The European Project: the future of the EU.

everybody knows me well enough to think ı would really counter with the idea that their mighty gloriously global reach should be used to deal with the origin of the trouble . No , this is not a threat .
 
Kyriakos said:
Pretty safe to say that if this Eu wanted to even try to pretend to be about democratic values, Hungary would be on its way out.
Curious how the only time the Eu threatened to kick a country out, it was about money and forcing austerity.
Click to expand...
Yes, obviously Greece is in no way serious about democracy. It's not perceptibly trying to do a damn thing about Hungary. And it is the EU, so...
 
Kyriakos said:
He refers to Amazon and similar. They are likely more feudal barons than the emperor, who in this case has nominal power.
Click to expand...
I see Amazon as a huge empire that stretchs over the whole world. Feudalism is absolute power localised in a small region.
 
Thorgalaeg said:
I see Amazon as a huge empire that stretchs over the whole world. Feudalism is absolute power localised in a small region.
Click to expand...

Feudalism is not absolute power. The essence of feudalism is devolving power to lesser nobles, mainly because the governments of the feudal era weren't capable of governing large areas.
 
Another must read for those interested in the history and the workings of the EU. On the ECJ/CJEU:

There were seven founding judges and two advocates-general. Who were they? The Italian president of the court, Massimo Pilotti, had been deputy secretary-general of the League of Nations in the 1930s. There he acted as the long arm of the fascist regime in Rome, advising Mussolini on what counter-measures to take to shield Italy from condemnation by the League for its actions in Ethiopia. On resigning his post in 1937, Pilotti took part in the celebrations in Genoa of the conquest of Ethiopia; and during the Second World War headed the high court of occupied Ljubljana after Italy’s annexation of Slovenia, where resistance was met with mass deportations, concentration camps, and police and military repression. The German judge on the court, Otto Riese, was so devoted a Nazi that without any duress – he spent the war as an academic in Switzerland – he retained his membership of the NSDAP until 1945. His compatriot Karl Roemer, an advocate-general to the court, spent the war in occupied Paris managing French companies and banks for the Third Reich; after the war, he married Adenauer’s niece, and acted as defence lawyer for the Waffen SS charged with responsibility for the massacre of the occupants of the French village of Oradour. The other advocate-general, Maurice Lagrange, was a senior functionary in the Vichy government, fully committed to the ideology of a ‘National Revolution’ to sweep away the legacy of the Third Republic. Acting as link-man between the judicial apparatus of the Conseil d’État and the political apparatus of the Council of Ministers, Lagrange was in charge of co-ordinating the first wave of persecution of French Jews. When Laval took over the reins of Vichy in 1942, transferring Lagrange back to the Conseil d’État, Pétain thanked him for his ‘rare perseverance’ in the regime’s legislative and administrative work, to which Lagrange replied that ‘for me it has been a great privilege to be so closely associated with the enterprise of national renovation you have undertaken for the salvation of our country. I am convinced that every Frenchman can and should take part in this work.’ After the war he was chosen by the Americans to help democratise the civil service in Germany, and by Monnet to help draft the treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community.
[...]
The effect of ‘constitutionalising’ (the apostrophes are needed, because the treaties remain international pacts, not federal charters) issues like the permissibility of state aid to industries, or subsidies to public services, is to immunise judicial ukases on them against any ordinary exercise of the popular will. As Grimm writes, ‘the stronger the substantive content of the constitution, the narrower the leeway for politics.’ Typically, ‘whatever is governed in the constitution is removed from the realm of political decision-making. It is no longer an object, but a premise of politics.’ In the EU, ‘it cannot be influenced even by the outcome of an election.’ That the judges who deliver the decisions of the ECJ are themselves unelected is, of course, common though not invariable practice in constitutional courts. What is not, is the European court’s ‘insatiable jurisdictional appetite’. Its current president, the Belgian Koen Lenaerts, has spelled out the extent of that hunger. In his words: ‘There is simply no nucleus of sovereignty that the member states can invoke, as such, against the Community.’
To such self-aggrandising presumption corresponds neither judicial nor political competence. Even setting aside its systematic disregard for the limits to its scope in the treaties, Horsley writes, ‘the court fares poorly in comparison to its counterparts on the classic measures of comparative institutional analysis: democratic legitimacy and technical expertise. Its judges are not elected, its deliberations are secret and, as a court of general jurisdiction, it enjoys no special expertise in the wide range of policy fields over which it intercedes to adjudicate.’
[...]
if their accounts of the ECJ are those of friends of the court, it is not clear what its enemies would have left to say. The truth is that, on any reasonable reckoning, it would be difficult to conceive of a judicial institution in the West that, from its tenebrous origins onwards, was purer of any trace of democratic accountability.
Click to expand...

