>It's not like France will invade Spain anytime soon.
Well, Europeans powers fought twice among them in the 20th century. And in its beginning many said the exact same thing (there was even a popular book called "The Great Illusion" about how a great war in Europe is no longer conceivable, because peace and commerce). Similarly, after the collapse of the USSR a Japanese-American thinker smugly wrote about the 'End of history'. We saw how that turned out...
The main reason Europeans powers have stopped in-fighting in the latter part of the 20th century is because they were devastated by the previous wars, in the process of losing their colonial empires (and like Britain, France, etc) and so had their concerns elsewhere, e.g. France in "Indochina". Some were also under control (from USSR), and Germany was split into two and under US and USSR supervision. The power balance had shifted between the US and USSR, so there was little at stake for the European powers to fight, even if they had the might.
If more things get at stake, including after long and deep recessions, perceived or real threats to sovereignty, resources, etc, in a troubled climate-change-hit late 21st century, all bets are off.
>No, so that Europeans don't pay extra taxes for duplicate stuff.
The EU only makes sense if it's a shared political and cultural vision (which at the moment it's not).
If European countries want to avoid "extra taxes" and want to think of their economic interest, then should probably do the inverse, and split from the EU (keeping only the trade deals), so that they have their own local currency they can control, instead of a currency that's tuned to Germany's economy (or to some compromise that either hurts the weak economies or the strong ones).
Well, Europeans powers fought twice among them in the 20th century. And in its beginning many said the exact same thing (there was even a popular book called "The Great Illusion" about how a great war in Europe is no longer conceivable, because peace and commerce). Similarly, after the collapse of the USSR a Japanese-American thinker smugly wrote about the 'End of history'. We saw how that turned out...
The main reason Europeans powers have stopped in-fighting in the latter part of the 20th century is because they were devastated by the previous wars, in the process of losing their colonial empires (and like Britain, France, etc) and so had their concerns elsewhere, e.g. France in "Indochina". Some were also under control (from USSR), and Germany was split into two and under US and USSR supervision. The power balance had shifted between the US and USSR, so there was little at stake for the European powers to fight, even if they had the might.
If more things get at stake, including after long and deep recessions, perceived or real threats to sovereignty, resources, etc, in a troubled climate-change-hit late 21st century, all bets are off.
>No, so that Europeans don't pay extra taxes for duplicate stuff.
The EU only makes sense if it's a shared political and cultural vision (which at the moment it's not).
If European countries want to avoid "extra taxes" and want to think of their economic interest, then should probably do the inverse, and split from the EU (keeping only the trade deals), so that they have their own local currency they can control, instead of a currency that's tuned to Germany's economy (or to some compromise that either hurts the weak economies or the strong ones).