slaughtering each other again but for the advent of the international government of the E.U, despite this organisation not having been fully formed until 1992. IF that is their position, then it is quite bizarre, and frankly a brazen insult to the peoples of Europe.

What's bizarre is the inability to distinguish the entirely different notions that (a) the European Union (and its predecessors, all the way back to the Treaty of Rome, barely a decade after the end of the WWII) has been a stabilising influence that has helped its member states focus on co-operation rather than mutual war, and (b) the EU is the only thing keeping otherwise bloodthirsty savages from mutual destruction.

I'm pretty sure the Nobel institute had the former in mind. If you're going to criticise them for believing the latter, the onus is on you to demonstrate that that's what they do, in fact, think.

It's also extremely incredible given what has happened to Greece, a country that has been effectively destroyed because of its involvement with this European Project...

...through absolutely no fault of their own? Poor innocent Greece, rewarded for all their honesty and hard work with a pummelling from those indolent Germans?

Greece is suffering as a result of mismanagement of its economy by its own governments. Sure, those governments used membership of the Euro as an opportunity to multiply the extent of their incompetence by an order of magnitude, but it's telling that, as far as you're concerned, it's Europe's fault that Greece used Europe as a mechanism to intensify its own problems.

Multiple layers of abstraction from the people.

What?

The people elect governments, who negotiate with other governments: one layer of abstraction. The governments appoint Commissioners, who run the EU's civil service: two layers of abstraction. The people directly elect the European Parliament: no layers of abstraction.

Considering how many of them go from national offices to European positions, like Herman van Rumpouy and Chairman Mao Tse Barroso, for that and other reasons I don't have much faith in many European national political classes to say boo about EU diktats, even when they have cause to do so.

[...]

...this bizarre notion that nation-state democracy is not good enough...

So nation-state democracy is the gold standard we should be aspiring to, unless nation-state democracy doesn't object to EU legislation, in which case you can't trust nation-state democracy because nation-state democrats all aspire to high EU office?

I feel like I'm stuck reading the Telegraph again.

There are two aspects to a common-sense conclusion that this is bad for consumers.
The first is very simple - AFAIK our insurance companies have made it clear that car insurance premiums are going up for women and that's all that's going to happen.

But the risk isn't increasing, which means that those insurance companies will take in more money while paying out the same amount - which ignores the effect of competition in the marketplace.

The second point is a bit more nuanced and I don't expect supporters of big government bureacratic meddling to understand, but I'll try anyway. It's the concept of Moral Hazard. That states that if you insulate someone from the true risks of an activity, they will do so more often and in a more risky fashion. We saw it with the "regulated" "guaranteed" banks, and we may see it with young men drivers.
It is generally accepted that young male drivers are one of the biggest, if not THE biggest risk groups on the road for accidents and subsequent insurance payouts.
Assuming for a moment that this ruling would mean lower car insurance costs for men - lower than that demanded by an un-interfered with market - that will mean that young men wishing to drive will be able to afford to do so at a younger age than currently. Assuming also that it is reasonably cost efficient to insure a young woman on a high performace car, e.g. a lightweight car with 1.6 petrol engine, having a very high Power to Weight ratio, then it can be assumed that risky young men will 'benefit' by having easier access (insurance-wise) to these higher PWR cars.

That may have the effect of increasing the number and severity of road accidents, raising insurance payouts, and having the effects of increased road fatalities. In an extreme case, the rise may also provoke national governments to bring in more harsh regulations on motorists in an effort to curb the increases. Something which, given the way Irish road law has gone over the last 10 years or so, is something I would like to avoid given any reasonable possibility to do so.

Sorry, you only get to use one of those arguments.

If insurance premiums rise across the board, then there is no moral hazard. If premiums fall for male drivers, you can't argue that this is financially bad news for everyone.

That aside: the ECJ's ruling is that it's illegal to discriminate between men and women when pricing products you sell to them. Your argument is that it should be legal to discriminate. Would you argue for an insurance company's right to discriminate against black people? Jews? Libertarians?

