Splitting nations apart that have existed for centuries won't go over easily. Especially when the proposed regions have very little experience in self gouverment.
Nope, you can speculate all you want, even suggest how you'd like it to look
...
And I have done exactly that. If you're going to take power away from the people you'll have to give it back, too. Splitting these fairly huge nation states apart is the only way to do this. The Scots want out anyway, and the Welsh have it in their heads that they're actually a nation like England and Scotland, so I can't see any real upsets from them, plus it's not like the English will give a shit except maybe against the idea it should be split in two itself (for population reasons).
Spliting the big member states is the only way? 'sides the Scots do not 'want out' and welsh independence is pretty laughable, and I really think you're underestimating the identity politics palaver that the suggestion of splitting england for the ease of the EU would cause . Why not just institute a bicameral legislature for the EU organs with a directly elected lower house and an upper house appointed by member governments to make sure their interests aren't swamped?
By the way, the worst thing they ever did was name this treaty a constution in the first place. No better ammo for any opposition then to use the name normally only used when establishing nations.
In reality, it's a condensation, simplification, and agreed upon alteration of already exisiting treaties. It's there to make it run smoother, like so many people are crying the EU badly needs to do... except it got shot down twice now, meaning we're already stuck with the old rules for 5+ years more. There barely are any radical ideas in the whole document. No major power shifting.
The only real gripe I have with the EU are retarded farm subsidies.....I would really like at the very least a moratorium on them so they inflate out of existence over time. And with current food prices who needs subsidies anyway.
By the way, the worst thing they ever did was name this treaty a constution in the first place. No better ammo for any opposition then to use the name normally only used when establishing nations.
Yeah something like "The Articles for Operational Reform" or "The Kittens, Puppies and Lollypops approval act" would probably (and sadly) have taken away about 10% of the opposition on the spot based on a sampling of my friends.
Nope, you can speculate all you want, even suggest how you'd like it to look
...
And I have done exactly that. If you're going to take power away from the people you'll have to give it back, too. Splitting these fairly huge nation states apart is the only way to do this. The Scots want out anyway, and the Welsh have it in their heads that they're actually a nation like England and Scotland, so I can't see any real upsets from them, plus it's not like the English will give a shit except maybe against the idea it should be split in two itself (for population reasons).
Spliting the big member states is the only way? 'sides the Scots do not 'want out' and welsh independence is pretty laughable, and I really think you're underestimating the identity politics palaver that the suggestion of splitting england for the ease of the EU would cause .
One of the EU's minor bodies' maps of European regions was taken as the destruction of England in the UK press a month or so back.
You do realize that before the Civil War and hell, not really until FDR came into office that the states had a ton of powers and the federal government of the US was notoriously weak?
They gradually took more and more of the power for themselves. This will probably happen to the EU the longer it manages to hold together.
I realize that, but the history of the individual states, as well as the intentions for formation of the US/EU and all sorts of other things are massively different. I mean, aside from the states transferring power to a central government thing, they're two very different situations. The US didn't start as a purely economic union, too. There are a lot of differences
And I have done exactly that. If you're going to take power away from the people you'll have to give it back, too. Splitting these fairly huge nation states apart is the only way to do this. The Scots want out anyway, and the Welsh have it in their heads that they're actually a nation like England and Scotland, so I can't see any real upsets from them, plus it's not like the English will give a shit except maybe against the idea it should be split in two itself (for population reasons).
I think my point should've been that your scenario was unlikely. Scotland, England, Wales and N. Ireland are all countries but not nations - Scotland and England haven't been nations since 1707. The UK would be the ones negotiating because the UK is a member of the EU, the Scots and Welsh would have no input. Why would the UK agree to splitting itself up?
Also, why would England be split in half? It has a population of 50m, 25m a piece. UK total population is 60m, so you'll be dividing 10m into three parts and 50m into two. It seems kind of arbitrary. And that's just looking at the UK where it has four countries to separate into - what about, say, Poland? Or France? Or Italy? At best they'd divide into several parts each. Keeping the nations as they are in terms of territorial integrity makes far more sense, and divide them into sub-divisions.
The declaration from their summit in Brussels notes that the Czech process is on hold due to legal difficulties.
But they said ratification would continue elsewhere, and ruled out renegotiation of the treaty.
..
The Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said at the summit that he was not going to try to halt the ratification process in his country.
But he added: "I am not going to force MPs to back Lisbon and I wouldn't bet 100 crowns (£3, $6) on a Czech 'Yes'."
In other news, some European leaders keep acting like total asses.
Edit: I actually have a question regarding another quote for the article:
"When a treaty is signed by 27 governments it's not just for fun," he said. "It's inconceivable that a government signs a treaty without the intention of ratifying it. It's a principle of international law."
