Croatia cleared for EU membership in 2013

[Verbose]

Germany's transfering €100 billion every 7-10 years into the rest of the EU via the normal EU budget. That doesn't include any rescue measures. I'd really like to see how such contributions would go down with the Italian, French or UK public. Maybe you should realize the scale of German contributions before you make such statements. Germany's ANNUAL contribution is currently higher than what the country got out of the entire Marshall Plan (if you adjust the 1948-51 payments for inflation).

Top five net payers/capita to the EU:

1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Germany
4. Denmark
5. Italy.

Yer big, and rich, but you actually pay less than the Dutch and the Swedes, and just a little more than the Danes. The drop down to the Italians is kind of steep though, as they pay only about 2/3 per capita of what the Germans fork over. Then again, the Dutch and the Swedes pay 1,5 times as much as the Germans. In absolute numbers the Dutch and Swedes, in all other situation negligible entities by virtue of being relatively tiny, amount to almost half of Germany.

Somehow it all hurts the worst in the German wallets?

 

[Quackers]

Where is Britain on that list?

 

[metatron]

And why focus specifically on that?

I kinda felt that mattered more...

Iirc Germany has only one token vote more than France, GB or Italy.

That's not true. Germany had exactly the same number of votes as the other three until reunification. After that Germany got 99 votes, the others 87 each. The Treaty of Nice increased that spread to 99 to 72.

Where is Britain on that list?

Not too far behind. 6th or 7th i guess.
I don't know what source Verbose is using. On wikipedia the UK ranks 6th as a per capita net player just behind (in that order) the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Austria, ahead of Italy.
The UK does rank fairly high on the ratio of input vs. output, though.

Somehow it all hurts the worst in the German wallets?

Actually it didn't hurt at all.
And now you could be so kind and join the Euro, help to pay for that mess and report on how Swedes and Danes feel about being net payers then.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

EU with borders to Iraq and China, yay

Don't forget the US border once we have Canada !

I mean, we now have to invent just another department of the commission to allow for a Croatian commissar, although everyone knows that 28 commissars is simply insane.

One thing the Constitutional Treaty was supposed to do is reducing the number of Comissars to 2/3 the number of member states. The free positions would obviously rotate.

Instead we must bring the EU on a truly democratic fundament, with proportional representation in the parliament and a commission dependent on it; and much less influence of the national governments.

Forget it. Smaller states would go ballistic. Square root or death.

There are quite a bunch of them indeed. And it's not that their thoeries are entirely baseless.

It's a good plan

That's not true. Germany had exactly the same number of votes as the other three until reunification. After that Germany got 99 votes, the others 87 each. The Treaty of Nice increased that spread to 99 to 72.

That's seats in the EP, I meant votes in the Council, but apparantly I was wrong about that anyway.
Germany, France, GB, Italy all have 29 votes each, Poland and Spain have 27 each. I think I misremembered something about "one token vote" because Germany has 99 seats and not 100.

 

[Dachs]

Vladislav VI son of Sigismund III has been crowned Tsar of Russia by a traitorous boyar faction. Something union-like could have grown out of this, had he and his auld fella been less bastardeous to Orthodox Christians.

I doubt Wladyslaw could've effectively controlled Moscow itself, much less the Russian territories further east. It's kind of like his father's harebrained plan for the union of Sweden and Poland; sure, maybe it works on paper, but there's too much friction and it'd break apart pretty quickly.

Of course, there'd probably have been important knock-on effects with regards to the survivability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth century and Muscovite state power, but those are impossible to calculate.

 

[Leoreth]

One thing the Constitutional Treaty was supposed to do is reducing the number of Comissars to 2/3 the number of member states. The free positions would obviously rotate.

Well, yeah, the failed constitution definitely threw us back a decade in several regards. And frankly, I'd rather have my commissars chose by need (i.e. make as many departments as there are necessary competence fields) and qualification (i.e. no national proportionalism). Maybe this would stop the practice of congratulating unwelcome national politicians away into the European sphere ...

Forget it. Smaller states would go ballistic. Square root or death.

And why not a natural logarithm?

It's simply not democratic when a vote from country A is worth multiples of a vote from country B. We have to stop thinking from the national interest perspective and come to the personal interest perspective or else the current organization will only increase the mistrust of the eurosceptics.

I can understand that smaller countries fear to be overruled by majority vote, but solutions have been found for that particular problem in history already. Install a bicameral system with a lower chamber similar to the US senate.

