Re:Four Million Commutes Reveal New U.S. 'Megaregions'
by igravious on Monday December 05, 2016 @01:09AM
(#13103690)
Au contraire :)
I think the EU is becoming (and in some senses arguably already is) a quasi-state. Hence Brexit. That's kick back.
And there is now an EU-wide patent system: https://www.unified-patent-court.org/
Re:Four Million Commutes Reveal New U.S. 'Megaregions'
by tormeh on Monday December 05, 2016 @07:36PM
(#13111270)
When France goes to war it does so independently of the rest of the EU. And Britain has no obligation to help Sweden if Sweden is invaded. If that's not a hard line between nation-state and not, then I don't know what is.
The EU, despite its name, is essentially a humongous cooperation deal between countries. It has many of the trappings of a nation, but that's an illusion. EU countries are sovereign (consent is required in any alteration of the membership rules and they can leave at will) but US states are not. That's the theory. In practice, the differences are even bigger: There's no EU patent system, for example.