But there's much more. Do take the time to read the whole piece. Just one more snipped, on the 33000 EU bureaucrats and similar number of lobbyists feeding them:
Under Romano Prodi (president 1999-2004), Neil Kinnock was entrusted with the task of modernising the system of pay and recruitment, bringing the tidings of New Labour to Brussels, with predictable outcomes. By 2014, two-thirds of the directors-general were trained in economics, receiving commensurately higher salaries to compete with the private sector; lower down, in the name of democratising future intakes, knowledge of foreign languages or of any general culture faded as requirements, giving way to MBAs.

For observers of the course of the EU since Maastricht, such changes might be logical enough – neoliberals were being neoliberalised – but they were not appreciated by many of those affected by them, their Anglo-Saxon origin rubbing post-Brexit salt in the wounds. ‘After having broken Europe from the inside for years, they’re breaking it from the outside by destroying its political legitimacy,’ Didier Georgakakis quotes one as saying. Another, not as angry: ‘It’s insane when you think about it. They are leaving after having imposed their administrative model on us?’ Yet another: ‘The new model is the Procter & Gamble one.’
[...]
There are now around 30,000 registered lobbyists in Brussels. That is more than double the number infesting Washington, reckoned at a mere 12,000. In Brussels, 63% are corporate and consultant lobbyists, 26% are from NGOs, 7% from think tanks and 5% municipal. That Europe’s executive could resist infection from the vapours of this swamp is implausible.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Might as well quote Anderson also on the Commission:
along with the acquis as a disciplinary instrument, the Commission possesses a mollifying implement of power in the apportionment and disbursement of its cohesion funds, the annona of van Middelaar’s latter-day Roman strategy for securing clients. These form a significant source of patronage, a means of inducing compliance or rewarding loyalty, whose promise could be critical in winning local elites to the will of the Union, if conditions were also bent where it was politic to overlook corruption in the interests of ideological subsumption, as in Romania and other candidates for membership. Little noticed at the time, the geographical enlargement of the Union to the East also produced the greatest operational enlargement of the Commission since Hallstein’s time, as it took charge of the task. That some of its fruits have since become thorns in its side, as the more advanced states of Eastern Europe, once their elites were safely inside the Union, became less submissive to it, is another of the unintended consequences, or counter-finalities, of which there have been so many in the history of integration.
Click to expand...

And the Parliament:
over time the Parliament has acquired a substantial bureaucratic infrastructure of its own – presently, some seven thousand functionaries service it – and a limited number of powers, of which the three most significant are the right to ‘co-decision’ with the Council on legislation proposed by the Commission; to reject – but not to amend – the budget proposed by the Commission; and to reject – but not to elect – commissioners chosen by the president of the Commission. What it does not possess are the rights to elect a government, to initiate legislation, to levy taxes, to shape welfare, or determine a foreign policy. In short, it is a semblance of a parliament, as ordinarily understood, that falls far short of the reality of one. Voters are aware of this, and have shown scant interest in it. [...] Nor are most of the citizens who do take the trouble to go to the polls voting on European issues. Rather, in casting their ballots for or against local parties, they are expressing their views on the performance of their national governments. The result is an assembly composed of some two hundred heteroclite parties, which then group themselves into six or seven blocs, whose unity does not run deep – ties between deputies in national delegations are often closer than with their pan-European affiliates. No division between government and opposition can emerge, because there is no government to be formed or opposed.

As might be expected, in this huge, heterogeneous, largely ceremonial body, deputies have little appetite for going through the motions of actually being there. Average attendance is around 45 per cent. Virtually all the work is seconded to committees, where behind closed doors the mysteries of ‘trilogue’ are enacted: that is, represent-atives of the Parliament confer with representatives of the Council of Ministers and of the Commission as to what legislative proposals emanating from the Commission
[here anderson forgets one important thing: the writers of those proposals coming from the commission are mostly the lobbyists, as I've heard some unorthodox 'MEP' (to use the english terminology, they weren't english) complain.]
[... In 2004] The centre-right gained most votes; its candidate was the fixer Jean-Claude Juncker. After some tergiversation, Merkel prevailed on the Council to accept him and Juncker became president of the Commission on the strength of about 10 per cent of the European electorate. Had she not done so, Habermas told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it would have been ‘a bullet to the heart of the European project’. Five years later Macron put his foot down, and the next president was picked according to the rules by the Council, ignoring the hapless Spitzenkandidat.
[...]
The function of the European Parliament, which neither aggregates nor channels the wishes of voters, from whom once the polls close it becomes completely detached, is, as the Italian scholar Stefano Bartolini has put it, ‘elite consolidation’. That is, a process in which the parties collude with one another to present the appearance of a democratic assembly, behind which oligarchic coteries are comfortably entrenched.
Click to expand...

