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> It seems to be a process designed and intended to cause conflict and euroscepticism.

Just like the EU itself, it's a compromise. Every member state wants to have its cake (economic benefits) and eat it, too (full sovereignty).

That can't work because a deep economic integration is... surprise, surprise, a deep political and social integration.

The EU Parliament is probably the only parliament in the world that I know of, that can't introduce new laws.

pyuser583 1216 days ago

The US is very economically integrated with China.

But it is not socially or politically integrated with China.

Same could be said with US/Mexico, China/Taiwan, etc.

The European Project sees social and political integration as ends themselves.

It uses economic advantages as a way to convince voters to adopt policies that aren’t economically required.

> The US is very economically integrated with China.

No, it's not. It is slightly economically integrated, and mostly in terms of physical goods.

Are American IP laws applicable in China and the other way around? For example when licensing a Disney movie in the US, can I distribute it in China?

Do you get warranty in China for any good sold in the US and vice versa?

Do both countries use, by law, the same systems of measurements?

That's what deep economic integration looks like.

pyuser583 1216 days ago

None of these three things require open borders, which the EU insists on.

In fact, the Canada has all three in common with the EU.

But the EU insists on open borders because they want social and political integration, not just economic integration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union

My list was not an exhaustive list :-)))

> But the EU insists on open borders because they want social and political integration, not just economic integration.

Yes, they do. You don't know what the EU project is about. You don't know its history:

> After the war on 19 September 1946 Chruchill went further as a civilian, after leaving office, at the University of Zürich, calling for a United States of Europe

> To ensure Germany could never threaten the peace again, its heavy industry was partly dismantled (See: Allied plans for German industry after World War II) and its main coal-producing regions were either awarded to neighbouring countries (Silesia), managed as separate directly by an occupying power (Saarland) or put under international control (Ruhr area)

> The founding fathers of the European Union understood that coal and steel were the two industries essential for waging war, and believed that by tying their national industries together, a future war between their nations became much less likely.

The EU was always a political union.

JadeNB 1216 days ago

> > But the EU insists on open borders because they want social and political integration, not just economic integration.

> Yes, they do. You don't know what the EU project is about. You don't know its history:

…

> The EU was always a political union.

I'm confused, because it seems that you and your parent are saying the same thing. Did you misread them as saying the EU doesn't want political integration?

pyuser583 1216 days ago

I understand the history of European integration.

Contrary to the expectation of everyone, the EU is mostly an economic body. It has other missions, but those are nowhere as popular or as effective as economic integration.

Cultural integration? EU cultural policy is focused on preserving local cultures, not promoting a Pan-European culture. They want a pan-European culture. They just don’t know how to make it.

Are there EU-wide sports leagues? EU wide award shows? Irish authors brag when they get shortlisted for the Booker Prize, not when they get some obscure EU award.

Political integration? What’s the turnout on EU elections?

Military integration? I read something about some experimental “European” unit somewhere. But there are probably more Germans in the French Foreign Legion than there are soldiers in the “EU” military.

The EU is a failure at everything except economics.

They want to do more. They really do. It’s “in the cards.”

And my original complaint was that the EU justifies non-economic measures using economic logic. Why? Because despite the despite the cultural, military, and political goals, the EU is mostly an economic entity,

But an economic union based upon mandatory liberal economics is certainly not what anyone had in mind before 1989.

Edit: A good example is freedom of movement. Originally, this was a cultural policy decided to make “Europeans.”

It’s failed. When Poles move to Ireland, they and their descendants become Irish, not European.

So the EU justifies it by talking about an “integrated labor market.”

shapefrog 1216 days ago

> require open borders, which the EU insists on

The EU does not insist upon "open borders".

The single market (EU) seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people, known collectively as the "four freedoms".

Article 45 covers the relevant things that the EU "insists" on including the restrictions the EU "insists" on - https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457

Perhaps you mean the external border of the EU - Article 3 covers that one, and the EU does have requirements that it insists on for this border. It obliges Member States to carry out systematic checks against relevant databases on all persons, including those with the right to free movement under EU law when they cross the external borders. i.e. they actually insist that it is a closed border.

denton-scratch 1216 days ago

> But the EU insists on open borders because they want social and political integration, not just economic integration.