SeanW

oscarBravo wrote: »

What's bizarre is the inability to distinguish the entirely different notions that (a) the European Union (and its predecessors, all the way back to the Treaty of Rome, barely a decade after the end of the WWII) has been a stabilising influence that has helped its member states focus on co-operation rather than mutual war, and (b) the EU is the only thing keeping otherwise bloodthirsty savages from mutual destruction.

a) is just a nice way of saying b). This idea that post-war democratic nation states were in any danger of starting a new major war is utterly bizarre to anyone who has even the remotest understanding of how the first two world wars started.

Poor innocent Greece, rewarded for all their honesty and hard work with a pummelling from those indolent Germans?

Greece is suffering as a result of mismanagement of its economy by its own governments. Sure, those governments used membership of the Euro as an opportunity to multiply the extent of their incompetence by an order of magnitude, but it's telling that, as far as you're concerned, it's Europe's fault that Greece used Europe as a mechanism to intensify its own problems.

It's popular in some quarters, e.g. boards, the German press, to demonize the Greeks as being stupid, lazy, corrupt, irresponsible blah blah blah. Thing is everyone knew what Greece was like long before this whole thing started - when they had the Drachma their interest rates were very high because noone trusted them.

Where it all went wrong was when the European Union allowed Greece to join the Eurozone. Given that the culture of Greece and the Northern states like Germany, the Netherlands, Finland etc was so raidically different, common sense should have indicated that one currency union was never going to fit the needs of both Greece and Germany. Indeed closer to home, our own housing bubble was fuelled by "historic low interest rates" that were needed for France/Germany at that time, rates that we can hope the Central Bank of Ireland would not have set, or not have been able to set without causing runaway inflation, had we kept the Punt.

There's a reason why individual nation states have their own currencies and that is so that they can set their own interest rates, their own exchange rates, and that these can also be governed in part by perceptions about the country.

So nation-state democracy is the gold standard we should be aspiring to, unless nation-state democracy doesn't object to EU legislation, in which case you can't trust nation-state democracy because nation-state democrats all aspire to high EU office?

I like nation-state democracy, I just don't have much faith in the political class.

risk isn't increasing, which means that those insurance companies will take in more money while paying out the same amount

correct.

If insurance premiums rise across the board, then there is no moral hazard.

also correct.

If premiums fall for male drivers, you can't argue that this is financially bad news for everyone.

I had a feeling that the concept of moral hazard - and the law of unintended consequences - would go over your head, so I'll try again.

If premiums were to fall for male drivers, it would almost certainly be accompanied by a rise in premiums for female drivers. If you make it easier for men to get insured at a younger age, and easier for such young men to acquire and insure high performace cars, and given the risk factors this is likely to increase the number and severity of accidents. This in turn may have the further effect of provoking national governments to increase "safety" related regulation on motorists, which IMO must be avoided at any cost given how much motorists are regulated already.

Given that there would be more insurance payouts it would also mean that costs would have to rise across the board.

Of course, at this time, in Ireland this is not going to happen. But it may happen in other countries and it may happen in Ireland further down the line if inusance companies start seriously competing with each other again.

That aside: the ECJ's ruling is that it's illegal to discriminate between men and women when pricing products you sell to them. Your argument is that it should be legal to discriminate. Would you argue for an insurance company's right to discriminate against black people? Jews? Libertarians?

There is nothing discriminatory about it - on average men (especially young men) cause more insurance payouts, i.e. they are more expensive to insure.

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote: »

a) is just a nice way of saying b). This idea that post-war democratic nation states were in any danger of starting a new major war is utterly bizarre to anyone who has even the remotest understanding of how the first two world wars started.

I love how your argument against anything positive that the EU may have achieved is a sense of unshakeable certainty that all those positive things were inevitable anyway.

It's particularly funny, in the context of two world wars, to announce that a continent that had just emerged from war could never conceivably embark on another one.

It's popular in some quarters, e.g. boards, the German press, to demonize the Greeks as being stupid, lazy, corrupt, irresponsible blah blah blah. Thing is everyone knew what Greece was like long before this whole thing started - when they had the Drachma their interest rates were very high because noone trusted them.

Where it all went wrong was when the European Union allowed Greece to join the Eurozone.

You're basically blaming axe manufacturers for axe murders. Sure, Greece shouldn't have been allowed to join the Euro, but blaming the EU for being lied to by Greece instead of blaming Greece for lying is a bit of a farcical argument.

I like nation-state democracy, I just don't have much faith in the political class.

And you don't see any inherent contradiction between those statements.