That last observation is one I very strongly agree with. But it's not all the parties, fortunately. As things stand now it's a narrowing majority. They can still "bribe" incomers but it's not an ironclad system so long as there are also a sizeable number of opponents inside.
 
For those who might have been duly confused about the so-called "rule of law problem" as made up by the EU's propaganda outlets, and missed how the conflict was actually papered over, here's an amusing but entirely accurate representation of the whole affair. Excerpt:

Empires depend on a successful management of peripheral by central elites. In the EU, peripheral elites must be staunchly ‘pro-European’, meaning in favour of the ‘ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’ as governed by Germany with France through the Brussels bureaucracy. Germany and the European Commission have long suspected the present governments of Hungary and Poland of not being sufficiently ‘pro-European’. Similar suspicions exist in the so-called European Parliament, which does not covet members who are not in favour of ‘more Europe’. (‘More Europe’ is the raison d’être of this strange Parliament that has neither an opposition nor a right to legislate.) ... So why not make payments from the Corona Recovery Fund conditional on a country upholding the ‘rule of law’, defining ‘rule of law’ so that the policies of non-liberal elected governments do not conform to it?
[...]
Well, there are the Treaties. Under the Treaties, member countries, all of them, including Hungary and Poland, remain sovereign, and their domestic institutions and policies, for example family and immigration policies, are for their electorates to decide, not for Brussels or Berlin. When it comes to a country’s legal institutions, the only legitimate concern of the EU is whether EU funds are properly spent and accounted for. Here, however, Poland has an immaculate record, and Hungary seems still on or above the level of ‘pro-European’ Bulgaria and Romania, not to mention Malta. So what to do?
In Brussels there is always a way. The Commission has for some time tried to punish Poland and Hungary under a different provision in the Treaties that forbids member countries interfering with the independence of their judiciary. But this is such a big bazooka that member states hesitate to let the Commission activate it. (It also raises uncomfortable questions on the political independence of, say, the French Conseil d’Etat.) Now, however, comes the Corona Fund, and with it the idea of a so-called ‘Rule-of-Law Mechanism’ (ROLM) attached to it, on the premise that if you don’t have an independent judiciary, including a liberal constitutional court, and perhaps also if you don’t admit refugees as a matter of human rights and in obedience to EU distribution quotas, there is no assurance that your accounting for your use of European money will be accurate.
[...]
Move I (the EU): We invite you to agree to the Corona Fund, including the ROLM and the possibility of you not getting anything unless you mend your illiberal ways.
Countermove (Poland and Hungary): We will never vote for this mechanism, so forget about your fund. Veto!
Move II: If you vote against the mechanism and thereby against the Fund, we’ll set up a fund for the other 25, and we’ll find a Treaty base for it, the Treaties are big and complex enough, paper is patient as the Germans say, and you won’t get a damn cent.
Countermove: That won’t be nice, it won’t be European (little they know!), and it would be illegal.
The chorus, impersonated by the German press, singing and dancing: See, money works; they do as they are told because they want our cash. It’s so good to be rich.
Enter the presidents, in the hour of truth, led by Merkel, dea ex machina, Mistress of the Closed Session, representing the country that happens to formally preside over the other countries in the second half of 2020, and informally anyway. Germany needs Eastern Europe for business. It also feels it cannot allow the Americans to have a monopoly on anti-Russian geopolitics. This precludes falling out with Poland over Polish sovereignty. After much back and forth, in the darkroom of intergovernmental diplomacy, Poland and Hungary agree to the Recovery Fund, complemented by a ROL document. According to it the Commission will issue a ‘Budget Protection Directive’ tying Corona and indeed any other EU subsidies to a national legal system independent enough to secure a correct accounting for EU moneys received. The Directive will not, however, take force until it is reviewed by the European Court. In the meantime – likely to last until early 2023 – the Commission will take no action under it, and money will flow to all 27. Once, and if, the mechanism has passed muster by the Court, the Commission may start proceedings against Poland, Hungary or both, to claim back money already disbursed, on the ground that the Polish and Hungarian legal systems are so rotten that they cannot generally be expected to render judgments in line with, well, the ‘rule of law’. Clearly this will take more time, and nobody knows what the world will be like then and what member states will by then be concerned about.
Click to expand...
 
let Anglosphere rot , while Europeans can make trade deals on their own without UK acting as America's agent to delay and stall . No , lSlL will not be forgiven .
 
r16 said:
let Anglosphere rot , while Europeans can make trade deals on their own without UK acting as America's agent to delay and stall.
Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't go that far - but the main proponent of US foreign policy inside the EU is gone yes...

Unobstructed trade across the channel with the UK in particular will continue to be very important to the member states near the North Sea here, but politically the influence of the axis UK/US on EU policy will be seriously reduced I agree.