Is he implying that any country that doesn't ratify the treaty will simply be made to vote until they do so?
Edit2: Man, I tried reading some of the comments on the BBC site. Every single one mentions EU corruption.
Edit2: Man, I tried reading some of the comments on the BBC site. Every single one mentions EU corruption.
While they're hardly youtube-level comments, the intellectual rigor in the BBC HYS/reply sections is often lacking. That said, considering the size of the organization and the political culture of some of the member states I have no doubt that there are many examples of corruption, the question being if it is endemic and outweighs the benefits of the EU. You should see if there are attempts to recognize and remedy the corruption rather than decry the EU as fundamentally unworkable straight off the bat.
It means that a gouverment should not sign a treaty if they aren't certain it will be ratified by whatever means their constitution requires.
Fully there with you.
Does it also mean that a government should go against the country's constitution to ratify the mistake?
About the BBC comments, there were a couple that seemed well constructed to me, but yeah, the usual level of user input is "Them fking scousers....them fucking northeners".
Edit: Quick google-fu regarding the topmost BBC comment about corruption:
That article paints a pretty bleak picture, IMO. I still agree that it's possible the benefits from the organization are bigger than the negatives, but I don't think it should be self policing on the corruption issue.
I don't think they are saying that Ireland should go against their constitution just that it was a bad move to sign something they couldn't ratify.
It's like buying something you can't pay for. You can't force the person to pay and thus complete the purchase because they have no money but they shouldn't have told you they wanted to buy something if they weren't sure they couldn't pay for it.
Also that article is talking out of its ass. 100+ million euro in corruption a year? The absolute maximum would be 143 million if every single MEP was stealing every single euro.
But the article mentions earlier that "a few" MEPs might be using the funds in a corrupt way, like hiring family members for some of the money, not even the full 16.000 euro a month.
Yeah if your family’s total salary is less than 1000 euro you probably want to improve their living situation but I seriously doubt this is widespread enough to even account for 1 million a year.
Also the guy commenting is way off, you can't fire elected officials, the proper thing to do is to not re-elect them.
Edit: I actually have a question regarding another quote for the article:
"When a treaty is signed by 27 governments it's not just for fun," he said. "It's inconceivable that a government signs a treaty without the intention of ratifying it. It's a principle of international law."
Is he implying that any country that doesn't ratify the treaty will simply be made to vote until they do so?
No, he's saying that a government which signs a treaty should endeavour to have the legislative ratify it. Which I agree with. The Treaty's not dead yet; states other than Ireland should ratify it like they planned to, then we work out where to go from there.
I don't think the article meant the only corruption comes from the staff money. I believe they were talking more about external contractors.
About the comment, but if 2 or more nations do not ratify the document and a full majority is needed, are there any options other than making them re-vote & returning it for debate?
I don't think the article meant the only corruption comes from the staff money. I believe they were talking more about external contractors.
I see nothing at all in the article about that. It specifically mentions that the audit was only about abuse of the assistant program for MEPs which is the only thing the article talks about.
And could talk about because they don't have a source for anything else except their "insider" who thinks it's 100+ million euros a year.
Which I very much doubt and I think he's talking out of his ass. Of course the insider could be referring to corruption within the EU at large but then they don't have any kind of credible source for believing that and that doesn't seem likely as he is talking about "the abuses" and the MEP assistant money was the only suspected abuse mentioned above that paragraph.
I don't think the article meant the only corruption comes from the staff money. I believe they were talking more about external contractors.
I see nothing at all in the article about that. It specifically mentions that the audit was only about abuse of the assistant program for MEPs which is the only thing the article talks about.
The report, by the assembly's internal auditors, says that some of the 784 MEPs were employing family members while others were reporting payments to employment firms which did not exist.
Does this refer only to payments made from the 16k allocated per MEP? If so, you're correct.
Which I very much doubt and I think he's talking out of his ass. Of course the insider could be referring to corruption within the EU at large but then they don't have any kind of credible source for believing that and that doesn't seem likely as he is talking about "the abuses" and the MEP assistant money was the only suspected abuse mentioned above that paragraph.
So no, that article is talking out of its ass.
I see no reason for the report being anonymous & closed, so while it's entirely possible that the insider is talking out of his ass, the best way to prove him wrong would be to get it out in the open. You have all the reason to doubt his words though.
Also, 100 mil is actually ridiculous on the whole corruption scale if we consider EU funds once they are allocated per country, I'd say my own country sinks way more than that in a single year simply by using 1 bid only closed auctions and every other possible technicality to ensure that the distribution stays "business between friends".
On a side note, I have an acquaintance who currently holds an assistant job after failing one of the two concourse exams he had to take to work for a EU representative. Go figure.
It's as much the EU's fault at large as it is Ireland. The EU constantly loses its PR battle but then doesn't bother even trying to fight it.
