Taram!!! The new Europe.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
If France and Germany want to unify into a single country - go ahead. That doesn't mean everyone else has to join in too. If it works they may want to. When it fails the rest of us won't have had to go through a painful and expensive experience.

Yes, I think that is a point. Although I wouldn't call it "a single country", at least not yet. But in the future the EU should go the way into a single country, in my opinion. I know that this opinion isn't very popular in some countries. Strangely most of them are monarchies, a pattern?

But you hit the nail very well. Everyone can join, but nobody has to.

[laurentius]

Yeah! But not that Lidl crap

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
But you hit the nail very well. Everyone can join, but nobody has to.

As long as we are allowed beat Germany at football occasionally and pretend that we still run our own affairs and that our politicians make a difference the UK will join in.

So, if we can agree on the football thing it's a deal then, right?

[Harovan]

Anytime. At the moment this isn't very hard, actually. But be prepared to beat "Core Europe" in the future.

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Yes, I think that is a point. Although I wouldn't call it "a single country", at least not yet. But in the future the EU should go the way into a single country, in my opinion. I know that this opinion isn't very popular in some countries. Strangely most of them are monarchies, a pattern?

But you hit the nail very well. Everyone can join, but nobody has to.

Well, I want a single country in the future

[Pekka]

So wait, we small ones are the only ones losing soverignity? That's not Union! That's integration to bigger countries. That's like little satellite countries, that are autonomus. It's not union.

And as for the core. Well it can be argued, but it's not believable without UK. So, they don't want to join it. So, what are we going to do about it? Now we're basically saying 'well screw the UK'. We should think about how to make it more appealing. Not this ' you're with us or against us'.

Furthermore, I once again talk about the conspiracy. It's pretty good plan and it's working out so far. Now NATO is not working very good, because Chirac can veto what ever he wants. We can see NATO as American military alliance, but it doesn't work 100% now. However, EU core will work 100% when it's ready, because Chirac will bash and toss around the little ones. Now, he has the only working military alliance in the world.
I don't like this.

It looks like crap, smells like crap and sounds like crap.. must be crap.

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Pekka
It looks like crap, smells like crap and sounds like crap.. must be crap.

pull your head out of your arse. you will see things more clearly then ... (no personal insult intended, sounded just cool)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I happen to be from Germany and therefor will say "we" if I mean the Germans. You are free to interpret into this whatever you want.

Zieg HAIL! Jawohl , mein Fuher.

[Dinner]

I think the final solution is to have a bicamrial parlement where the lower house has representation determined by population and an upper house where all member states are equal. Anything else and the big or little states will complain about how unfair the system is to them.

[DAVOUT]

I suggest that the fixed costs of running the EU be allocated in proportion of the decision power.

[Pekka]

dannubis, I'd like to, but I think we won't quit EU just like that .

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I suggest that the fixed costs of running the EU be allocated in proportion of the decision power.

No, not fixed costs. Instead it should be net costs vs net debters. I suspect if we do that we will find France takes more out of the EU budget then it puts in.

[Pekka]

I don't know. France might actually give more than take. As of now. But it's all about buying small countries to integrate.. so it's not very big price for that.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Oerdin


No, not fixed costs. Instead it should be net costs vs net debters. I suspect if we do that we will find France takes more out of the EU budget then it puts in.

You are so biased against my benevolent country that you refuse the only system which would have set a limit to the claims for more power.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I think the final solution is to have a bicamrial parlement where the lower house has representation determined by population and an upper house where all member states are equal. Anything else and the big or little states will complain about how unfair the system is to them.

This is similar to what the things are now. In the Council of Ministers, some votes are held with qualified majority (where countries weight differently according to their pop, although the smaöö countries are highly overrepresented), and some votes are held at Simple majority (where all countries are equal). Some votes even require all countries to be unanimous, but unanimity is now the exception rather than the rule.

The only difference betyeen the current model and what you'd call for, is where lies the real power. Currently, the real power lies in the "Senate", and the Lower House is badly underpowered.

Imagine a system where the US senate takes years to agree on any issue, after all senators had articulated their State's interests (i.e. no concern for the interest of the US as a whole). Imagine also these "senators" are not elected, and are civil servants who have nearly no ideological concerns when voting, only pocketbook ones.
Imagine that, in this system, the House of Reps can only agree or disagree with the Senate's decision.
And imagine that the executive has no real decision power, except suggesting things to the Senate. You'd have a picture of what the European system is right now.

The fact that the US is a federation makes possible something that doesn't exist in today's Europe: that two actually powerful institutions can care of the Nation's interest (the executive and the lower house). Although State-rights are high in the US, the federal interest has a priority.
In your system, you can, for example, amend the Constitution even if one or a few States disagree. In Europe, we cannot. We need the agreement of each and every freaking country when changing the rules, and this is the direct explanation of the bureaucratic hell that is the EU these days.

Sir Ralph among other Demogamers will remember when the Civ3 Demogame threatened to become a Bureaucracy Game as we added a myriad of rules to correct the flaws of the original document. Only when we had a major overhaul did we have clear and good rules.
On a much grander scale, this is the problem that's happening to the EU now. The rules of the 1957 EU with 6 members can simply not be the rules of the 2004 EU with 25 members.

The only area where the EU is highly successful, the trade policy, is because there is one supranational "Mr Trade" handling it (currently Pascal Lamy), and the Member-States decide only the general aims, rather than guiding him by the hand. There happens to be a general consensus on international trade issues (except for the CAP), which makes things easier.

The difference betyeen a EU where the power lies in a Parliament, and a EU where the power lies in the Council, is that a parliamentary EU doesn't handle issues out of national interest, but out of ideological posistions on what to do to reach global interest.
Although there are a few differences between countries, the ideological issues are similar across Europe: the role of the State in the economy, Welfare programs, work legislations, environmental concerns etc... All these issues grossly concern the Member-States equally. And the people of every country can make their opinion on these topics.

Currently, the European debate is devoid of ideological content. You speak about a "Senate" like in the US, but our current "Senate" refuses to take any position, and is only motivated by greed.
And the result of this is that we end up taking the "minimal agreement" position. For example, the Pact of Stability and the ains of the ECB, although completely outdated, cannot be changed simply because we cannot agree on the specifics. So, the contraproductive policy remains the same.

This is what poisons the EU. This is why we need a federal system, for the decision-making to be fluid at last