I think the open borders thing is that you can't have an open internal market, unless workers can move freely across borders, as well as goods and capital. That is, it really is about economic integration.

busterarm 1216 days ago

The US has entire classes of financial instruments that are sold exclusively to the Chinese government.

You can't solely be linked by physical goods and it can't be one-sided. That results in trade imbalance which results in war. See the Opium Wars, for example.

Retric 1216 days ago

The China/US link is frequently overestimated it’s only 14% of total US trade. China isn’t even the US’s largest trading partner, it’s 3rd after Canada and Mexico, with a small lead over the EU. Really though the top 4 spots are all fairly close to each other.

piuantiderp 1216 days ago

I know that at least for Mexico, a lot of the trade with China has final destination the US.

csomar 1216 days ago

Same thing for all countries. This also applies to China. Stuff they produce can’t be made 100% in China. Though I’m sure China is playing games to get around import restrictions.

thatguy0900 1216 days ago

Look into the influence the Chinese gov has on Hollywood and video games. The fact that the Chinese market is a economically profitable one makes all of our media kowtow to them, I would call that a social integration.

IncRnd 1216 days ago

> That can't work because a deep economic integration is... surprise, surprise, a deep political and social integration.

That's not really the case. Many countries have economic ties with other coutries but no political or social ties. For example, the US imports most of the Uranium that it uses, but that doesn't mean political and social integration between the US and Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Russia or Namibia. [1]

[1] 47 million lbs imported in 2021. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...

nirimda 1216 days ago

Introduce new laws (into operation) or introduce new bills (into the agenda)? I thought it could introduce new laws that were directly applicable so long as they were related to certain matters. But the bills for the laws have to be introduced by the commission. The whole thing is sufficiently confusing that I could be wrong.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure that it is a standard EU compromise. The governments wrote the rules in the context of what must surely be constant disagreements between the parliaments and the governments (at least if the politics of my own non-EU country is anything to go by). I can't believe they didn't know what they were doing - taking power from their own colleagues in parliaments.

> I can't believe they didn't know what they were doing - taking power from their own colleagues in parliaments.

That's the compromise :-) I forget when exactly it happened, but I'm quite sure it coincided with an increase in the scope of EU responsibilities.

paulusthe 1216 days ago

This went through the EU Parliament. It was not an instruction handed down as dictat by an unelected bureaucrat or executive.

The same process is how every other EU wide regulation goes into effect. EU passes it, the member states get their input during the EU process, and the member states are then obligated to abide by the rules.

An analogous process, which is not a perfect analog but is similar, is how US federal rules get passed down to the states. The states get their input on federal legislation at the federal level, but then must abide by the resulting federal law.

I'd also add that giving every country a veto on any legislation would basically guarantee nothing gets done.

friend_and_foe 1216 days ago

That's not how the US federal system works at all. It's not even similar. States are free to not enforce federal law and ignore it entirely. States cannot be directly compelled by the federal government to pass laws, though in practice they have done it a couple of times using education funding and highway funding as a carrot/stick.

Another big difference is that the state governments themselves have no representation in the federal government since the passage of the 17th amendment.

chimeracoder 1216 days ago

> The states get their input on federal legislation at the federal level, but then must abide by the resulting federal law.

States have zero input on federal legislation (except constitutional amendments, which are rare, and not really "legislation").

Until the 17th Amendment, states had input via the Senate, but now that senators are elected directly by voters, states have no formal representation at the federal level.

lakomen 1216 days ago

There was also ambiguity in how the vote was formulated and what yes and no meant. Many people demonstrated against the changes and they got pushed through by a suspicious voting process by Herr Voss.

You're now a criminal if you offer your webspace for free and someon3 uploads anything unlawful in the broadest sense.

