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Forums - Politics - EU wins Nobel peace Prize. No... seriously, they did!

okr on 12 October 2012

I at least agree on one thing with many people from UK: I can't wait until the UK finally leaves the EU.



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Kenology on 12 October 2012

The Norwegian Nobel Committee continues to troll us all...



fighter on 12 October 2012
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
Mummelmann said:
If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of the Nowegian population strongly disagree with their choice.


Of course they do.  They dont want to be in the EU.  I applaud them.

 

The Norwegians may not be integrally part of the EU but the cooperation level is as high as it gets (part of the single market and the Schengen area, norwegians are also allowed to vote locally when residents in the EU and so many other stuff i could list)

Greece is perhaps the single example of a EU defection. If you allow yourself to pull your face from your butt cheeks' pressure and look at, say, a 20 years scale, the number of ties between our regions, institutions and cultures is on an accelerating pace, more than doubling the number of members, increasing the weight of influence at national level to the point that most national laws are the declination of EU directives

It s as if the british euro-sceptics live in a lost valley riding diseased dinosaurs and wondering how to make fire to heat their tea (made of dirty filthy leafs and roots)


I favour the Norwegian model, what's wrong with that?

A common market and common thinking is fine, a federal europe is not.

Ireland remain because they have no choice, Spain remain because they have no choice, Portugal stay because they have no choice. Greece will leave.

This has become a Hobsons choice for many of the countries.  

And if you think it is just the Brits that are Euro sceptic you have your head in e sand, it's a growing movement.

Dud you agree with the members of the EU turning a blind eye to countries that didn't meet the fiscal requirement for joining? Was that just? Was that honest? Was that responsible leadership? Was that cheating their populace? 

 

The EU has been constantly reminding its' members to remain under the 3% deficit on national budgets, In fact, the mere proposition that the European members should be more careful on their internal policies was the initiative of the Commission.

It is the members that have refused to 1) enforce the agreement to remain below the 3% defined treshhold with sanctions as it would be perceived a loss of sovereignty mainly to the eurosceptics and 2) have been each, on national levels, with a few exceptions as Germany, transgressing the EU defined rule despite the systematic reminders from the EU Commission.

 

That the partnership you seem to prefer. We pro-europe favour more central power to better align national policies. A constitution would have been a good opportunity for that and we missed it back in 2004 due only to two countries out of the 25 members back then. The opportunity will come back and hopefully people will realize there is something more impotant at stake than the petty national debates. The Eurozone is the single most progressist entity in the world considering all the architectural lay-outs from supra-national legal systems (the international court of LaHaye allows to pursue crimes against humanity both in and out of the EU- the European Court is available to any EU citizen or Resident and can assign any EU state on the EU legal basis and the own legal basis of that state) , educational infrasctructure (erasmus/ Bologne Reforms/ research programmes such as  the supra-conductor accelerator of particles), cultural programmes and partnerships between national institutions and collections), the most effective anticoprporate policies such as the anti-gmo "moratoire", the Microsoft trials of the 90's, the Commercial regulations0, norms in security and health, etc. etc.

And to topple it all, the level of corruption at EU level is below any of the national levels, and for two reasons :

  - the system being relatively recent it is c;loser to the initial intention that at member level

 - the party system is not as influent on the European system, considering that the coalitions in place at EU level have no fund-raising power nor collection power corruption cannot be as organized at EU level as it can be at national level.



Kenology on 12 October 2012

Next up for Nobel Peace Prize: a predator drone on duty in Waziristan.



fighter on 12 October 2012
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
Mr Khan said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
Mummelmann said:
If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of the Nowegian population strongly disagree with their choice.


Of course they do.  They dont want to be in the EU.  I applaud them.

 

The Norwegians may not be integrally part of the EU but the cooperation level is as high as it gets (part of the single market and the Schengen area, norwegians are also allowed to vote locally when residents in the EU and so many other stuff i could list)

Greece is perhaps the single example of a EU defection. If you allow yourself to pull your face from your butt cheeks' pressure and look at, say, a 20 years scale, the number of ties between our regions, institutions and cultures is on an accelerating pace, more than doubling the number of members, increasing the weight of influence at national level to the point that most national laws are the declination of EU directives

It s as if the british euro-sceptics live in a lost valley riding diseased dinosaurs and wondering how to make fire to heat their tea (made of dirty filthy leafs and roots)

Exactly. Long-run, the European Union is going to be a powerful force for good in the world.