No wonder people are voting against anything to do with the EU when all they hear is the negative stuff, and whenever people disagree with national leaders, all people like Sarkozy talk about is stuff like how to get around inconvenient referenda. Really - the EU needs to make itself *look* good, or at least try to explain the stuff it's doing, or at least try to have a debate with all the anti-EU people who're great at being loud, repetitive and scare-mongering.
On the corruption thing - even if the EU's corrupt, then so what? Every government is corrupt. I've already said it - no one in the EU is shovelling money into companies that're screwing over their own soldiers. Also, if MEPs are employing relatives, then that's the same thing that happens in the UK. There was a big thing about it a few weeks ago when one MP had paid his son to do nothing. Otherwise, it's quite well-regarded, being seen as something that keeps families together when one goes off to wherever for months on end.
It's as much the EU's fault at large as it is Ireland. The EU constantly loses its PR battle but then doesn't bother even trying to fight it.
The EU is a spectacular failure in marketing itself, most people I know, even pro-EU people, feel that the EU is far far away and we really only hear about it when it does something major or something bad (in danish eyes) like fucking with danish food regulations. This leads to an organisation that is percieved pretty poorly and this cause people to rail against it at every opportiunity they can, which is usually only during referendums as no one discuss EU during elections (atleast around here).
It is a sign of something being seriously wrong if the politicians have to actively try to circumvent the people as it is so clearly the case with the Lisbon Treaty, atleast in my opinion.
Well, would you like your government to let you vote on every single fucking thing?
I mean why do you have a parliament then? Where do you draw the line between "okay, this is an issue that our politicians should vote on" vs. "i want every single one of us to vote on it"?
This is what I don't understand. You either have a popular democracy (a.k.a participatory democracy) or a representative democracy. You can't have both. Because when you try to have both, this mess happens.
If my country's constitution would be changed, I'd like to have a say in the matter, yes. But I don't think what I want is terribly important. I was just pointing out that the Irish did what Irish law requires, everybody knew (or should have known) a referendum would be necessary, and if the result is a failure it's because their government failed to inform their citizens properly.
No, it's because we don't want our health system privatised and we don't want Brussels to have the power to decide what taxes they should impose on us. We also don't like the deliberately vague language of the treaty and the fact that the guy who penned it boasted that nobody could read the truth of it because it's so... well, vague. Ireland is one of the most pro-European countries in the Union, so when it's people decide that they don't like something that would make that Union stronger, then you have to question why.
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...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.
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Spliting the big member states is the only way? 'sides the Scots do not 'want out' and welsh independence is pretty laughable, and I really think you're underestimating the identity politics palaver that the suggestion of splitting england for the ease of the EU would cause
In reality, it's a condensation, simplification, and agreed upon alteration of already exisiting treaties. It's there to make it run smoother, like so many people are crying the EU badly needs to do... except it got shot down twice now, meaning we're already stuck with the old rules for 5+ years more. There barely are any radical ideas in the whole document. No major power shifting.
The only real gripe I have with the EU are retarded farm subsidies.....I would really like at the very least a moratorium on them so they inflate out of existence over time. And with current food prices who needs subsidies anyway.
Yeah something like "The Articles for Operational Reform" or "The Kittens, Puppies and Lollypops approval act" would probably (and sadly) have taken away about 10% of the opposition on the spot based on a sampling of my friends.
One of the EU's minor bodies' maps of European regions was taken as the destruction of England in the UK press a month or so back.
I realize that, but the history of the individual states, as well as the intentions for formation of the US/EU and all sorts of other things are massively different. I mean, aside from the states transferring power to a central government thing, they're two very different situations. The US didn't start as a purely economic union, too. There are a lot of differences
I think my point should've been that your scenario was unlikely. Scotland, England, Wales and N. Ireland are all countries but not nations - Scotland and England haven't been nations since 1707. The UK would be the ones negotiating because the UK is a member of the EU, the Scots and Welsh would have no input. Why would the UK agree to splitting itself up?
Also, why would England be split in half? It has a population of 50m, 25m a piece. UK total population is 60m, so you'll be dividing 10m into three parts and 50m into two. It seems kind of arbitrary. And that's just looking at the UK where it has four countries to separate into - what about, say, Poland? Or France? Or Italy? At best they'd divide into several parts each. Keeping the nations as they are in terms of territorial integrity makes far more sense, and divide them into sub-divisions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7465448.stm
In other news, some European leaders keep acting like total asses.
Edit: I actually have a question regarding another quote for the article:
Is he implying that any country that doesn't ratify the treaty will simply be made to vote until they do so?
Edit2: Man, I tried reading some of the comments on the BBC site. Every single one mentions EU corruption.
