Weak countries need the protection of Germany and France

Germany has no domestic military power to speak of, military is comically underfunded. No nuclear deterrence. Not sure what kind of protection you're thinking of.

We can send beer to your enemy in hopes they opt for boozing rather than shooting.

They need the economies of Germany and France.

And the international political and economic influence. Really of the whole EU - those countries together, including their currency, have global weight. Together, they are on the scale of the US and China.

Also, they would like to sell things to and buy things from Germany and France, and the rest of the EU.

Economics determines military power. If Germany wants to build a military, they can and now they are, to a significant extent.

It's not in demand. Who has joined lately?

The big wave of accessions from former eastern bloc countries was partly driven by the promise of huge transfer subsidies, but those are now being made retroactively conditional on things like only voting in left wing parties and who knows what else in future. Not so directly appealing anymore.

> conditional on things like only voting in left wing parties

Thefuck? The EU has been making everything conditional on privatization, deregulation and generally adopting more capitalist models in practically every aspect of government. You're calling this left wing??

A few examples of the demands: sell off our largest and state-owned bank; decouple, deregulate and privatize electricity generation and sale; open the up publicly-owned railways to private operators; increase the minimum age of retirement...

The EU isn't exactly famous for its love of deregulation, you know. Quite the opposite, especially when it comes to tech.

But I'm referring to the withdrawal of cohesion funds from countries like Poland and Hungary under newly invented rules like needing to share "EU values". These values aren't defined or written down anywhere, but the only countries that seem to violate them are those with conservative parties in power. The moment the conservatives are no longer in power, suddenly the country is in compliance with "EU values" again.

You know that's not what's happening. The EU is withholding money because those countries have regressed democratically, with the executive controlling the judiciary and press, and oppressing the political opposition.

Plenty of conservative governments are in the EU. Freedom and democracy - which mean an independent judiciary and free and independent press - are not left-wing ideas!

Some 'values' like LGBT discrimination in Hungary are prohibited by EU directive: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/ju...

So yes they are written down. And rightly so. Being conservative is fine but telling others how to live their life is not.

However this is indeed not the reason for the withdrawal of funds as others have mentioned.

Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, Croatia in 2013. Ukraine, Moldova, and (last I knew) Georgia are all trying to get in. Iceland is considering it. Many are even talking about it in the UK, though obviously that won't happen soon.

Given the limits of oceans and seas, and Russia and Turkey to the east, there's not much more of Europe left that hasn't joined. They've actually succeeded in uniting almost all of Europe - pretty effing incredible, an historic achievement that will be admired for millennia.