[barrenko]

Sure, theoretically, if it could come to an agreement, and meanwhile the cross-border cooperation of even the inter-EU countries is at an abysmal rate, and currently, even during a goddamn land war with Russia, Germany and France can't come to an agreement to build a fighter jet ensemble (together).

[piltdownman]

You mean like they've been doing since the 1950s with the the largest physics laboratory in the world (CERN)? Or more to the point, the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) of which 27/27 EU member states participate?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_High-Performance_Comp...

Even at the smaller level the ethos and ambition is clear - take EURO-3C: the Horizon Europe project aimed at delivering a pan-European sovereign infrastructure that integrates Telco, Edge, Cloud, and AI capabilities under a federated model which has 70+ Euro-participants.

https://www.medialaws.eu/the-euro-3c-initiative-a-new-dawn-f...

[graemep]

CERN is not an EU project, predates the EU, and is not located in the EU. EuroHPC JU includes a number of non-EU members.

I think that is the way forward: work with whoever has common interests and is willing to work together.

I think the point is that the EU does not necessarily make cooperation between governments any easier.

[mnewme]

It is partly located in the EU and primarily funded by European countries

[smashini]

Compute 2027 coming soon ;)

[qsort]

This is unfortunately the problem. The level of the public debate is abysmal, most politicians push unbelivably stupid shit about immigration and other identitarian nonsense, budget gets spent to ensure cheese and wine have the proper AOC certifications on them. Honestly up to a point I even understand it, many people don't see themselves as having a meaningful identity as EU citizens and you can't force it upon them.

Asking for sensible AI policy is like asking for a base on mars.

[mr_toad]

> many people don't see themselves as having a meaningful identity as EU citizens

I sometimes wonder if the citizens of the United States (of America) even comprehend that the EU is not itself a sovereign nation (unlike the states in say, the USA, or Australia) and is just a union of sovereign polities.

Nobody in the EU is an EU Citizen unless they are a citizen of one of the member states.

[davidguetta]

reducing unskilled and hateful immigration is the democratic thing do

this has nothing to the other good idea which is to start building AI

[ben_w]

> reducing unskilled and hateful immigration is the democratic thing do

Hateful, sure, though just like all those on the right who say the first word of "hate crime" is redundant, I'd argue home-grown hate's just as dangerous as imported.

But "unskilled" immigration? When the topic is AI? If this stuff works as advertised, *nobody's skills matter any more*. If it doesn't at least render many of our skills obsolete, why build it? If you make an AI which can't automate anything, how is this not a waste of money?

Even without that, I've not seen anyone who knows about Baumol's cost disease opine either way about migration, high or low skilled.

[qsort]

Actually yea, it has everything to do with it.

I am open to the idea that we should handle immigration differently, but I want a plan and specifics, not slogans. What we want to achieve, and by what mechanisms you plan to get there. Open any newspaper: are you more likely to find careful and considerate opinions or racist screeds?

And that is the problem. Time and energy and money and political capital are routinely spent on inconsequential electoral poliTICS rather than substantial poliCY.

[davidguetta]

you only need to handle immigration if you have immigration. problem is kinda solved if you don't have immigration or at least "immigration that cause problems"

i know many immigrant who don't pose any problem withou need for "handling" or "supervision"

[pelorat]

The fighter jet program was a jobs program, not dissimilar to how many US government programs are jobs programs by having different parts of it made in different states for no goo reason. Add in some nationalism and it was inevitable it would not work out.

[kube-system]

I always find it strange that being a "jobs program" is said as if derogatory, especially when talking about military equipment of all things. The free market optimizes for handling normalcy, not exception handling, like wartime. The reason to artificially these jobs is so that you have the factories and expertise to make these things when you need them.

[ExoticPearTree]

And what, they couldn't split the jobs 50/50 in any meaningful way so that everyone was happy? Dunno, you can let the french design and the germans build or something.

[pfdietz]

That's how you get something like Ariane 6 -- engineered to satisfy political constraints rather that to be competitive. Granted, NASA or to some extent the US military have the same problem.

[ExoticPearTree]

NASA is stubborn to keep going with Boeing. I'm actually fascinated that no one was put behind bars so far for the blunder the new rocket system is.