I had a feeling that the concept of moral hazard - and the law of unintended consequences - would go over your head, so I'll try again.

If premiums were to fall for male drivers, it would almost certainly be accompanied by a rise in premiums for female drivers. If you make it easier for men to get insured at a younger age, and easier for such young men to acquire and insure high performace cars, and given the risk factors this is likely to increase the number and severity of accidents. This in turn may have the further effect of provoking national governments to increase "safety" related regulation on motorists, which IMO must be avoided at any cost given how much motorists are regulated already.

Given that there would be more insurance payouts it would also mean that costs would have to rise across the board.

So your "unintended consequences" argument is predicated on the assumption that insurance companies will blindly stumble into a situation that leads to them paying out more?

Are you working on the assumption that not only am I too stupid to understand the law of unintended consequences, but all insurance companies are just as stupid? Because that's a pretty strange assumption.

There is nothing discriminatory about it - on average men (especially young men) cause more insurance payouts, i.e. they are more expensive to insure.

So if I conclude that women are more expensive to employ, I can decide not to employ women? Or to pay them less for the same work?

RandomName2

Ellis Dee wrote: »

Sixty years without a major conflict in western and central Europe certainly deserves some recognition and there can be no denying that the European Union has achieved a lot of other good things as well. That is why I welcome this award. The failings of the European Union were not a matter that the Norwegians saw as pertinent to its work of peace-building. Those failings can and maybe eventually will be redressed, which is a far better alternative than wrecking the whole imperfect structure.:cool:

So the EU gets the award and not NATO, even though the latter was principally responsible for there being no conflict between major powers in Europe rather than the ECSC, EEC, EC, EU?

Ah, I suppose it doesn't really matter. The nobel peace prize doesn't have any more standing than a Grammy Award - and I'm not saying that because I'm "anti-Europe" or whatever - after Gerry Adams, Al Gore, and Barack Obama receiving the prize for, respectively, entering politics, self-publicity, and winning the US presidency, the prize has ceased to have any meaning.

Scofflaw

RandomName2 wrote: »

So the EU gets the award and not NATO, even though the latter was principally responsible for there being no conflict between major powers in Europe rather than the ECSC, EEC, EC, EU?

How did NATO actually achieve this?

The case for the EU is straight-forward enough - by providing an alternative forum for dispute resolution, and by reinforcing the interdependence of Europe's economies, as well as providing constant, ongoing and detailed cooperation, the EU made conflict between the European nations less likely.

The case for NATO seems, at best, extremely thin. What did it provide, how did it reduce regional tensions?

cordially,
Scofflaw

SeanW

oscarBravo wrote: »

I love how your argument against anything positive that the EU may have achieved is a sense of unshakeable certainty that all those positive things were inevitable anyway.

Considering some of the examples you have provided, like the ban on married women working, it's entirely appropriate.

It's particularly funny, in the context of two world wars, to announce that a continent that had just emerged from war could never conceivably embark on another one.

The factors that led to the first world war - alliances between empires, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Germany were mostly all gone after 1918. Greece (from the Ottomans) and Finland (from the Russian Empire) had gained independence.

World War Two only came about becuase the victors of the Treaty of Versailles decided to utterly humiliate the German people and subject them to mind numbing austerity to pay a massive reparations bill, which is why their people went to the extremes of National Socialism. The victors of WWII knew better than to do that again, hence we had the Marshall Aid Plan, and American troops stayed behind in Europe to help with aftermath peacekeeping and rebuilding.

It is also the case that after 1945 all of Western Europe had a common enemy - the U.S.S.R. where the alliance of Atlantic area democracies under a loose coalition of NATO provided a strong deterrent against communist aggression, including a nuclear deterrent.

To credit the E.U. with any of this is highly questionable, to say the least.

You're basically blaming axe manufacturers for axe murders.

Great, so now the Greeks, in addition to everything else, are comparable to axe murderers. It seems they really have a friend in you. BTW if Acme Axe Company had an ideological reason for wanting everyone in Europe to own an axe, so they sent a marketing representative to the 26th Annual Convention of Glass-Eyed Psychopaths, questions would have to be asked.

Sure, Greece shouldn't have been allowed to join the Euro, but blaming the EU for being lied to by Greece instead of blaming Greece for lying is a bit of a farcical argument.

