Massive recession in Germany, Bankrupcy for the southern nations, a few hurt nations (France, Italy, others) closing their borders to try to survive on their own, and the UK surviving as a dependency of the US.
With fascist parties triumphing everywhere around (they are already doing 20%+ in a lot of countries, there are even nazis in the Greek parliament now).
And, of course, global economy hurting like never before, since a majority of it still happens in good ol Europe.
These "facists" and "nazis" are there as a reaction to the EU. They're the only ones people can vote for to express a negative opinion on the EU. If the EU disappears, they'll have survive on their actual ideology instead, and then they'll disappear again.
And regarding the financials, the EEA and Schengen are perfectly fine. Norway, Switzerland etc don't have significantly higher barriers to trade.
Personally I'm pro-european state. But it's dangerous having one as anti-democratic as the current EU, and I don't believe it's possible to change the current one, it needs to be torn down and rebuilt.
> They're the only ones people can vote for to express a negative opinion on the EU.
Demonstrably false. There are many decent parties whose position is "we want to stay in the EU, but a completely reformed and much better EU". People unsatisfied with current EU politics could vote them.
Most of the votes for neo-fascist parties are votes that come from fear (of other cultures or of losing money/job) or ignorance (as in "poor education"). Checkout the journal article "The Support Base of Radical Right Parties in the Enlarged European Union" [1] that analyses the demographics of the voters of neo-fascist parties in current EU.
These "facists" and "nazis" are there as a reaction to the EU. They're the only ones people can vote for to express a negative opinion on the EU. If the EU disappears, they'll have survive on their actual ideology instead, and then they'll disappear again.
Errr..... History proves you wrong. Fascism was at the zenith of it's power when there was no EU. The danger is if the EU disappears, the fascists will come up with some other boggyman and get more powerful… Like last time…
Fascism is caused by the economic depression.
The EU has proven itself to be completely economically inept.
Therefore today's Fascism was caused by the EU.
I would also point out there was no Fascism during the relatively peaceful age from the defeat of Napoleon until WWI, as well as no EU.
The EU has proven itself to be completely economically inept
Err, what? The EU (& Common Market before it) has done wonders for trade and business. That's why many countries want to get into it.
Several member states have had soverign debt crises (but then, the USA almost defaulted), but that has nothing to do with the EU. (More EU intergration might have stopped that)
I don't think any mainstream perspective claims that the crises in the various member states are caused by anything other than their being in the Eurozone, if that is what you are claiming.
Since the problems with having currency union without political integration were widely discussed at the time the union was being set up, I think that the failure to address them qualifies as 'completely economically inept'. Maybe 'completely' is a bit hyperbolic, when compared with the USSR or Zimbabwe, but still.
The great strength of Europe is that is consists of lots of competing small countries, which are capable of cooperating when faced with major threats such as the French or the Turks.
I can see why politicians would want to create a single State to oversee the whole area, but it boggles the mind that the rest of the populace would want to go along with that.
I don't think any mainstream perspective claims that the crises in the various member states are caused by anything other than their being in the Eurozone
Crisis in Ireland was caused by a property bubble, and ridiculus lending from banks causing them to be essentially insolvent. Unconditional guarantee of all Irish bank debts by the Irish Government in Sept 2008 led to the Irish Government being unable to borrow money on the international bond market at a non-crazy rate.
If only there was more EU wide banking regulation.
If the Irish government still had their own currency, they would be able to devalue; their debts would become cheaper, and they wouldn't still be suffering in 2012 for a crisis that happened in 2008.
In addition, the original cause of the ridiculous lending from banks - both in the US and EU - was ridiculously loose monetary policy, as a result of over-large governments trying to stimulate their economies out of the recession of the early 2000's. If banks have more money available to them, they're going to loan it out: that's their business.
If only we had more small and independent countries with their own currencies.
The 'OMG Scary Nazis, lets put everything under the control of a single unified state' idea doesn't appear to make any sense.
Surely if you're worried about Nazis taking over, you should be encouraging the existence of small independent nations, so that when they take over in one place, the damage is limited in scope.
Creating a federal European state is like giving the Nazis all the apparatus they need when they become strong enough.
Remember that in real life both Hitler and Mussolini came to power in countries that had been formed some 60 - 70 years ago from unifying smaller states into one.
There are fascists in the Greek parliament precisely because of the actions (or inaction) the EU takes. If anything the facts you outline point towards getting rid of the EU rather than giving it more power.
Or we can keep it as is, undemocratic and non-functioning with fiscal union on the horizon all controlled from and dominated by Germany. I'm amazed no-one thought of that before!
Which are these fascist parties in Europe? Seriously, I live in Europe
and never seen any. In most EU countries propagating nazi ideology is criminal offense.
Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing.
I know of openly fascist Golden Dawn party from Greece. And I think there are Tricolour Flame, New Force and National Social Front in Italy.
There are also plenty of horrible evil parties with a similar agenda (but not identifying as right-wing or fascist) growing like mushrooms all over rest of the Europian continent.
To be specific "fascist" stuff is outlawed in italy, though this is barely enforced. This basically means you have fascist symbology and slogans on posters, fliers and speech, but you don't write "fascista" in the party name.
There are a few of them, but far right parties have very little consensus (e.g. maybe 2-3% total), protest voting seem to go in different directions.