The US military has a few companies that it can work with to produce what it needs, so they are not necessarily tied to "we need to build a plane in 20 different locations to satisfy everyone".

And yeah, Europe has an expensive rocket no one wants to use commercially because it many times more expensive than the competition.

[fragmede]

If it's inevitable, then how come the F35's flying around? Sure there's some complaints to be made, but I've seen it work in person.

[morkalork]

In a weird sense, the EU exemplifies what the USA would be like without a strong federal government: Dysfunctional as states compete with, undercut and stifle each other.

[oliver236]

isnt the eu basically a less federalist version of the usa? how is it then that the usa claims its more free? the individual state members in the EU have more freedom than individual states.

someone explain this to me please

[ExoticPearTree]

> isnt the eu basically a less federalist version of the usa?

And what good does it do? The EU cannot speak in a single voice - there is no foreign minister, no defense minister, no whatever minister.

Like the EU foreign function: you have a person claiming to be the EU voice, and then you have the foreign ministers of every EU member that can just say whatever they want if what the EU voice says is contrary to their political game in their own country. Same for the other functions.

Being less federalist is not better, it is worse. The EU does not speak in a single voice in any domain.

[adev_]

> And what good does it do? The EU cannot speak in a single voice - there is no foreign minister, no defense minister, no whatever minister.

Nor can Switzerland. And still it is one of the best country world wide both in term of living and economically.

Distributed federal power like Switzerland trades quick decision making for resilience.

If it might look up 'messy' on the surface, it is in fact a quality. A very valuable one in fact: because it is exactly what prevent fucked up like Trump to happen in the EU.

[ExoticPearTree]

I've never seen the Swiss foreign minister being contradicted by another minister or by an official from a Canton.

But the EU foreign minister can be contradicted by basically any country president/prime minister or their foreign ministers if it says something that is not aligned with every other EU member.

[adev_]

> being contradicted by another minister or by an official from a Canton.

Then you are misinformed.

Because it happens continuously.

Canton executive argumenting again "conseil fédéral".

Local Syndic (Mayor) arguing against Canton decision.

Local parlement trying to address or delay legislation or arguing against Berne ones.

Just open a random news paper.

This is democracy, like it or not.

[vidarh]

Sort of, if you squint right.

The EU is in some ways closer to a confederation, but with various "hacks" - in the form of various treaties - to try to work around the problems that led the US to abandon it in favour of a federal model.

It's largely down to very different levels of willingness to integrate more, and various levels of opposition to the kind of constitutional changes that would be required for a federal model.

[sajithdilshan]

EU is no where near US. EU started as a economic union and became a political nightmare. It would have done far better had it stayed only as an economic Union. Further, EU doesn't have a constitution. In US every law maker swear to protect and uphold the constitution and I don't even know what is the equivalent in EU.

[smashini]

Id say the EU is less federal because each member country maintains its own sovereignty and local laws. Its more of a coalition of the willing. While in the US the federal gov can override states. The EU also has each state vote on different legislations. (Massive oversimplification)

[chermi]

Because the laws are different? Are you really confused?

[LastTrain]

The US lays claim to all kinds of bullshit. But more to the point; different values, different laws - does it matter how centralized the control is? I would argue neither is “more” free, just free in different ways. US has a huge problem in equal access to the law, which undermines freedom no matter how good the laws are.

[jandrewrogers]

In the US, the freedom is explicitly for the people, not Federal nor State government. States are relatively more free than the Federal government, but both are greatly restricted by the Constitution. Before the Constitution, the US had a previous government under the Articles of Confederation (see below) that had many deficiencies and only gave freedom to member States.

The EU is organized more similar to the US under the Articles of Confederation.

The first American government (Articles of Confederation) gave State governments almost unlimited power e.g. they could print their own money. It did not grant freedom to the people in any meaningful way. States were free to abuse this power both against their own citizens and, more importantly, the other member States. This created many practical problems.

