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Comment by atmosx | Hacker News Reader

This comes mostly to fill up the void that UK will leave in the E.U. by exiting and ofc is not going to fly.

As the article states, the level of integration required for these kind of things is nowhere to be found.

The European Union is at crossroads: Either integrates and disintegrates. Half-measures like the ones proposed by the new French PM are not going to work. Not to mention that is nearly impossible for him to achieve anything substantial against Berlin.

It's like an ancient Greek tragedy. Everybody tries to make his best, while every action of every key-player leads inevitably to the worst possible outcome.

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> This comes mostly to fill up the void that UK will leave in the E.U. by exiting and ofc is not going to fly.

Alternatively, this has been in the making for a long time, but always has been kept back by the UK to support their relevance inside of the EU. Why do you state that it "[of course] is not going to fly"? Can you refer to some similar situations that provide precedent for your prediction?

> The European Union is at crossroads

Why? And why at this particular point in time? Is it because the UK is leaving, or are there any other reasons the EU cannot maintain their current course?

> Not to mention that is nearly impossible for him to achieve anything substantial against Berlin.

How so? Is the EU colluding with Germany to the detriment of the other member states? Can you provide any evidence of this?

> Everybody tries to make his best, while every action of every key-player leads inevitably to the worst possible outcome.

Do you mean for this particular endeavour or their policies in general? Because in general the results of the EU up to this point seem far from the worst possible outcome. If you mean this particular policy, why do you believe it will lead to the worst possible outcome in this specific instance?

The notion that a parallel from of coordination between underfunded militarys either materially threatened British relevance in the EU in the past or acts in any substantial way to replace it's military might in the event the EU needed to act outside of NATO in the future is extremely dubious.

However minimal this effort is, it is certainly wise given Brexit, increasing influence of isolationists and nationalists in the US, and Russia's appetite for power projection.

Hi craigsmansion. A lot of the answers to your questions start by looking at the Target2 imbalances, I think. Also the widening gaps between yields on sovereign bonds from EU countries. Germany is refusing Euro-Bonds, profitting from the end of the competitive-devaluationS era of european economics, so far the EU seems to have been just a mercantile bait-and-switch.

I don't think this is quite right. France has pushed for EU military integration for a long time, mostly because France would like the German economy powering French foreign policy goals. (France is quite active on the world stage, including recent interventions in Mali and Libya and a large role in the CJTF-OIR against ISIS.) The British would instead prefer Europe act through NATO, where European goals will be married to American ones, and has blocked an EU Army for a long time. Now that the UK is leading, France is pushing the EU Army idea once again.

To the contrary, this was planned since decades, but the UK was always blocking it.

I don't know which void this is supposed to fill, as military was not really part of the EU up until now.

I see it as a compliment to NATO, especially if Trump keeps weakening the alliance.

I don't know which void this is supposed to fill

The void is the hole in France's pocket. See: France's historical relationship with Nato.

This comes mostly to fill up the void that UK will leave in the E.U. by exiting and ofc is not going to fly

There has been a Franco-German formation for 30 years now, it's never actually deployed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_Brigade

But the EU for all its pretensions never "kept the peace in Europe" - that was NATO, and unless Corbyn is elected[1], there's no chance of the UK leaving.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/19/jeremy...

I think we have a strong selection bias for problems.

We are here and where we are now was also deemed impossible. Slow and steady wins the race. People with excessive opinion and limited knowledge don't last decades. It's how change sneaks in.

it's a very recurrent case under pressure

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