The EU was a good idea at the start. A bunch of countries wanting to preserve peace and increase trade? Sure sign me up.
That's what it was at the start.
But now, with the open borders between countries, laws that supersedes state laws, talks about having an army and a desire to turn European countries into the United States of Europe, what is the advantage here?
You could have pacts and treaties to foster cooperation and trade. You could share intelligence and help each other out just like any other country in the world does it currently without something like the EU to manage it all.
I think it's very easy to take the benefits of the EU and our resulting prosperity for granted. We need to actually have some power in the US-EU relationship, and the only way is to combine further.
I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
You opinion is that the EU is good because the EU is good. You want the United states of Europe. I don't.
France, Germany, the Northern European countries were wealthy before the EU became the EU as we know it today.
> I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
Yes, Europe, not the EU. That's my point. You can have Europe without the EU. You can have cooperation, trade, security without an overarching apparatus like the EU.
The main problems I see on the EU is that it is not integrated enough. There's a lot of bureaucracy that could be optimized if some things were more centralized (e.g.: labor laws, defense spending, etc).
