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Comment by Faark | Hacker News Reader

As usual, one wants all the benefits without its disadvantages, no matter how impossible that is.

I'd like for the EU to transform more into a state, but that will be hard unless the local powerful are willing to give up their power. The concessions that had to be made to get as far as the EU is today are also part of what is holding it back. Thankfully a significant veto power will remove itself from the EU in the coming months.

A huge reorganization such as setting up a proper new state seems easier with help of some disruptive event like e.g. a war or imminent war, something I hope the EU won't have any opportunity to take advantage of.

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> I'd like for the EU to transform more into a state, but that will be hard unless the local powerful are willing to give up their power. The concessions that had to be made to get as far as the EU is today are also part of what is holding it back. Thankfully a significant veto power will remove itself from the EU in the coming months.

Okay...I'm assuming you're based somewhere in the EU. As far as you can tell does the average German want to be i the same state as the average Greek? Do Germans want to be in the same state with the French. I'm not so sure...I can imagine Germany, Austria and Switzerland working reasonably well as a single state. The same could be said about Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.

I'm sympathetic to your overall reasoning. When I look at the US it feels like a minor miracle that it has held together for as long as it has. I'm rather skeptic about the possibility of the EU ever approaching anything like that kind of union.

It’s a bit like with casual racism or sexism: there is a disconnect between the younger generations’ outlook and the older ones’. Stereotypes are hard to die.

Fun fact: almost half of millennials in Washington State support secession, higher than average. Regionalism is making a comeback.

If you're unhappier with the national decisions (e.g. Trump) than regional ones, regionalism starts looking better and better... I'd bet that's almost all the reason behind it, not some kind of deep ideological stance on governance.

Note that several polls over the last view years have found a large minority of people in the US (between 25-40%) view secession favorably, with higher support among millennials.

US speaks a common language and has common culture and well-working federal level public oversight. Federal-level elections are prestigious, the best policians are not local, but federal, and can talk to voters in all of US.

Literally none of that is true in EU. It’s not that miraculous that US holds together; it would be if EU could function the same way as a democracy.

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