What is the point of the EU.
crystallad
Posts: 3,744 Forum Member
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It stated with 7 countries after the war to help to stop conflict so what is the point today?
I don't see what open borders has to do with trade and why we all have to use a standardised way of life, I.E litres not gallons.
When you take it to the bare bones, what is the point and who benefits?
I don't see what open borders has to do with trade and why we all have to use a standardised way of life, I.E litres not gallons.
When you take it to the bare bones, what is the point and who benefits?
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There isn't any. It erodes national sovereignty and is corrupt and inefficient.
I've asked similar several times and have had just about the same response level as this thread.
The French went in to protect their inefficient farmers from commercial competition.
The Germans went in to cleanse themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race.
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We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times
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It's just like the United Nations, in fact. The more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.
With a large single market free from internal trade barriers the theory is that companies and areas will specialise in the things they can do most efficiently and productively thus increasing European competitiveness in the world and general prosperity at home
For example if 20 countries in the EU had car manufacturing industries and 19 of them are pretty inefficient compared to Germany then over time they'll go out of business, the German industry will expand and get even more efficient with economies of scale. Capital and Labour from the inefficient car factories in Poland, Spain and Britain will move to Germany and be used more productively (that's why you need free movement of capital and labour)
Eventually every region will be doing the things it's good at and can do most productively..........and general wealth will increase.
VW, the largest European car maker, has factories in 15 European countries and 6 in countries outside Europe. I'm sure Greeks are delighted with the increase in their general wealth by specialising in the things they are good at.
Amusingly your analogy doesn't exist at all in agriculture which receives extensive EU subsidies via the CAP and trade barriers to keep it afloat.
The EU is a political project and organisation.
So what do you need for a 'single market'?
1. Obviously you need to first remove legal barriers to people buying and selling goods and services between countries.
2. You need to also remove tariff (import tax) barriers.
3. You really need to agree to a set of common standards and measurements for goods and services so that customers can easily compare them across countries.
4. For a level playing field you have to agree to a minimum level of treatment for your workforce - otherwise there will be a big incentive to try to undercut your competition by treating your workers more poorly than everyone else.
5. Also you will need to agree to minimum health and safety and environmental standards for the same reason.
6. You are going to want to cooperate together on legal issues and agree a process for resolving customer and supplier disputes across countries.
7. It will probably be helpful to harmonize other aspects of your economies and tax regimes to allow trade to better work.
All of the above is going to require some fairly extensive arrangements. You're going to need a large administrative body to coordinate everything and a set of rules and way of enforcing them between countries. Whilst you're doing that you might as well use the body as a way of coordinating on issues that effect all nations collectively and pool resources where it makes sense.
But now you've got this large administrative/legal organization that makes major decisions that impact all countries. So it's only right that a democratic element is introduced. You decide on a mixture of individual governments nominating individuals to oversee the organization and a directly elected body to approve those decisions. Makes sense right?
And low and behold you have the EU . . . . .
Only 1 and 2 are required for free trade but I really only have one comment, world wide free trade and low and behold there is no need for the EU.
So you'd be happy to UK customers to import goods that meet zero health and safety standards?
Not only does it offer peace to its constituents, it offers a normalisation process in the near abroad. It is the reason relations between Serbia and Kosovo are improving rapidly, the reason kurdish rights in Turkey are being strengthened, and so on.
If there is one thing European history teaches us, is that when it comes down to Europe, it is the EU or the SS.
The EU is not perfect but anyone doubting its essential virtue should visit Treblinka or Sobibor.
Never again the SS.
The EU is amongst the greatest achievements of mankind, and possibly the greatest.
what a strange argument
Why is it a strange argument?
Everyone accepts that within a country you need complicated set of legal arrangements in order to enable trade.. No one would suggest that we shouldn't have consumer protection laws, health and safety standards, minimum workers rights, basic environmental protection standards etc etc. However when it comes to international trade suddenly people think that none of that is necessary.
How exactly is free trade suppose to work if a UK manufacturer's product has to meet the specific regulations of 27 different regimes in order to export to all these countries? What is to stop a country simply introducing a very local specific requirement that is impossible for foreign companies to meet in order to protect their own market?
Recently there were arguments about foreign companies winning manufacturing contracts in the UK. How much worse would if these companies received state subsidies in order to undercut UK companies?
How would you feel if a UK domestic supplier in Dover was forced by law to restrict it's toxic gases whilst a competitor in Calais was able to undercut them by pumping as much pollution as they wanted? Would it matter to the people of south England if the pollution came from down the road or across the sea?
This is exactly why so many nations are going down the route of creating regional organizations to manage the process of 'free trade'.
Is the EU a perfect example of one? No. Has it ballooned in some areas and over-reached in others? Yes. Is it too often used as a backdoor way of implementing centre-left policies? Arguably. Is it necessary for real free trade between European nations. Absolutely.
The EU is "a fundamentlly anti-democratic, irrational cartel that has put Europe's peopleson a path to misanthropy, conflict and permanent recession".
Bang on target!
We know that if we decide to raise the tax rate then those affected, if they can, will decamp to a cheaper regime.
The EU doesn't got far enough when it comes to finance. As people are living longer and the strain on public services increases we will not be able to remedy this with nation states.
There are many countries in the world that have Free Trade Agreements with other nations but that doesn't mean that they have no consumer protection laws, health and safety standards, minimum workers rights, basic environmental protection standards etc.
The idea that we would lose all of those standards and rights if we were not in the EU is the most bizarre claim that I have heard on this forum in a long time.
A Europe run by Germany ;-)
You didn't actually answer any of the questions I put in my post.
Well I didn't think I needed to but if you want..
In exactly the same way as manufacturers make and export products for the other 169 countries whoa re not in the EU.
Well that happens now with most of the countries in the world that we export to - yet our exports to those are increasing whilst our exports to the EU are falling.
We have no control over the pollution created in China, Russia, or any other country outside of the EU - yet the world is affected by them.
No part of the world is creating supranational organization like the EU.
Anyone would think that pre-EEC/EU, we never either imported or exported any goods. Anyone would think that we're not capable of manufacturing goods that satify standards outside the EU.
The world has changed since 1950.
A free trade area. Companies in the US benefit because they have access to a large market before having to go through the extra cost of exporting. That gave them an advantage because the cost of developing and selling a product was covered before needing to export.
For the smaller European countries this is not possible - unless they band together and create a much larger market.
We already do -- the billions of pounds of stuff we buy in from China for example.
The UK has very light-touch regulation when it comes to importers. They effectively self-regulate, and action is only ever taken if people report them to trading standards (and even then it's a slap on the wrist and voluntary recall).
I certainly don't see this situation getting any better if we leave the EU, however.
The point of the EU is to enable its member states to pursue a set of objectives that the member states have collectively and individually agreed are in their best interests and will benefit from as they are gradually acheived.
It is entirely up to the member states as to what objectives they want to pursue and they are free to change them should they so choose.
Unless you have some sort of strenuous objection to member states working towards objectives they believe will benefit themselves, what is your problem with that? You are not going to suggest, I trust, that member states (or even a member state) should be so stupid as to refuse to pursue an objective that they believe they will benefit from, are you?
Nothing here that cannot be done by individual countries, no need for a grand overseer. It was done before the EU was thought of, and is also done by countries that are not part of the EU now.
Are you saying in or out of the EU we won't/can't control standards or quality? Are you aware that other EU nations also buy Chinese and other goods of dubious quality and safety? Did you know there are many goods produced in the EU that are not suitable for other EU countries? Are you aware there are services and procedures not standard across the EU, not even among countries that have been members for 40 years and more?
It's essentially the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan.