The Case for a Confederal Europe

Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by adur1990 on Thursday June 23, 2022 @12:45PM (#31851703)

That is the most bullshit thing I heard today. The EU is an achievement that has given Europeans an incredible amount of freedom, not least the freedom of open borders. It needs to be reformed and modernized so that future generations can enjoy the same (or even more) freedoms as we do. I hope you are aware of the cynicism of speaking of tyranny in light of what is going on in Ukraine and Russia.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by paganel on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:03PM (#31852021)

I’m an EU citizen, have been one for 15 years, I still have to carry my ID card with me if I want to travel to Hungary and further West. Non-EU countries like Norway or Switzerland don’t have to do that. The joys of living in a second-level EU country (Romania, in my case).

The accession process did give us higher incomes, that is correct, but it also meant about 20-25% of the population (mostly young people) just packing up and leave the country (5-6 million out of a population of 21-22 million).

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by tonymet on Thursday June 23, 2022 @12:55PM (#31851879)

the open borders come from Shengen agreement not the EU. You can drive through switzerland no problem

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by guerrilla on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:00PM (#31851972)

> It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, by five of the ten member states of the then European Economic Community.

> Originally, the Schengen treaties and the rules adopted under them operated independently from the European Union. However, in 1999 they were incorporated into European Union law by the Amsterdam Treaty, while providing opt-outs for the only two EU member states that had remained outside the Area: Ireland and the United Kingdom (which subsequently withdrew from the EU in 2020). Schengen is now a core part of EU law, and all EU member states without an opt-out which have not already joined the Schengen Area are legally obliged to do so when technical requirements have been met. Several non-EU countries are included in the area through special association agreements.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by kmonsen on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:20PM (#31852274)

You are right, and wrong. You cannot drive through Switzerland (I lived there for two years so have personal experience) without showing passport. It works some of the time, but they do checks. For me it has been perhaps 25% of the time entering Switzerland I was stopped and passport for everyone in the car was checked. This was on a Swiss registered car with Swiss highway sticker on.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by malermeister on Thursday June 23, 2022 @12:58PM (#31851926)

And the Schengen agreement is EU law :-)

That's like saying free speech in the US comes from the 1st amendment, not the constitution.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by paganel on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:04PM (#31852037)

Not in Romania, it isn’t (nor in Bulgaria). I should know, as I’m from Romania.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by malermeister on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:06PM (#31852072)

As part of the aforementioned EU law, there's a list of countries to which it applies. The two you've mentioned aren't on it. You can look it up in the Amsterdam treaty if you'd like :)

edit: here's the law for your convenience: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/SK/TXT/?uri=CELEX:11...

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by paganel on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:23PM (#31852321)

So an EU law that doesn’t apply to the whole EU, that bodes well for a confederate project.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by malermeister on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:28PM (#31852391)

Isn't that what the article is arguing for though? A multi-speed Europe?

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by paganel on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:54PM (#31852778)

Count of disingenuous to argue for a multi-speed Europe starting from now on when we have been a multi-speed Europe already. I'd be perfectly fine with that, too, but getting rid of the unanimity thingie is just asking for trouble.

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Re:The Case for a Confederal Europe by WanderPanda on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:01PM (#31851988)

The „The EU has done a couple of things well, so you now have to support full blown centralization/communism.“ argument is luckily falling apart. We should focus on isolating the good parts (mainly free trade, external security) and get rid of all the undemocratic cruft

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