[peoplewindow]

I hate to point this out, but Germany's government collapsed last year essentially because there's no consensus there for Merkle's ultra-pro-EU ultra-pro-migrant policies. She's still struggling to form a coalition months later. This is by far the longest German government collapse in history.

So if you think Germany is going to be radically different to the UK, I would suggest thinking again. Anti EU sentiment is rising everywhere.

[ben_w]

There are several important things here:

1) All the main German federal parties support the EU.

2) The migration concerns are about asylum seekers rather than EU citizens, because (as I have discovered by trying) German bureaucracy is effective at keeping out speculative job seekers like me.

3) The UK government keeps passing surveillance laws which violate the UK implementation of the European declaration of human rights, and I don’t like that the UK will start getting away with it after they leave the relevant jurisdiction.

4) The UK government has no agreement amongst its own ministers about the strategic goals for Brexit, let alone figured out the relative costs and benefits of different ways to approach it, let alone made preparations for it.

I don’t mean small things either, May said the UK would leave the Customs Union but the Treasury doesn’t want to and nobody has even submitted planning permission for building new customs inspections points.

3 and 4 are the big problems for me. Personally staying in the EU is merely desirable, not Earth-shatteringly vital.

[peoplewindow]

What do you mean by "main"? The third largest party in Germany wants to leave the euro. That's why the government collapsed - their new electoral success. Is third largest party not "main"?

W.R.T. surveillance, yes that sucks, but spy agencies have never been accountable to the law in any country as far as I can tell. German BND is exactly the same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Intelligence_Service_(...

To the extent that they're less effective than GCHQ this reflects maybe a smaller budget or less capable employees, rather than major difference in intent. BND certainly doesn't care about EU human rights law any more than other countries do.

With respect to (4), the EU has no agreement amongst its own leaders about the strategic goals for Brexit either. Merkle and Macron want to exploit it to massively deepen integration, but Merkle is now longer chancellor and there's no clear consensus in Germany for that. Netherlands, Finland, other countries don't want deeper integration. Eastern European countries are busy fighting the commission and want deep relations with the UK after leaving. But the EU can't stop attempting to cherry-pick: the very thing it criticizes the UK for. The only deal it's been able to propose is all the bits the EU wants and none of the things the UK wants, steadily increasing the chance of no deal at all. And that's about 10% of the mess.

The reason Brexit is proving difficult to handle smoothly is because the EU and its loyalists really struggle with the idea of compromise, and extremism always divides people - go watch Darkest Hour and see how even in the face of a far, far, far worse and clearer adversary than Michel Barnier the British government was still split down the middle between "go it alone and fight" vs "appease and hope for the best". No big surprise that the same "give them whatever they want" vs "walk away" tension can be seen now too. That's democratic governments for you.

[ben_w]

I’m on a phone so this is only going to be a limited reply:

“Main” - literally all other parties with seats have refused to be in a coalition with AfD. Also, unless they’ve changed position since I last looked (they might, as I don’t look at them often), they are currently anti-€ rather than anti-EU.

Further, the EU’s strategic goals from Brexit is damage limitation and clear resolution. I think you’re mixing up their goal for Brexit itself with the potential post-Brexit futures for the EU, which I think they should be considering about now-ish.

As for the EU’s attitude to compromise, I wish to point out that not only did the EU compromise on budget contributions with Thatcher; not only did Cameron get compromises from the EU right before the referendum; not only did the EU compromise and allow opt-outs on the Euro, Schengen, defence (Denmark’s the only one who wanted that), partial opt-outs of the charter of fundamental rights (“lol” UK and Poland), and something I don’t understand beyond guessing from the name called “area of freedom, security and justice”; in addition to all that, the _point_ of the EU is compromise between member states.

[peoplewindow]

Indeed, as I said above:

> The third largest party in Germany wants to leave the euro

I presume they feel they have to leave the euro before there is an option of leaving the EU.

It's true that other parties refuse to be in coalition with the AfD. This is a bad move on their part. It doesn't make them not a main party though. Especially because the other parties have also been refusing to be in coalitions with each other too.

Right now German politics is the most disastrous in Europe - all the political leaders hate each other, all have publicly trashed each other, all have been refusing to work together and yet Merkel and her buddies continue to rule as if nothing had happened. It's taking months to form a government because they're trying to figure out which party-destroying, soul-sucking coalition is least unacceptable to them and the voters.

We will have to disagree on the EU's approach to compromise. Yes, it compromised with Thatcher back in the 1980's but that was a different time. The EU was much smaller and its institutions felt much less powerful, so compromise and teamwork was much more important back then. As the EU has grown so have its ambitions and the character of the project has changed. The modern EU is not the same organisation that Thatcher dealt with.

That can be seen in recent events. Cameron was given nothing at all and told to pretend it was some massive sacrifice by other leaders. The British public easily saw through that instantly which is why virtually nobody in the remain campaign referred to his "deal" ever again. A compromise would have been the UK suspending unlimited immigration from the EU. It was made clear that such a thing was never going to be on offer and they thought it was insane to even ask.

As for the opt-outs ... good luck keeping them in the event of a remain vote! The EU sees "opt outs" as some horrible nasty legacy thing that they regret ever happened, not as a basic part of negotiation. Even their phrasing shows what they truly think: Germany and Germans like to refer to them as "special privileges"! I have German friends and debated Brexit with one of them once, that's how she called them and I'm not surprised, they call it "extrawürst" in their language - extra sausage. Deep down Germans know that the EU is an undesirable future, but feel they have to suffer through it anyway for the greater good (elimination of Germany as a country and transference of German pride to Europe, a new country free of the horrible history of their own).