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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
From trade policy doesn't flow the rest of the EU. |
Trade policy is one of the main reason why the EU is integrated past common markets. We still have the dreadful experience of the 1993 bargainings with the US, where each individual voice led to very unfavorable agreements. Since then, our common trade policy is a reason why people demand more democracy:
1. The common trade policy is at the source of what the EU gets caricatured for: as a bureaucracy spouting norms for products: how big the maximal banana, how big should the eggs be, how much maximal fat for a product to be called chocolate, can the Danish atrocious goo be called Feta, etc. Without these common norms, it is impossible to have a common market that looks like something defendable abraod.
2. Many common policy decisions are inherently political. For example, do we really want to abide to the parmaceutical trusts' will? Do we want to keep the CAP or not? etc.
3. The common market is associated with the free movement of capital and of people. Now, with the new stakes of immigration, especially as it can now mean terrorism, it is indispensable to ork at the European level on matters of immigration. On matters such as drug trades as well.
In the end, most decisions taken by the EU are regarding our economic bonds. Very few have a significance past the economic powers the member States have agreed to give to the EU. The common foreign policy is a joke, as is the common military policy. Tax harmonization is absolutely needed in order to finish having a cohesive economic zone, but it is at null point. Many of these decisions are inherently political, but because of the current working of the EU, these decisions are taken in an entirely antidemocratic and unaccountable fashion. This is the reason why political integration is needed: to give power back to the people
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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
Can the Danish atrocious goo be called Feta? |
Now I have a problem with that statement. Not that I want to get into the matter of the quality of Danish Cheese which I can assure you is of the highest quality. However, my understanding was that it was the Greeks who demanded that only their cheese was named "Feta". It was thus decided by an EU directive. Nevertheless I actually found in a French supermarket, a French produced cheese named "Feta". This I believe is in direct contradiction to the spirit of the directive, which was surely not meant to protect French "Feta" producers, nor solely directed against Danish cheesemakers.
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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why deal with this whole democracy thing if the issue is already decided then? |
It is not decided until someone votes "yes" - and the voters are still free in doing otherwise. And democracy also means that you can bring up issues again if you think former decisions were wrong.
For the question "why at all an integration" (just skimmed through the thread, it is late now here, and I'll soon go to bed):
It was the impression in the Europe of the 1950ies that single European states would have had no chance for own successful policies (in long term views) between the superpowers US and USSR, since both of them would have far superior capabilities. That was thought not only in military terms, stable economical power in Europe was of course seen as the key to get everything else. Today we have only the US as superpower, but we have globalization and China developing faster than ever, so the idea that single Euro nations would be better off alone in the long spot is ...ermm....strange 
A second reason for the EU in early years was to solve the French-German problem totally. There were a lot of fears after the war that Germany as (potentially) strongest European economy would soon be back on the economical stage as the top player, and that it then would try to dominate the continent again, with all the consequences of war etc. so the idea was to create a new environment beyond the classical competition of the Euro powers seen in the 19th and early 20th century. The EU is of course not free from power relations, but compared to the situation before both world wars it is something totally different.
The first steps for the integretion (the so-called Community for Coal and Steel) seeked therefore to make competition possible while controlling esp. Germany's heavy industry to make sure it wouldn't outperform the economies of other states, including France, on a level that would pose a new threat to Europe. In return, (Western-)Germany got a chance to become a full member of the "Western Bloc" (which wasn't at all sure soon after WWII), which meant security against the Soviet Union, guaranteed by the US (which supported the European integration at this time, even with France in the leading role), and which also meant a chance to a stable economical development.
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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
So the choices in these questions are Yes or "Let's vote again"? |
The choices are yes or no.
quote:
Originally posted by notyoueither
Some people have a pretty strange idea of what is democratic. |
Are you saying possible reversibility of decisions shouldn't be a principle in a modern democracy anymore? I hope you are prepared to pay the consequences in that case.
Last edited by BeBro on 20-04-2004 at 14:52
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20-04-2004 01:59
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