Thread: Будущее Евросоюза.

"Eurosceptic" is a word from British media. It means a person who is suspicious and cautious about anything related to the EU.

I couldn't understand all what Ramil was saying, but as a footnote to this discussion, does anyone know what Finland has done to p*ss off Russia lately? The "RT" TV channel seems to absolutely hate Finland, and some other Russian media too... but I can't really work out why. After over 50 years of trying to avoid annoying Russia, it seems their policy has failed, I wonder why?

As for the future of Europe....
The thing is; we have NO choice. We have to support the EU whether we like it, or not.

Germany, as the biggest and strongest country must support it, because if Germany went its own way, and became strong on its own, everybody would get nervous. A strong and influential Germany is only OK to other Europeans as long as it is the big friendly giant in the EU, dishing out money to anyone who needs it... That's exactly how it is at the moment. Germany is like the Santa Claus in the EU.... lol!

And most of the rest of the European national states are too small to stand up to economic and other competition from Asia... to the USA and perhaps even Russia, if it returns to superpower status...

The days when a small European country could be incredibly influential and rich on its own merits, are over.

Only Switzerland and Norway can afford to reject the EU but it probably won't last forever.

Norwegians have Oil and are rolling in money at the moment; and people there generally think that the EU is too aggressively capitalist etc, etc.
The Swiss have their banks and a currency that fills a specific niche role. I am not sure what precisely they have against the EU, but there are many possibilities.

At least half the countries are quite reluctant members... either because people in general in those countries are too Red, too Green or too Nationalist --- and because they are suspicious towards most of the other EU countries and people from other parts of Europe...

But people are aware that not much can be done and that the EU and the Euro is the future. The EU is set up to ensure that smaller countries get a disproportionately large representation and to avoid domination by the bigger countries.

The only way it could work properly going forward.... would be if nationalistic pride was reduced a bit in some countries, or transferred to an European level. Britain for example is literally sabotaging many EU initiatives for no reason other that the ideas are not British..

I feel ambivalent about the EU. I was a big supporter initially when Sweden joined.. Now I am in too minds about it.

I can't tell you what an improvement the Euro is though, just for convenience, not having to change money. It's inevitable that all the countries will have to join sooner or later, and it is to the EUs credit that it is not forcing anyone.

Originally Posted by Hanna

The thing is; we have NO choice. We have to support the EU whether we like it, or not.

Germany, as the biggest and strongest country must support it, because if Germany went its own way, and became strong on its own, everybody would get nervous. A strong and influential Germany is only OK to other Europeans as long as it is the big friendly giant in the EU, dishing out money to anyone who needs it... That's exactly how it is at the moment. Germany is like the Santa Claus in the EU.... lol!

And does Germany have a choice?

Originally Posted by Crocodile

And does Germany have a choice?

Well, as the biggest and richest country in Europe, they could say (essentially); "Stuff the EU & Yankees go home -- enough of foreigners, we can go it alone! Watch your back neighbours!"

But if they turned their back against the EU, then everyone would turn against Germany and we would have a terrible situation in Europe. So even if Germany COULD do that, and some people probably want to, they know it's not worth it. As it is now, nobody dislikes Germany, but the two world wars are not forgotten and it would not take much for other Europeans to turn against DE for that reason. In England, people LOVE to bring up the war when speaking with Germans. Really bad form, I think.

The original idea behind the EU was to tie up the French and German economies so much that they could never start a war against the other, without hurting themselves. It's worked really well...

Originally Posted by Marcus

В
Европейском союзе, а не в Европе. Самый большой язык Европы - русский (около 100 000 000 носителей).

That's why I am trying to learn Russian!

Originally Posted by Ramil

That's 'True Finns' resemble national-socialism very strongly and we both know who advocated this particular -ism in Germany not so long ago.

Well... As much as I like Finland... as you probably know, they practically invited the Nazis in during the war. There has never been any discussion or reconciliation about that in Finland - nobody feels bad about it.

If you go to Finland, one of the things you'll notice quite quickly, is that there are practically NO immigrants. Everyone looks Nordic/Finnish. Not even any Turkish or Greek people, certainly no Black or Middle Eastern people. Just Finns essentially and a few Baltic people and Russians -- and you only realise they are not Finnish when they speak.
They just don't like to have foreign people in their country and for various reasons, nobody has ever emigrated there, and they take almost no refugees.