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Comment by joe_mamba | Hacker News Reader

>All the quotes are clearly talking about closer integration

Are you saying "the ends justify the means" of this "closer integration"? With that logic, Hitler's end goal was also closer integration of Europe's countries once he conquered them all.

>If you don't like it leave

Impossible to leave now when you joined 20+ years ago, when the EU was something completely different, which now grew beyond what you signed up for, without fucking your economy. It's called a rug pull with a dead man's switch. Try to leave and we make sure we all blow up.

>They have much larger problems to deal with, like [...] planning for when Trump inevitably invades Cuba

Why is Cuba a bigger issue for Ursula than what's happening in the EU? LAst time I checked Cuba is on a different continent and an insignificant trading partner of the EU.

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> Impossible to leave now when you joined 20+ years ago, when the EU was something completely different, which now grew beyond what you signed up for, without fucking your economy. It's called a rug pull with a dead man's switch. Try to leave and we make sure we all blow up.

The EU was always designed to be an "ever closer union". It's literally in the Treaty of Rome from 1957 (!). This is explicitly what was signed up for. It's going a bit slow, unfortunately, but it is the core point. There's no rug being pulled. This was always the goal. It is specifically what everyone signed on to.

>The EU was always designed to be an "ever closer union".

Wow, isn't it convenient that such a vague all-encompassing paper from the past that you never voted for, can be used a justification for anything being done to you today?

What are the boundaries for that "ever closer union"? At which point it it just close enough? Or is it open ended? Would you sign an open ended contract with the bank? That wouldn't be legal.

>It's literally in the Treaty of Rome from 1957 (!)

How many Europeans alive today voted for that in 1957? Were they aware when they signed it of what it would lead to or were they duped into signing something so vague and all-encompassing that will be used to do anything against them in the future?

>This is explicitly what was signed up for.

That's the problem, it's vague and not explicit at all.

> This was always the goal.

Really? In 1957 people back then already knew that in the future they would cede their national sovereignty to a unelected bureaucrat in Brussels who would make decisions against their nation's best interest?

>It is specifically what everyone signed on to.

Who exactly is that "everyone"? I never voted for this. Neither did my parents.

There's no boundaries to "ever closer union". That's what ever closer means, definitionally.

Nobody was duped into anything, countries exercised their sovereignty to come to an agreement.

The rest of your concerns is just how literally any legislation and treaty ever works. When did you sign on to your country's constitution? What about the treaty of Bern establishing the Universal Postal Union in 1874?

Key concept here is legal succession.

>There's no boundaries to "ever closer union".

Ok, but you haven't told me what exactly the end goal of that "ever closer union" is. Aren't we already fully unified?

Nor have you disputed the vagueness of the "ever closer union" which is used to undemocratically bully countries in the union to do what unelected corrupt Brussels bureaucrats want them to do.

>Key concept here is legal succession.

Which is not set in stone.

"Ever" can never be fulfilled. That's what the word means.

> Aren't we already fully unified?

Clearly we are not fully unified. We still have 27 different budgets for example. We are still mostly borrowing as 27 different independent sovereigns for example.

> Ok, but you haven't told me what exactly the end goal of that "ever closer union" is.

That's what the legislative process of proposals, rejections and counter-proposals is all about figuring out what the end goal looks like, that's why we don't have an EU constitution and instead have the Treaty of Lisbon. The constitution was rejected in popular processes in France and the Netherlands withdrawn and an alternative proposal was made that actually made it into agreement.

You can frame that as they went around our back to do evil things. Or you know as a negotiation where both sides of an argument compromise. The key clue that this is a compromise between two sides is that no one is actually happy with the result.

To think that we almost decided on a common army in 1959… EU integration has slowed down massively since then.

> Are you saying "the ends justify the means" of this "closer integration"? With that logic, Hitler's end goal was also closer integration of Europe's countries once he conquered them all.

I am saying a closer union was what was agreed upon.

The UK left 47 years after joining, it would be better off if they stayed in, but it has not been the end of the world. Also if your countrymen are pro further EU integration and you are against it, you can just leave.

> Why is Cuba a bigger issue for Ursula than what's happening in the EU? LAst time I checked Cuba is on a different continent and an insignificant trading partner of the EU.

Because god knows what is going to happen to American liquefied gas exports to the EU if they are fighting a war in the Caribbean.

>I am saying a closer union was what was agreed upon.

Again, that vague argument does not disprove my argument.

Does the end justify the means? Yes, or no? If yes, then what's the point of democracy and free will, if no, what's the point of the EU forcing its will on everyone?

>Also if your countrymen are pro further EU integration

What does "further EU integration" even mean? Being an even bigger bitch to clueless out of touch unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to deiced things in countries they can't find on the map, whose language they don't speak, whose economy and culture they don't understand?

Translation: the benefits of being in the EU outweigh the drawbacks.

This is the crux of it. From your local parish council to the largest supranational organisation, nobody's going to be in favour of every decision made. They're still better than the alternative.

> Translation: the benefits of being in the EU outweigh the drawbacks.

Well, yes. But that WAS NOT what was voted upon. What was voted upon were specific proposals to change the EU and have closer integration.

The votes (there was more than one) had clear outcomes: "NO".

But in a democratic system that should be then of it! And it wasn't. But the truth is the EU has a very long history of overriding democratic votes, "for good reasons". Frankly, I even agree with the basic assessment there: that what the EU proposed was the best outcome and voters rejected it for bad reasons. But in a democracy that voters reject it is the final say.

And the problem with it is that if "rational" things can be forced through against the will of the voters ... it always ends the same way.

Ireland rejected. The treaty was modified to address the concerns of Irish voters. Ireland accepted.

"Ireland rejected, the treaty was modified, and the Irish government said 'despite your changes, we refuse to allow our electorate to revisit this'" doesn't sound like a better approach.

You're talking about the first big EU farce, the Nice Treaty. Btw: "Nice", as in the Roman city in the south of France with the excellent Carnaval, not the English word.

But then there was the second farce, the "EU constitution":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...

Note how many referenda and votes were planned ... but suddenly canceled after voters started rejecting the treaty. And note how the page does not say how the replacement, the "Treay of Lisbon" was adopted. Sure they would vote on it, right? Otherwise, what credibility would they have left?

Well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

Obviously there were no more votes on any EU future plans, with one exception.

I've worked for the EU Commission. Let me tell you: the bureaucrats there are angry about this. You see, the whole constitution was an attempt for the EU to become more democratic, gain credibility, by "sacrificing" power to voters. By the time the Treaty of Lisbon was created, the EU had lost power (much less than the constitution, but still some. Oh and they lost power to member states, NOT to voters), had "been forced" to push through the reforms anyway AND they had lost all credibility.

The only exception, the only vote on the EU's future? The Brexit vote ...

> Why is Cuba a bigger issue for Ursula than what's happening in the EU? LAst time I checked Cuba is on a different continent and an insignificant trading partner of the EU.

That's also because of unwarranted American sanctions.

Which for once isn't only Trump's fault, every American president has been happy to let the Cubans suffer for no reason.

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