By comparison, the hungarian far right is the third party in the parliament, and got a whopping 16%+ in the last elections.
In Poland it's illegal to propagate totalitarian ideology, applies to both nazism and communism (fascism too, probably, nobody tested this).
Before EURO 2012 championships everybody interpreted it like nazism and communism symbols are forbidden, but Russian supporters wanted to marsh before their match with communism symbols, and some Polish minister said symbols are OK, only propagating is illegal (probably to appease Russian politicians). And nobody was persecuted for walking with red star/other communism symbols during that march, AFAIK. So now it's open question what's actually allowed.
Funny thing, that some asshole Polish nationalists/hools beaten up a few Russian supporters during that march and their excuse was that Russians had illegal totalitarian symbols, and they were just defending law (police and judges don't support their excuse, I imagine :) ).
> Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing.
I wouldn't agree. For example ultra-right libertarian party doesn't seem like fascist to me. They are all about personal freedom, and nazism/fascism is all about uniting society with one goal againist common enemy.
I live in Austria. There is one nationalist, populist party with a number of neo-nazis in there called FPÖ. It doesn't have too much power yet, but it's there. However, since most people have a deep hate of Nazis and everything that looks like it could this party knows it can't grow, if it remains that far to the right. That's why they currently throw out most of these members. Also, there have been two huge split-offs (LIF (liberals) and BZÖ (no idea what they are)). They have been the result of being too nationalistic.
Then there is Germany, which has an even more right wing movement called NPD. They clearly position themselves as far-right. They are mostly a party for skinheads/neo-nazi and don't really attract others. This party is considered too radical by most Germans and by all other parties.
Still nothing compared with what's going on Hungary. The problem there is that their nationalist party actually has power and in the recent years they killed off a lot of democratic elements, like the free press.
I know that there also is a nationalist, populist party in Switzerland, but I know nothing about it.
Also there are a few nationalist movements going on in a number of northern Europe countries, like Belgium and in countries where it has reason in more recent history, like Serbia.
It however seems to be a global problem. The US have always been very nationalist and a bit fascist, as you can see by flags everywhere and how important military is there. But it's way harder to distinguish them there, because there is these huge republican party which has the very extreme people, but also very, very liberal ones. Hard to tell whether that's good or bad. Well, you now have stuff like the tea party movement, which can be to compared not with the real nazi-like parties, but at least with the conservative, nationalist populist parties, often using religious symbols. From what I get I think they are really similar to the Austrian FPÖ.
But also Russia and virtually every country has such movements. On one side they have to be there in a democratic society and it's better if they create parties than doing other stuff, but on the other hand it's really bad when they become so big.
Then you couldn't have looked too hard. The NPD is present in 2 German Landtage, and most European countries come with their own flavour of right-wing nuts.
He is taking an easy shortcut (nationalist == nazi) but his message stands: however you call it the ideological family to which once belonged the Nazis and their friends is making progress everywhere in Europe. The FN here, in France being the first example that comes to my mind but similar things happen in the Nederlands, in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, in Austria… We are far from the Germany-1933 situation, but we don't want it to come back do we?
No. It strengthens the case for changing the EU, it doesn't strengthen any particular argument for the future state.
Abandoning the EU today would be an economic and social catastrophe, since it requires the re-erection of barriers at borders over which massive free flows of trade and labour currently exist. Germany's exports would be annihilated, the central European labour pool would be stranded, and several reintroduced currencies would collapse overnight.
It equally well strengthens the case for increased federalism, towards a United States of Europe with a federal parliament that actually can curb the actions of the Commission, and a single central bank (rather than today's messy compromise) to correct the failed madness of nation states that can issue bonds but cannot issue money.
Why would eliminating the EU require re-erecting trade and migration barriers? That doesn't make sense to me. Why not keep the good and throw out the bad?
Because to eliminate the EU means, technically, throwing out the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Treaty of Rome (1958) and the Amsterdam Treaty (1997) which together define most of the framework, institutions, conventions and law enabling European freedom of movement and trade.
There are several other treaties but these are the three most significant.
In other words, they are simultaneously the EU's constitution and they are the instruments keeping those trade & migration barriers down. So one cannot have one without the other. Instead a whole new set of treaties & governing organisations would have to be negotiated from scratch.
This is unlikely in the current, fragmented European political puzzle.
And even if they could be, well, the funny thing is, because of the nature of human specialisation, their details would be negotiated by the same diplocrats running the current system. I leave it to your imagination what the result of that will be.
> cause to eliminate the EU means, technically, throwing out the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Treaty of Rome (1958) and the Amsterdam Treaty (1997) which together define most of the framework, institutions, conventions and law enabling European freedom of movement and trade.
So your telling me that they cannot possibly abandon the EU without abandoning these treaties? That and what stops them from simply re-writing and re-signing them?
The multilateral complexity of negotiating the removal those pieces that aren't desirable anymore from those that are
The massive number of directives that have been issued under the auspices of said treaties that have to be reconsidered
The lack of political will
The need to recreate the political sentiments active in Europe in the '50s
The necessity for every European state to ratify said rewritten treaties in their parliaments
We're talking about disentangling tens of thousands of pieces of legislation and policy from the last fifty years, at both national and international level.
Honestly, it would be easier to progress to full federalism or just ditch the whole thing, than try to edit the EU and achieve any kind of systemic consistency at the end of it.
