[rdm_blackhole]

I am sorry but why do you believe in the European project? Also what is the European project?

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.

[gamesbrainiac]

The EU is European Project.

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.

[rdm_blackhole]

> 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.

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.

[Macha]

> France, Germany, the Northern European countries were wealthy before the EU became the EU as we know it today.

When China was still suffering through the effects of Mao, when India was still a British colony, when Brazil was still under the influence of Portugal, sure.

So sure, Europe could have coasted on the spoils of the colonial era a bit longer, but if Europe wants a table in the 21st century with the US and the rise of India and China, then Europe needs to be a unified bloc out of pure demographic reality.

As a recent example, in a world without the EU, would the countries that are in the EU have been able to stand up to Russia last year in the gas supply? I certainly think Germany at least would have blinked.

[surgical_fire]

Funny thing - I live in Europe, but I am not European. I think the EU is such a net positive for everyone involved that I am dumbfounded whenever I hear some European person speak against it.

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).