Too often all kinds of things are said in other threads where going into to the points raised would derail those threads.
So hereby a thread where there is room for that.
I am myself pro-EU, knowing the economical benefits for a small country (NL) from a single market much bigger than the national single market. This does however not mean that I am blind for the negatives.
My other general feeling is that since the EU got more powerful on the international geopolitical stage from its economical power, especially when the EU became more important with the Euro (2000) as secondary global reserve currency and the EU trade balance became (finally) positive since 2012, that there is an increased geopolitical pressure on the EU with more of misleading news in the international newsmedia. Trump calling us a "foe" not really new, but just topping it off.
I believe as well that it is not in the geopolitical interests of the super powers, having themselves that very big single market at national scale, to be very amused by the EU setting the example how smaller countries all over the world can unite in trading blocks to mitigate their power.
We will have in May the 5-yearly election of the EU parliament.
Which is another reason to start this thread.
My guess is that many newsmedia will give a good dose of "news" how fragile the EU is, how rightwing populism is eroding the EU, and question why all kinds of reforms are not yet executed.
Everybody and his dog has apparently some reform in mind, that often only shows for me how little they know about how the EU ticks, what it has achieved and wants to strenghten-consolidate, and what long term strategy the EU has already.
For the people not intimatelty involved in the developments in the EU:
The EU is not a federal nation, nor will be it, I guess, while you are still alive !
My guess is also that the more geopolitical pressure the EU gets, the more political aspects the Union will get to defend its main purpose: that big single market.
Here a link to a very nice polling overview site that updates for every EU country the polls on the popular vote for the national political parties and plots them in a trendline. With a list below of the graph of all the individual polls: who did the poll and the results.
Here for example GB with that list of polls: https://pollofpolls.eu/GB
Here the agregated result for the EU as a whole: https://pollofpolls.eu/EU
Here a map where you can click on for details and fast swap between countries: https://pollofpolls.eu/map/europe-national
So hereby a thread where there is room for that.
I am myself pro-EU, knowing the economical benefits for a small country (NL) from a single market much bigger than the national single market. This does however not mean that I am blind for the negatives.
My other general feeling is that since the EU got more powerful on the international geopolitical stage from its economical power, especially when the EU became more important with the Euro (2000) as secondary global reserve currency and the EU trade balance became (finally) positive since 2012, that there is an increased geopolitical pressure on the EU with more of misleading news in the international newsmedia. Trump calling us a "foe" not really new, but just topping it off.
I believe as well that it is not in the geopolitical interests of the super powers, having themselves that very big single market at national scale, to be very amused by the EU setting the example how smaller countries all over the world can unite in trading blocks to mitigate their power.
We will have in May the 5-yearly election of the EU parliament.
Which is another reason to start this thread.
My guess is that many newsmedia will give a good dose of "news" how fragile the EU is, how rightwing populism is eroding the EU, and question why all kinds of reforms are not yet executed.
Everybody and his dog has apparently some reform in mind, that often only shows for me how little they know about how the EU ticks, what it has achieved and wants to strenghten-consolidate, and what long term strategy the EU has already.
For the people not intimatelty involved in the developments in the EU:
The EU is not a federal nation, nor will be it, I guess, while you are still alive !
My guess is also that the more geopolitical pressure the EU gets, the more political aspects the Union will get to defend its main purpose: that big single market.
Here a link to a very nice polling overview site that updates for every EU country the polls on the popular vote for the national political parties and plots them in a trendline. With a list below of the graph of all the individual polls: who did the poll and the results.
Here for example GB with that list of polls: https://pollofpolls.eu/GB
Here the agregated result for the EU as a whole: https://pollofpolls.eu/EU
Here a map where you can click on for details and fast swap between countries: https://pollofpolls.eu/map/europe-national
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