Thanks EU corruption.

ta1243 1216 days ago

Three groups passed this law

* The EU Commission (headed by commissioners appointed by the government of the members, 1 per member)

* The EU council (makde up of the heads of government of the members, 1 vote per member) - so sort of in line with US senate as originally enacted (where the state government chooses the senators)

* The EU parliament (voted directly by the population, broadly in line with the population, although smaller members get more MEPs per person) - so broadly in line with US congress

in the US, I believe states have to meet federal laws, they can't pass a law saying "murder is legal" or whatever. It's an imperfect system, but so is the US system.

Not quite. It’s overlapping jurisdiction and overlapping sovereignty.

Murder would still be illegal under common law, but let’s take your hypothetical and say that it wasn’t, and say that a state didn’t have a statute against murder: the Federal Government could prosecute under Federal law in the Federal court system.

The States have no obligation to charge under that same Federal statute though, and in fact can’t because it’s not their law.

xeromal 1216 days ago

Great distinction. It's how states get away with making weed "legal" even thought its illegal federal. Today, a federal agent could easily charge with you having a schedule 1 drug on your person in California and it would easily ruin your life. Banks generally won't deal with weed stores for this very reason so California had a vote to make it's on state-run bank but I can't remember if it passed.

That said, I don't think federal agents ever charge anyone primarily for possessing weed though I wouldn't be surprised if they add it on to an additional charge.

Mountain_Skies 1216 days ago

A couple decades ago, Alabama had no state law against prostitution, relying on the counties to have such laws, which all of them did. But there were certain parts of the causeway over Mobile Bay that weren't claimed by the adjacent counties, leading to small buildings used for prostitution being erected on some of the built-up land next to the road. Not sure about the outcome, going to guess the state DOT claimed ownership of the land, even if no county exerted jurisdiction, and used state law to have the buildings removed.

Huh. That is interesting and this is why I never take anything for granted in State laws and am willing to only speak in very very broad generalities about “the States”.

A piece of land being outside of a “county” isn’t something that could happen in my State because the counties are effectively administrative divisions that encompass all the lands and waters of the State so where one county ends the next begins up until the State and national borders anyway. Beyond those lines, it’s somebody else’s problem.

dfawcus 1216 days ago

Murder is not illegal under English Common Law, it is unlawful.

So have US states actually passed statutes against murder, as opposed to simply setting the penalties for it?

> Murder is not illegal under English Common Law, it is unlawful.

Correct, and thanks!

> So have US states actually passed statutes against murder, as opposed to simply setting the penalties for it?

I don’t have a state-by-state breakdown, but if you murder someone in any State, you can be prosecuted for it by that State. You can check Florida Title XLVI Chapter 782 to see what their Homicide Statute defines as “Murder”.

vageli 1216 days ago

> in the US, I believe states have to meet federal laws, they can't pass a law saying "murder is legal" or whatever. It's an imperfect system, but so is the US system.

Marijuana is illegal at the federal level yet many states have legalized it.

gizmo686 1216 days ago

There is no federal law requiring States to enforce federal drug policy. The inability of the federal government to compel state laws has been a source of tension throughout US history.

For a non-controversial, consider the drinking age in the US. To a first approximation, this was set by Congress in 1984 with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. However, this law doesn't actually set a drinking age. It witholds federal highway funding from states that refuse to do so.

For a more controversial example, consider the medicaid expansion portion of the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not compell states to implement it, allowing some states to not do so. For completeness, I should point out that the expansion was 100% federally funded to start with, and dropped gradually to 90% by 2020, where it is set to remain indefinitely.

Another major example from US history is the Fugitive Slave Act, which required non-slave states to assist in returning escaped slaves. Some Northern states refused to coorporate with this law and was part of what led to the civil war. (Ironically, this is probably the clearest way that "states' rights" was a cause of the civil war, but I don't think it is what most people have in mind when they say "states" rights".

zxcvbn4038 1216 days ago

I don’t believe the states have to embrace everything the federal government says - see marijuana and enhanced IDs as examples. However the federal government often ties receiving federal funds to passing and enforcing federal policy. So don’t want to issue identification documents in compliance with the real ID act? Loose a portion of the highway funds. Want legal pot? Loose a portion of the highway funds. And so on.

weberer 1216 days ago

State law can't override federal law. They have just instructed state police to not enforce that specific law. You could still be convicted by the FBI if they were to get involved for whatever reason, such as selling across state lines.

