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Comment by pjerem | Hacker News Reader

> In the US, it's normal for people to move to a different state to attend university, and then from there often to a different state again.

European Union is not a federal government like the USA but a union of independent countries.

In Europe it’s normal to live your entire life in the country you were born. Of course you can move wherever you want whenever you want but it’s never needed because there is 99% odds that your state have what you need (specific university, companies offices …)

Since Europe have really poor democratic control and power structure as of today, we are far from a federal Europe.

Even European policies like RGPD are always enforced locally at country level, there is no such thing as European government.

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> Since Europe have really poor democratic control and power structure as of today, we are far from a federal Europe.

I don't agree, partly because I don't share your view that democratic control and structure is "poor". Mainly because trying to flip the tables and redefine the goal and aspirations of the EU is a bit far fetched, as it doesn't even include becoming a federal Europe.

> Even European policies like RGPD are always enforced locally at country level, there is no such thing as European government.

That is by design, not a mistake.

You read my post like a criticism of EU, which it isnt

> I don't agree, partly because I don't share your view that democratic control and structure is "poor".

Current democratic control is mostly sufficient for what the EU is today : a union of independent countries. But this control is not enough at all if we wanted the EU to become a government with executive power.

> That is by design, not a mistake.

I never implied it was a mistake, neither that it was a bad thing.

Thanks for clarifying! My criticism was unwarranted.

1) The fact that we are far from a federal government doesn't mean we'll always be such.

2) I think you overestimate the involvement of the US federal government in law-enforcement across the country. A lot of (most?) laws are actually passed and enforced at state level, with the FBI only getting involved in the worst situations or where cross-state cooperation is necessary. California alone has tons of gdpr-like laws that it sets and enforces independently. There is an entire US political culture based around "state rights" that constantly pushes for having a looser federal structure that looks very much like what the EU is today.

3) it's not like they don't have universities in Minnesota or Nebraska, a lot of people sticks around where they were born. The difference is that the ones who don't, find it easy enough to relocate. This helps creating world-beating industrial districts like Hollywood, SF, Houston, New York, etc etc - because they can attract the best of the best among 400m people.

100 years ago people rarely moved from a village. 50 years ago they rarely moved from a city. Now they rarely move from a country. See where it's going?

> 1) The fact that we are far from a federal government doesn't mean we'll always be such.

Maybe, and I'm not even against the idea. But it would have nothing to do with European Union (the current entity)

> 2) [...]

I'm not an US expert, and I mostly have the same picture as you. I don't see what you are trying to prove ?

> 3) [...]

I never said that one system was better than the other, just that they are different with different strengths and different weakness but that migrating from one to the other is extremely difficult and probably require creating new entities. I totally can imagine an European Federation but I don't see it being the same entity as the European Union.

> But it would have nothing to do with European Union (the current entity

We are going into hypotheticals here. I am pretty convinced you are wrong, but only time will tell.

> I don't see what you are trying to prove ?

It was mentioned that the EU "cannot even enforce <some law>", but the reality is that the US federal government, that model of global cohesive superpower, more often than not cannot do that either. Do we go around saying the US government cannot do anything right, because coordinating 50 states is impossible? No, of course they can do some stuff right. Same for the EU. Already the fact that there is one "supreme tribunal" across the continent is quite remarkable, as well as a single currency for most of the Union, or a single arrest warrant, etc etc. Things move slowly but they do move, and if enough people keep pushing for a united Europe, sooner or later we'll get there.

As a Texan (yes, we have state loyalty more so than country) I would suggest taking a low and slow approach to unifying Europe under one federal entity. It took a few contentious iterations before the United American States became the United States of America and then a bloody war to fix absolute power with the central/federal government over states rights. Even today political tensions threaten to re-map state boundaries or outright dissolve the union.

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