That's not what I'm saying, but your argument appears to be the exact opposite: that all in Eurocracy land were innocent little babes in the woods that were lied to by those horrible evil Greeks and noone could have forseen that putting Greece and Germany (with its cultures and economies so fundamentally different in every way) might not be a good idea.
Your view, if I understand it correctly, is that the desire of political elites to tie the European people together into a supra-national Euro-goslavia and nothing whatsoever to do with it, and carries no blame for Greeces' difficulties whatsoever, is both troubling and bizarre. And it makes no sense.

And you don't see any inherent contradiction between those statements.

It's very simple - at a national level, it's very easy to get rid of a useless government by electing a new one - radical changes in national parliaments are common.
Also if you have something like Switzerland, people can have a genuine say in how they are governed by having referenda on all sorts of things (there's that dreaded R word again that Eurocrats despise so much), so if the people want something different to that of the political class, the people win.

That's not so easy though when most of your laws are drafted by a Maoist in Brussels.

BTW when the Swiss people vote in a referendum, their results actually mean something, it's pretty much unheard of that the Swiss political class tells their people "that wasn't the right answer, go back and do it again" or worse bulldozes the result out of the way as the Eurocrats did with the European Constitution "Lisbon Treaty"

So your "unintended consequences" argument is predicated on the assumption that insurance companies will blindly stumble into a situation that leads to them paying out more?

That's what they tried to avoid by setting different rates for safer vs. more dangerous drivers. Now that this is no longer an option, insurance rates are going up for the safer drivers, and we have found out in Ireland, that is to be the only effect. Surely you cannot realistically call this a European success story?

Are you working on the assumption that not only am I too stupid to understand the law of unintended consequences, but all insurance companies are just as stupid?

I'm not saying you're stupid, rather than your apparent affinity for everything big/international government and meddlesome, may be blinding you to some of the downsides of those things.

Because that's a pretty strange assumption. So if I conclude that women are more expensive to employ, I can decide not to employ women? Or to pay them less for the same work?

That's an entirely different debate. Here, we have had a straightforward case of meddlesome Eurocrats deciding that common-sense based insurance evaluations were "discrimination." As an exclusive and sole result of that, insurance costs for statistically safe drivers is going up.

How on Earth can you defend that?

Scofflaw wrote: »

How did NATO actually achieve this?

Given what the commies were doing in the post-war era, it's a good bet NATO stopped the USSR from trying to crush Western Europe, starting with the Western parts of the city of Berlin.

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote: »

That's an entirely different debate.

Of course it is. In one case, people of one sex face a disadvantage compared to people of the other sex, because of the potential cost to a business. In the other case, people of one sex face a disadvantage compared to people of the other sex, because of the potential cost to a business.

How stupid of me to conflate them.

Here, we have had a straightforward case of meddlesome Eurocrats deciding that common-sense based insurance evaluations were "discrimination."

Heh, judges are meddlesome Eurocrats now.

Next thing you know, those meddling Eurocrats will be telling me that I can't make common-sense based hiring decisions because they're "discriminatory". Oh wait, that's completely different.

Scofflaw

SeanW wrote:

Scofflaw wrote:

How did NATO actually achieve this?

Given what the commies were doing in the post-war era, it's a good bet NATO stopped the USSR from trying to crush Western Europe, starting with the Western parts of the city of Berlin.

That's not actually an answer to the question - it's an answer to an entirely different question.

cordially,
Scofflaw

SeanW

Actually it sort of is: with the destruction of the British, French, German, Ottoman, Russian empires, and the post-WWI decisions having been recognised to be erroneous, the odds of the peoples of democratic nation states going out and skulling each other again was fairly remote.

The real threat to peace and democracy in Europe between 1945 and 1990 was Communism, in our case Stalinism (though Chairman Barrosos' much loved Maoism was worse) remained an active danger of destruction, annihalation and subjugation for all of our people throughout the lifetime of the Soviet Union and Communist Bloc.

The commies were little better bloodthirsty savages, hell-bent on world domination. NATO, including the military power of the United States, helped to contain them.

Of course it is. In one case, people of one sex face a disadvantage compared to people of the other sex, because of the potential cost to a business. In the other case, people of one sex face a disadvantage compared to people of the other sex, because of the potential cost to a business.