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-mar...

frankreyes 1216 days ago

Is that what Biden un- did with the pardons?

Sorry for the weird question, non us here o/

weberer 1216 days ago

No because the law is still active. You would need congress to repeal or amend it. Or the supreme court to rule it unconstitutional. Also this just pardons people who were convicted in the past.

>Does the proclamation protect me from being charged with marijuana possession in the future?

>No. The proclamation pardons only those offenses occurring on or before October 6, 2022. It does not have any effect on marijuana possession offenses occurring after October 6, 2022.

toyg 1216 days ago

Interstate trade of marijuana is illegal, even between states that legalized trade inside state borders.

Jurisdiction be jurisdictin'.

treeman79 1216 days ago

Constitution gives federal government certain rights. Everything else is up to states. So states could declare murder legal. But would probably fail as a 1st amendment violation. Which is part of the constitution is above federal law.

Now the constitution grants federal government, the right to regulate interstate commerce. Which has been abused horribly to regulate things that have nothing to do with interstate commerce.

s1artibartfast 1216 days ago

It's also worth highlighting that in the US Federal representatives are democratically elected by the constituents whereas EU commissions are appointed. The US has Federal commissions called committees, but they have less legislative power

toyg 1216 days ago

EU commissioners work in partnership with elected Members of EU Parliament (MEP), for the simple reason that it makes no sense to write laws that MEPs will then veto.

ta1243 1216 days ago

Who voted for the US Secretary of State?

Those aren’t exactly commissions. They’re an organizational and productivity scheme of the Legislative branches through which they subdivide work between sitting democratically elected legislators. If something makes it out of committee, it can make it to the floor, but no committee is committing legislative acts on its own.

There are Executive agencies called “commissions”, but they don’t have bonafide legislative power, so much as a scheme by which they try to reinterpret the legislation that authorized their existence and outlined their powers and jurisdiction to accumulate to themselves more authority such that a Court will occasionally step in and say “naw dawg”.

s1artibartfast 1216 days ago

This is basically what I am trying to say. Sorry if it wasnt clear.

Archelaos 1216 days ago

> why not include the possibility of a national veto at implementation stage

In case of such a veto of a single member, the whole legislative process would in the general case be set back to were it started, because the other members had agreed under the condition that everyone implements the agreement and other countries might want to renegotiate.

The EU's ability to force a country to a certain legislation goes even further: In the early years of the EU every country had to consent to an EU legislation; today, under the Lisbon Treaty[1], EU countries must implement an EU regulation in certain areas even if they voted against it. This is based on the belief that a union of 27 states would otherwise hardly be able to act.

There had been cases were single members had been granted specific exceptions (most notably the UK, during its membership, and Denmark when it joined) or must meet certain conditions before they need to implement something (for example, in principle every EU country except Denmark must introduce the Euro when it meets certain criteria; but the EU tolerates that Sweden deliberately fails one criterium, since it has voted in a referendum to stay out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism II). But these exceptions had been agreed on beforehand and some date from a time when the sovereignty of the individual states was valued more highly. Today, the EU tends to avoid such special rules for general cases as far as possible, because legal fragmentation is seen as problematic.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Act_of_the_European_Unio...

codethief 1216 days ago

Going for a directive (as opposed to a regulation[0]) was probably a conscious decision. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_(European_Union) :

> There are justifications for using a directive rather than a regulation: (i) it complies with the EU's desire for "subsidiarity"; (ii) it acknowledges that different member States have different legal systems, legal traditions and legal processes; and (iii) each Member State has leeway to choose its own statutory wording, rather than accepting the Brussels' official "Eurospeak" terminology.

> For example, while EU Directive 2009/20/EC (which simply requires all vessels visiting EU ports to have P&I cover) could have been a regulation (without requiring member states to implement the directive), the desire for subsidiarity was paramount, so a directive was the chosen vehicle.