The second and current American government (Constitution) learned lessons from this experience. It removed a limited set of key powers from the States and gave it to the Federal government such as the creation of currency. It also forced all States to interact with each other on the same terms, with strict oversight from the Federal government. Additionally, it explicitly granted rights to the people rather than their State governments, since the States had demonstrated they could not be trusted to do the right thing. These changes forced the States to play nicely with each other and treat their people better.

These changes were a large improvement. Almost every law an American experiences is State law, because States have much more freedom to create laws. The Federal government can only make laws from a short list. Both State and Federal governments are strictly prohibited from creating many kinds of laws.

In the US, freedom is for the people, not for the member States. The Federal government has even less freedom than the member States to make law.

[tremon]

> In the US, the freedom is explicitly for the people, not Federal nor State government.

I don't see how anyone can make this claim in 2026 and not expect to be laughed out of the room? In practice, freedom is for sale; it's not available to the people nor the citizens.

[jandrewrogers]

This is irrelevant to the subject at hand. Not everything needs to be about whatever outrage bait is the current thing on your social media feed.

[ben_w]

Normal in history. Change often isn't binary. Consider for example: the exact date of the end of the British empire is several possible dates between "the independence of Ireland in the immediate aftermath of WW1" and "it still hasn't".

[dofm]

You don't think US states compete with, undercut and stifle each other?

Second question: you think the USA has a strong federal government?

I mean that is actually an open question even in non-Trump years, not least when one side of the political aisle was famously dedicated to shrinking it down so small it could be "drowned in a bathtub", to quote one of its more famous assholes.

[TMWNN]

>You don't think US states compete with, undercut and stifle each other?

Compete with each other, yes.

But all US states take pride in Silicon Valley being American.

No EU project for its own "Silicon Valley" can succeed, because the French would insist on it being in France, Germans would insist on Germany, Dutch in the Netherlands, etc.

[ben_w]

> No EU project for its own "Silicon Valley" can succeed, because the French would insist on it being in France, Germans would insist on Germany, Dutch in the Netherlands, etc.

France and Germany and the Netherlands may compete with each other to attract VC and tech firms, but they're ultimately no more capable of preventing each other from getting a runaway success loop than New York and Utah were at preventing California from getting actual Silicon Valley.

The EU as an institution just doesn't wield any magic wand of creating things like that to be fought over, just like Washington DC also doesn't.

[TMWNN]

>France and Germany and the Netherlands may compete with each other to attract VC and tech firms, but they're ultimately no more capable of preventing each other from getting a runaway success loop than New York and Utah were at preventing California from getting actual Silicon Valley.

Yes, but why hasn't said success loop occurred anywhere else yet? Silicon Valley has been a "thing" for five decades now.

> The EU as an institution just doesn't wield any magic wand of creating things like that to be fought over, just like Washington DC also doesn't.

What I meant is that every time HN or elsewhere talks about Europe being behind the US in terms of tech there is mention of the need for a "European Silicon Valley". But that is going to require a level of support that is probably beyond the scale of one national government.

The EU can trace its origins back to France and Germany agreeing to combine its coal and steel.[1] Berlin and Paris would be happy to designate, say, the Strasbourg-Stuttgart axis as the "EU technology hub", with corresponding EU funding, but other member states aren't going to be happy.

[1] And further to the long wrangling over Alsace-Lorraine, but that's neither here nor there

[ben_w]

> Yes, but why hasn't said success loop occurred anywhere else yet? Silicon Valley has been a "thing" for five decades now.

Same reasons (plural) it also hasn't happened a second time anywhere else in the USA.

The list is long, and economics is full of anti-inductive loops.

> But that is going to require a level of support that is probably beyond the scale of one national government.

The EU as an institution is tiny in comparison to its member states, total budget only €192.8 billion: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/2026-euro...

> The EU can trace its origins back to France and Germany agreeing to combine its coal and steel.

While true, that's like saying the US can trace its origins back to some cold salty tea: it misses quite a lot of both the good and the bad.

[dofm]

> Yes, but why hasn't said success loop occurred anywhere else yet? Silicon Valley has been a "thing" for five decades now.

So have twenty-three Superfund sites —- land from 1970s businesses that the federal government had to take over because nobody else could or would fix the uncosted externality.

The most in any single county.

An increasingly useful, very vivid metaphor.