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Comment by beebeepka | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean our views are opposite? I am Bulgarian and I very much agree with you that we need an actual European army.

Now, you can always assume I only say this because I live in a poor country that everyone pushes around. But when we zoom out a bit, the same could soon apply to the entire continent. We are not united and that's bad for all of us because our competitors are more much bigger and better integrated.

Did you have something else in mind? I don't exactly pay any attention to US politics but I am sure their states are competing with each other because they have their own interests in mind. But that applies to cities too, does it not?

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The US is much more cohesive than the EU, they all speak English and bear firearms.

Of course Danish interests are not aligned with the rest of the EU. They live in a hygge bubble, not having been under Russia's boot. Their worst problems are immigration and Islam. Denmark has the most opt-outs compared to any EU state: Euro, EU Blue Card, Europol. It took a second referendum this year to abolish their defense opt-out. And of course this is bad for all of us.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_opt-outs_from_the_Eur...

> Did you have something else in mind? I don't exactly pay any attention to US politics but I am sure their states are competing with each other because they have their own interests in mind. But that applies to cities too, does it not?

This is pretty much solved by the enumerated powers clause. Outside of the dozen or so federal powers the central government handles, the states operate mostly autonomously (something non-Americans, particularly Europeans, find impossible to comprehend; at least based on common internet discourse).

Presumably, the same could be done for a Federated EU; but it's unlikely a good chunk of the nations (particularly the wealthy ones) would be willing to cede their ultimate sovereignty to a central power.

I was thinking in terms of Ukraine, Russia etc. Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia have very pro-Russian populations according to opinion polls.

Well, I don't know about the others in your list but russian propaganda is very strong here but even those who "support" them wouldn't want to live there, if you know what I mean. It's more of anti US thing than pro-Russia things.

I guess people don't like hegemonies unless they greatly benefit from them. Go figure.

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