They're the same in theory, but with somewhat different peculiarities affecting both. I do not want to get this thread off topic by discussing those.

Speaking only for myself, as a man with a reasonable insurance rates because of my long history of safe driving, I have no desire to dump perhaps ~€50/year of my insurance costs onto some woman. It makes no sense to me, I have never felt "discriminated" against before now, I never asked for this ruling and I don't want it.

Scofflaw

SeanW wrote:

Actually it sort of is: with the destruction of the British, French, German, Ottoman, Russian empires, and the post-WWI decisions having been recognised to be erroneous, the odds of the peoples of democratic nation states going out and skulling each other again was fairly remote.

It's always interesting to see how unthinkable war between European nations has become, so much so that the role of post-war cooperation through the EU can be dismissed as no more than would have happened anyway, despite a greater than millennial record of intra-European conflict.

It implies that Europeans suddenly underwent a blinding flash of realisation - hey, this war thing is bad! - so that peace then required no further effort or organisation on their part. How it didn't happen after WW1, or the Franco-Prussian War, or indeed the Seven Years' War, is obviously a mystery.

amused,
Scofflaw

SeanW

The wars you mentioned were mostly if not all instigated by historical empires (not democratic nation-states), most of which were destroyed after World War 1, the rest (the Empires of Britain and France) thoroughly demolished after World War 2. The people of Europe had already decided after WWI that constantly skulling each other was not such a good idea, and WWII might never have started but for the decision to subjugate, humiliate and impoverish the German people at the Treaty of Versaille, a decision subsequently accepted to be a mistake. The Americans were heavily involved with the stabilisation of the post-war democratic nation-states of Europe who by this time had a common enemy in Stalinist Russia and the Communist Bloc, a threat to all free European people that was only contained by a trans-Atlantic military alliance.

Remind me again where the EU fits into all this?

RandomName2

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's always interesting to see how unthinkable war between European nations has become, so much so that the role of post-war cooperation through the EU can be dismissed as no more than would have happened anyway, despite a greater than millennial record of intra-European conflict.

It implies that Europeans suddenly underwent a blinding flash of realisation - hey, this war thing is bad! - so that peace then required no further effort or organisation on their part. How it didn't happen after WW1, or the Franco-Prussian War, or indeed the Seven Years' War, is obviously a mystery.

amused,
Scofflaw

For the last few hundred years there have been three major powers within Europe; the anglophone (United Kingdom exclusively), francophone (France) and germanophone (Hapsburgs/ Prussia).

There have also been two powers outside of Europe which have had a bearing on Europe, the Ottomans and Russia.

After WW2 the germanophone power was gone. Or, to be more exact, all of Prussia and the majority of traditional Hapsburg power was under the control of the USSR (with the exception of Berlin which was controlled by various powers).

Okay, so any war after WW2 would have to come from either France or the UK seeking to become dominant powers in Europe. First off, we can discount European integration as having stopped the UK in this ambition, as the UK was excluded from the ECSC and EEC until 1973.. by France of all nations!

So France, as the sole superpower on mainland Europe and only major power in the ECSC and ECC took over the rest of Europe, easily invading and incorporating the Benelux countries and the Bonn government, and subsequently managing to maintain a cordial relationship with Fascist Spain, the weak Italy, and the isolated Scandinavian countries. Historians tend to point out how the provisions set aside in the model of the ECSC and EEC failed to account for the speed at which France could conquer its neighbours, thereby avoiding any of the dangers posed to its war-production. Although the idealists of the late 40s and early 50s had hoped that economic integration would be a draw significant enough to stave off warfare, when opportunity for European hegemony presented itself, the pull was too great for the Fourth Republic to ignore. And thus the 3rd French Empire was born in the wake of the Five Week War.

Wait.. none of this happened. How could it? The powers in Europe after WW2 weren't France, UK and (half) Germany, it was Russia and the US. It is plain silly to look at the European theatre in any other way. And yes, war was a distinct possibility, from either east or west, but it would have been one of the superpowers (as ever) that would have instigated it.

The EU and the UN have ... helped ... in terms of peace. But to say that there has been peace because of either, or that the fact that America having over half a million military personnel in Europe at the height of the Cold War wasn't a more significant factor is.. very silly indeed.