 

[kronic]

Top five net payers/capita to the EU:

1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Germany
4. Denmark
5. Italy.

Yer big, and rich, but you actually pay less than the Dutch and the Swedes, and just a little more than the Danes. The drop down to the Italians is kind of steep though, as they pay only about 2/3 per capita of what the Germans fork over. Then again, the Dutch and the Swedes pay 1,5 times as much as the Germans. In absolute numbers the Dutch and Swedes, in all other situation negligible entities by virtue of being relatively tiny, amount to almost half of Germany.

Somehow it all hurts the worst in the German wallets?

1. Your numbers are not correct. NL currently pays about 40 % more per capita, Denmark 25 %, Sweden 15 %. Italy isn't 5th in the list as Austria, the UK and France all rank above Italy. source

2. Apart from that I know very well that Germany doesn't pay the most per capita. That doesn't matter for my point though. No matter how you put it, we pay a lot more into the budget than we get out of it. And almost everytime a big problem arises it's German money that solves it. What triggered my response were these implicit assertions that we should basically shut up about it and consider ourselves lucky when we don't get asked for ever more money.

3. The Dutch and the Swedes complain a lot about their contributions as well. You should know better than myself that freezing/reducing their contributions is a high priority on their EU agenda and has been for years.

4. The times where Germany is Europe's lender of last resort hopefully come to an end soon as the system collapses.

@Quackers
The UK currently pays about 10 % less per capita than Germany. Guess you guys will be pretty high up there as soon as the rebate gets slashed.

 

[Veles]

I doubt Wladyslaw could've effectively controlled Moscow itself, much less the Russian territories further east. It's kind of like his father's harebrained plan for the union of Sweden and Poland; sure, maybe it works on paper, but there's too much friction and it'd break apart pretty quickly.

Of course, there'd probably have been important knock-on effects with regards to the survivability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth century and Muscovite state power, but those are impossible to calculate.

Well, had he converted to Orthodoxy, like a Tsar should do, made concessions to boyars, instated Boyar Duma, eased the burden on serfs things could go differently.

 

[Dachs]

Well, had he converted to Orthodoxy, like a Tsar should do, made concessions to boyars, instated Boyar Duma, eased the burden on serfs things could go differently.

If he's taking the time to do all that stuff, he's not governing Poland or Lithuania with anything like the attention they need. (Plus, converting to Orthodoxy would cause a revolt.) Not a chance.

 

[Yeekim]

Besides, "making concessions to boyars" and "easing burden of serfs" don't sound like they'd go well together.

 

[Veles]

If he's taking the time to do all that stuff, he's not governing Poland or Lithuania with anything like the attention they need. (Plus, converting to Orthodoxy would cause a revolt.) Not a chance.

Dude, who needs friggin Poland or Lithuania when he'd get to rule RUSSIA like a boss.

Abandoning Latin heresey and converting to the only TRUE faith in existance would have only made him more awesome.

 

[RedRalph]

Once it met the requirements of being a free democracy with a functioning, stable economy, sure.

What, like those nutcases in the Baltic who take away people's citizenship based on their ethnicity and have parades to celebrate SS men?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

What, like those nutcases in the Baltic who take away people's citizenship based on their ethnicity and have parades to celebrate SS men?

Just because I don't support Russia being in the EU right now doesn't mean I do support all the countries currently in the EU being in the EU...

 

[GinandTonic]

Im all for bigger-shallower. The Croats fit the bill to a bloody t.

 

[Yeekim]

No-one like the Irish to teach others how to leave an empire peacefully and with proper dignity.

 

[RedRalph]

No-one like the Irish to teach others how to leave an empire peacefully and with proper dignity.

And we have parades down O'Connell Street for Provisional IRA members because after all, they were only fighting the evil oppressor, and... oh wait, no we don't. I'm sure if we had an SS volunteer brigade we would though, I mean that would only be fair wouldn't it?

 

[Yeekim]

Indeed, laying flowers to the dead is for wusses, laying IED-s is the one proper way to make one´s views clear to the world.



Oh, wait, apparently you have wusses in Ireland too...

 

[holy king]

i raise you two a mourning ceremony on the day austria was liberatedthe war was lost.

 

[Racsoviale]

There is something about Germanic Protestants that is very anti-Europe.

It's because we know it is all a scheme by the evil Catholics to bring us back to the one and true faith