The comment that sparked the discussion referred to Europe, not just EU:
> I think this is quite indicative of European and the US values. The US generally values the freedom to, while Europe values freedom from
The reply that prompted me to jump in didn't question this view; just generalized it in a way I'm very sceptical about:
> I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people.
It's easy to poke holes in this generalization, even without needing a clear-cut definition of what European values are, exactly.
> We were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU.
The laws reflect the spirit, so to speak, and while the EU as such didn't exist in 1950s, its "alpha version", the European Coal and Steel Community, of which Germany was a founding state, did. The process was already on.
The Paneuropean modern idea of a united continent is almost 100 years old. The EU is an outcome of a long and difficult process, not something that just came to existence in 1992, in a form that happened to trendily reflect the spirit of the 90s ;)
> I think this is quite indicative of European and the US values. The US generally values the freedom to, while Europe values freedom from
The reply that prompted me to jump in didn't question this view; just generalized it in a way I'm very sceptical about:
> I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people.
It's easy to poke holes in this generalization, even without needing a clear-cut definition of what European values are, exactly.
> We were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU.
The laws reflect the spirit, so to speak, and while the EU as such didn't exist in 1950s, its "alpha version", the European Coal and Steel Community, of which Germany was a founding state, did. The process was already on.
The Paneuropean modern idea of a united continent is almost 100 years old. The EU is an outcome of a long and difficult process, not something that just came to existence in 1992, in a form that happened to trendily reflect the spirit of the 90s ;)