This is really a political issue. Here in Germany nobody would ever think of excluding UK when talking about "Europe". The same goes for France, Belgium, and so on. And nobody would ever have to explicitly say "European Union" just to make clear that they also mean UK. Of course UK is part of Europe! We have deep historical, cultural and political connections, let alone the massive economic interrelations - as depicted in the article.
Their strange view is a pity, and we can only hope that the UK politicians will change their view - either by understanding, or by being replaced with more sane politicians in the next elections.
I have to say I am surprised by your comment, as it assumes that politicians are responsible for their country's perspective on Europe? Surely it is the other way round, and the politicians have an obligation to represent their citizens' viewpoints fairly and transparently - regardless of whether it is seen as palatable by the bureaucrats. It does seem that some EU politicians (read: Merkel) are only discovering this right now.
Since they participate in the EEA, they don't really have a choice to say no to the EEA legislation. They are required to implement similar legislation within a certain time period, otherwise the EEA will sue the government for not fulfilling their contract. About the only way to really say "no" to something is to rescind their EEA membership.
Case in point: data retention was forced through in Iceland through the EEA agreement. This unpopular legislation went through because "it's an EEA requirement, you don't want to leave the single market do you?". After it was implemented, the directive was struck down by the EU court, so it's no longer required for EEA area countries to implement. But Iceland is still stuck with the data retention laws, and they're unlikely to go anywhere as revoking laws is much, much harder than passing them.
That's only half of the story.
Many other European countries were in the same situation as Iceland, but didn't hurry to implement their data retention. Instead they decided to wait for the EU court ruling.
Also, that lawsuit came to no surprise. I bet the activists would have loved to start the lawsuit even earlier, but you can't start a lawsuit against something that doesn't exist yet.
They are responsible for the country's actions towards other countries. To make it more clear: I deeply hope that they are not really backed by the population, and that they will either notice that on their own, or that the next elections which show a shift towards "working together" instead of "against each other" in Europe.
We can't solve all issues in Europe if every country optimized only for themselves, ignoring their neighbours.
> the politicians have an obligation to represent their citizens' viewpoints fairly and transparently
Note that there are also European politicians (the European parliament), which are elected as well and serve their citizens' viewpoints as well. Interestingly, those manage to find better solutions, thinking about all Europeans despite representing just a subset of them. Unfortunately, the European parliament has not much power in the overall EU process, which is another real pity.
> It does seem that some EU politicians (read: Merkel) are only discovering this right now.
Our German politicians have (and always had) a disproportionally large influence in Europe. So there was never a need for Germany to distance from Europe. However, this also led to suboptimal solutions in the past, to say the least. But to me, this is not a sign that the "European project" doesn't work. For me, it shows that we aren't consequent enough. The member governments (read: European commission) have too much influence and the European parliament (which is the only instance that equally represents all European citizens) doesn't have enough influence.
I think any businessperson in the UK understands the economic value that the EU brings to us all. But most voters aren't businesspeople. When ordinary people hear about the EU it's about regulations, subsidies, or funding for things that seem relatively frivolous, none of which really make a great case for it.
I'm no scholar of English history but the Glorious Revolution was at least as big a breach in political continuity as the American Revolution and resulted in a foreigner (Dutch) on the English throne. And the Hannoverians are another separate royal line that had continental European holdings.
Not really, not post-Civil War. It was a reaffirmation of the same principle - that Parliament governed the country and could determine who sat on the throne. William of Orange came at the invitation of Parliament (and although he was declared King that was more a matter of being married to Mary than of being King in his own right or by force of arms). The Hannoverians were placed on the throne by the Act of Settlement. We don't see either as an invasion or revolution.
Also culturally, I'd say the UK has more in common with the other Anglophone nations than it does with most of Europe.
Ask the French. :)