And human rights in China are item xxx on the agenda for most in continental Europe I suspect.

No , lSlL will not be forgiven...
Click to expand...

Not sure I get you there - ISIL ?
 
Last edited:
just like everybody will oneday die , empires also fall . The British (although they were not exactly happy doing it) passed the torch to America between 1916-46 or thereabouts . Though the two had too much in common and money knew no borders and so on . France lost its Colonial Empire thing to Anglosaxons , would have lost even more had America not learned its own limits in Vietnam . Russia was a great threat , German revanchism was a (future) threat , etc etc ... all resulting in the EU . America's promise was it would be number one militarily to advance and protect Capitalism and all the lowlives would then plunder the world together . Clinton's Global Village years . Anglosphere , despite its best efforts , down to Hollywood and its babes and whatnot , in the end , decided Religious Extremism was a thing . And certain races and stuff had no place . lnstead of a global system , the goddamned village , where every single nation was willing to accept America's undisputed leadership as long as elites profitted together , Anglos would be the feudal lords living in the castle and every other single person would know his/her place . Hence Dabya and his 6 months long refusal to be briefed on El Kaide and the Saudi plot and his reading goat stories to a bunch of kids on 9/11 and his insistence to keep reading and the way Airforce One travelling in radio silence while with an escort of a full squadron of F-15s . Etc , etc ... Finally , because Anglos were risking the entire world economy and Europe had its own fears of Holocausts , it was the first American Black President on whose watch the slave markets of Telafer happened . This is where a certain MacMaster was tasked to cover the ethnic cleansing of Turkomans out of the way of a Kurdish operated pipeline to the Mediterranean and (in view of the whole America press or something) was stopped by some odd sort of Arabian jihadist El Kaideist terrorists who outfired the American troops and left none of their dead behind ... Confused ? Don't bother questioning . lt only increased the value of Kurds , some mighty and still untapped fighting force . When MacMaster was in the White House he definitely didn't like CFC , with his Kurds always whimpering about this or that . American Exceptionalism makes Americans kinda racists , leaving them unable to comprahend that Kurds are just as smart as them , and with like an additional one thousand or more years of experience in the Middle East when compared to Americans . Accordingly lSlL was the proxy whose defeat would lead to the creation of a Kurdish Nation State which would then lead to the unification of all Kurds , to let their mighty fighting power to be finally unleashed . Etc , etc . There has never been an American shift to the Pasific , it is just bluster and a smokescreen , because Feudalism requires its own ancient set of beliefs .


translation : We will see a replay , with practically the same set of players , with the UK "owning" New Turkey more openly this time , "moderating" American "pressure" , with stuff they had to allow to happen under some more "effective" control . Like those drones New Turkey has killed thousands with being just the easiest reminder .

translation of the translation . More of the same , though it should escalate far more and much faster , and rightfully so .
 
Last edited:
Hm - nothing of all that has anything to do with the EU-China deal - does it ?

https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/the-strategic-implications-of-the-china-eu-investment-deal/

The deal was sufficiently important for Xi to intervene personally. Clearly, he considered this a strategic issue and sensed that the deal needed to be struck within the window of opportunity before the end of the German presidency of the EU Council and during the lull between the Trump and the Biden administrations in the U.S.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
probably nothing at my own post , but doing stuff is easier when there is a common enemy , say , a sneaky leader taking advantage when the mighty is not in the fight or something . Accordingly the Chinese are evilly rushing things before Bidon fully taking charge . lf it had happened later with Bidon in fully in charge , a different excuse could easily be found .
 
r16 said:
probably nothing at my own post , but doing stuff is easier when there is a common enemy , say , a sneaky leader taking advantage when the mighty is not in the fight or something . Accordingly the Chinese are evilly rushing things before Bidon fully taking charge . lf it had happened later with Bidon in fully in charge , a different excuse could easily be found .
Click to expand...

Big Brother is watching, r16. You don't want to be accused of being an agent of Goldsteinegon.
 
the talk in the street appears to be that ı am THE Big Brother and that is nothing about my family , too .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Theov
Imagine you're a negotiator between the Ukraine and Russia... how would you solve this problem?
4 5 6
Replies
101
Views
4K
Snowygerry
S
P
Mass Killings in the US (2024)
2
Replies
28
Views
744
Paul in Saudi
P
Kaitzilla
The Boeing Thread
3 4 5
Replies
87
Views
3K
EvaDK
EvaDK
Estebonrober
Iran, the Red Sea, and the West (tm).
54 55 56
Replies
1K
Views
38K
amadeus
amadeus
Narz
How do we cheer up the English?
7 8 9
Replies
168
Views
5K
Comrade Ceasefire
Comrade Ceasefire
Top Bottom