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Comment by bostand | Hacker News Reader

EU in its simplest form is harmonization of rules and a bigger market for you to sell your goods. That part works exceptionally well. I don't see a single reason where that could be a negative in a mid to long term.

The euro zone, which tries to connect some very different economies is not working that great but EU countries can decide to stay out of that part.

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The problem is that it's exceptionally difficult to have 1/ that functions well without 2/

The Euro was designed as a bulwark against currency speculators and people trying to arbitrage between imbalances in the different European economies.

Not difficult at all, many EU countries have decided to stay outside the euro zone. They are doing just fine.

not many, of the original EU founders only Sweden hasn't adopted euro.

The other 6 out of 25 that are not using the euro are all ex communist countries. and other two (Monte negro and Kosovo) adopted euro without being part of EU.

So you agree that it is by no means mandatory?

Also, Denmark?

No, I don't. All the non euro countries are working to be admitted, because going forward is the only way.

Brits and Dansk are crazy people, who cares what they do.

edit: all the non euro countries from the eastern block signed to adopt euro in the future.

> All the non euro countries are working to be admitted

Now you are just making things up.

Edit: then you should rethink using Wikipedia as your source because that is not accurate. EU cannot force countries to join new treaties this way. The EC may really really want to, but they have no legal right to.

> Now you are just making things up

No, I'm not, it's part of the treaties.

Can't you lookup things on Wikipedia?

Is it to hard for you?

"The other nine members of the European Union continue to use their own national currencies, although most of them are obliged to adopt the euro in future."

what? Sweden joined in 1995.

Denmark and the UK are examples of other EU states that were not communist that do not use the Euro

UK has never been EU. Sweden was among the founder states when Euro was born, not the original states forming EEC in 1957. Denmark is in ERM-II and its Krone has a EU controlled exchange rate against euro. It is possible to be outside euro, but not advisable, the main market for the east non-euro countries is the EU zone, if euro falls down, their fragile economies will follow.

> UK has never been EU.

What? I'm trying to find any context where that statement makes sense, and I can't do so.

UK has never used the Euro, but that's not what "EU" means.

Can't reply to the reply, but Sweden is not a founder of the EU.

I expanded my answer. I wasn't talking about the treaty of Rome.

Whether they're 'doing fine' wasn't the question at hand - it was whether the economies had harmonized with the rest of the EU.

And the effect is an insolvent banking system, mass unemployment in southern Europe and an inflation 'Horror-Kurve' in Germany. In effect, It's creating even larger imbalances than those it was trying to avoid.

> The euro zone, which tries to connect some very different economies is not working that great but EU countries can decide to stay out of that part.

Not all of them. I recall that the countries that joined after 2000 have a clause in their accession treaties that forces them to join the euro-zone once certain economic indicators pass certain thresholds.

You are speaking of a big Germany master state here, not the European Union whose foundational goal was to avoid wars and live in harmony.

Exactly! Give back control of borders to countries, and just run the EU like a NAFTA free trade zone. Bam, best of both worlds!

Oh yes, the "EU, give us back control of our borders" rhetoric.

Your CAN have border control right now, in fact many northern European countries have border control among themselves today.

Actually, that kinda changed in September 2016 – because in the refugee crisis the countries were unable to control the outer EU borders properly, the EU got control of the national borders in September 2016, with the establishment of a European Border and Coast Guard: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/...

EDIT: I can’t respond to your comment, but please read the article.

Nope, EU countries have always had the possibility of border control (with some limitations).

Its just that not having border control is cheaper and allowing people work across birders is good for the economy. So basically until late 2016 the pros outweighed the cons.

This isn't true... Poland has decided to close its borders to immigrants, and the EU wants to fine them 250k an immigrant for it.

The whole reason Brexit happened is because Britain wants to implement border controls.

Edit, Proof: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/eu-to-fine-countr...

Just get rid of these fines, and quotas, and give people control of their borders back.

There are today legal border controls from Mediterranean all the way up to the Scandinavia.

Blaming EU for your own officials incompetency is soooo uk-2016

Did you read the article? It says it right there. Hundreds of millions of dollars of fines for not doing what the EU says. Those are the facts. Fines. They are real.

What's funny is that given the current situation of Poland, the EU will end up paying for the fines they imposed

Eh, no thanks. Then we can just scrap the EU and replace it with TTIP.

The entire point of the EU as an entity is that it allows people to move everywhere that companies and services can move to.

Additionally, the entire problem of the refugee crisis was that countries controlled their own border – and everyone refused to do anything, instead telling Greece to prevent them from entering, and Greece said they’d just open their borders. In fact, the EU only got control of the borders in September 2016! http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/...

Yes, the entire point of the EU is to allow people/companies to move everywhere. To that point, I think this explains why richer countries from the West of Europe have seen so many company relocations to Eastern countries, for many years now, as the labor is less expensive over there...

At the same time, people relocated from Eastern Europe to Western Europe.

A union needs free movement of goods, people, and resources; or a resource-sharing system, to ensure it stays fair.

That’s why free-trade agreements usually contain lots and lots of limitations to prevent it being actually free trade – and why the agreement Britain wants can never happen.

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