While they're hardly youtube-level comments, the intellectual rigor in the BBC HYS/reply sections is often lacking. That said, considering the size of the organization and the political culture of some of the member states I have no doubt that there are many examples of corruption, the question being if it is endemic and outweighs the benefits of the EU. You should see if there are attempts to recognize and remedy the corruption rather than decry the EU as fundamentally unworkable straight off the bat.
Fully there with you.
Does it also mean that a government should go against the country's constitution to ratify the mistake?
About the BBC comments, there were a couple that seemed well constructed to me, but yeah, the usual level of user input is "Them fking scousers....them fucking northeners".
Edit: Quick google-fu regarding the topmost BBC comment about corruption:
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1203617830.23/
That article paints a pretty bleak picture, IMO. I still agree that it's possible the benefits from the organization are bigger than the negatives, but I don't think it should be self policing on the corruption issue.
It's like buying something you can't pay for. You can't force the person to pay and thus complete the purchase because they have no money but they shouldn't have told you they wanted to buy something if they weren't sure they couldn't pay for it.
Also that article is talking out of its ass. 100+ million euro in corruption a year? The absolute maximum would be 143 million if every single MEP was stealing every single euro.
But the article mentions earlier that "a few" MEPs might be using the funds in a corrupt way, like hiring family members for some of the money, not even the full 16.000 euro a month.
Yeah if your family’s total salary is less than 1000 euro you probably want to improve their living situation but I seriously doubt this is widespread enough to even account for 1 million a year.
Also the guy commenting is way off, you can't fire elected officials, the proper thing to do is to not re-elect them.
No, he's saying that a government which signs a treaty should endeavour to have the legislative ratify it. Which I agree with. The Treaty's not dead yet; states other than Ireland should ratify it like they planned to, then we work out where to go from there.
About the comment, but if 2 or more nations do not ratify the document and a full majority is needed, are there any options other than making them re-vote & returning it for debate?
I see nothing at all in the article about that. It specifically mentions that the audit was only about abuse of the assistant program for MEPs which is the only thing the article talks about.
And could talk about because they don't have a source for anything else except their "insider" who thinks it's 100+ million euros a year.
Which I very much doubt and I think he's talking out of his ass. Of course the insider could be referring to corruption within the EU at large but then they don't have any kind of credible source for believing that and that doesn't seem likely as he is talking about "the abuses" and the MEP assistant money was the only suspected abuse mentioned above that paragraph.
So no, that article is talking out of its ass.
Does this refer only to payments made from the 16k allocated per MEP? If so, you're correct.
I see no reason for the report being anonymous & closed, so while it's entirely possible that the insider is talking out of his ass, the best way to prove him wrong would be to get it out in the open. You have all the reason to doubt his words though.
Also, 100 mil is actually ridiculous on the whole corruption scale if we consider EU funds once they are allocated per country, I'd say my own country sinks way more than that in a single year simply by using 1 bid only closed auctions and every other possible technicality to ensure that the distribution stays "business between friends".
On a side note, I have an acquaintance who currently holds an assistant job after failing one of the two concourse exams he had to take to work for a EU representative. Go figure.
Yep, it's the international version of a person leading the other one on and then giving them blue balls.
No wonder people are voting against anything to do with the EU when all they hear is the negative stuff, and whenever people disagree with national leaders, all people like Sarkozy talk about is stuff like how to get around inconvenient referenda. Really - the EU needs to make itself *look* good, or at least try to explain the stuff it's doing, or at least try to have a debate with all the anti-EU people who're great at being loud, repetitive and scare-mongering.
On the corruption thing - even if the EU's corrupt, then so what? Every government is corrupt. I've already said it - no one in the EU is shovelling money into companies that're screwing over their own soldiers. Also, if MEPs are employing relatives, then that's the same thing that happens in the UK. There was a big thing about it a few weeks ago when one MP had paid his son to do nothing. Otherwise, it's quite well-regarded, being seen as something that keeps families together when one goes off to wherever for months on end.
The EU is a spectacular failure in marketing itself, most people I know, even pro-EU people, feel that the EU is far far away and we really only hear about it when it does something major or something bad (in danish eyes) like fucking with danish food regulations. This leads to an organisation that is percieved pretty poorly and this cause people to rail against it at every opportiunity they can, which is usually only during referendums as no one discuss EU during elections (atleast around here).
It is a sign of something being seriously wrong if the politicians have to actively try to circumvent the people as it is so clearly the case with the Lisbon Treaty, atleast in my opinion.
No, it's because we don't want our health system privatised and we don't want Brussels to have the power to decide what taxes they should impose on us. We also don't like the deliberately vague language of the treaty and the fact that the guy who penned it boasted that nobody could read the truth of it because it's so... well, vague. Ireland is one of the most pro-European countries in the Union, so when it's people decide that they don't like something that would make that Union stronger, then you have to question why.
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