If we need a historical example, look at America; dysfunctional as fuck up until after the Civil War. But that didn't stop it from being a good idea before the civil war, which proved itself more thoroughly afterwards.


i hope it will soon start having more influence on intenational policies, the way the US and China, and to some extent Russia, Israel, and Iran have been behaving these past two decades is increasingly worrying.

It seems that for national political reasons, mainly staying in power, they rely a little too much on passion and not enough on reason. When the US and the UK were starting conflicts over WMDs the EU could have, with a supra-national minister of affairs, and through the vote of mainly France and Germany, tempered the idiotic duo of Blair and Bush

It was only ten years ago that these two so-called modern democracies engaged in two of the most idiotic conflicts of our times.

The EU should start negotiating a specific role in the UN organization to better prevent weak democracies as the US and the UK to renew their crap tactics.

Enough of the anti US and UK propaganda please, it's boring and oh so typical. 

You are kidding yourself if you think China, Russia, Iran and Iraq will listen to Europe. Appease is a French word isn't it?


dude, you initiated this whole thread with the low anti-EU propaganda. And I am only illustrating how sage the EU position would have been compared to how irresponsible those of the UK and US were.

The anti-french joke is no better. By the way my other half is spanish so that should maybe allow your british "mind" to at least semi-consider that the EU should do a better job of representing the position of its' 400 million + inhabitants than either China or the US



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SamuelRSmith on 12 October 2012
Faxanadu said:
First half of last century (no EU) - death toll from European wars probably more than 100 million
Second half of last century (with EU) - death toll from European wars probably below 10 million

I somehow can understand that reasoning

My nan was born in 1955. Let's give her the peace prize!



fighter on 12 October 2012
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
Mummelmann said:
If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of the Nowegian population strongly disagree with their choice.


Of course they do.  They dont want to be in the EU.  I applaud them.

 

The Norwegians may not be integrally part of the EU but the cooperation level is as high as it gets (part of the single market and the Schengen area, norwegians are also allowed to vote locally when residents in the EU and so many other stuff i could list)

Greece is perhaps the single example of a EU defection. If you allow yourself to pull your face from your butt cheeks' pressure and look at, say, a 20 years scale, the number of ties between our regions, institutions and cultures is on an accelerating pace, more than doubling the number of members, increasing the weight of influence at national level to the point that most national laws are the declination of EU directives

It s as if the british euro-sceptics live in a lost valley riding diseased dinosaurs and wondering how to make fire to heat their tea (made of dirty filthy leafs and roots)


I favour the Norwegian model, what's wrong with that?

A common market and common thinking is fine, a federal europe is not.

Ireland remain because they have no choice, Spain remain because they have no choice, Portugal stay because they have no choice. Greece will leave.

This has become a Hobsons choice for many of the countries.  

And if you think it is just the Brits that are Euro sceptic you have your head in e sand, it's a growing movement.

Dud you agree with the members of the EU turning a blind eye to countries that didn't meet the fiscal requirement for joining? Was that just? Was that honest? Was that responsible leadership? Was that cheating their populace? 

 

The EU has been constantly reminding its' members to remain under the 3% deficit on national budgets, In fact, the mere proposition that the European members should be more careful on their internal policies was the initiative of the Commission.

It is the members that have refused to 1) enforce the agreement to remain below the 3% defined treshhold with sanctions as it would be perceived a loss of sovereignty mainly to the eurosceptics and 2) have been each, on national levels, with a few exceptions as Germany, transgressing the EU defined rule despite the systematic reminders from the EU Commission.

 

That the partnership you seem to prefer. We pro-europe favour more central power to better align national policies. A constitution would have been a good opportunity for that and we missed it back in 2004 due only to two countries out of the 25 members back then. The opportunity will come back and hopefully people will realize there is something more impotant at stake than the petty national debates. The Eurozone is the single most progressist entity in the world considering all the architectural lay-outs from supra-national legal systems (the international court of LaHaye allows to pursue crimes against humanity both in and out of the EU- the European Court is available to any EU citizen or Resident and can assign any EU state on the EU legal basis and the own legal basis of that state) , educational infrasctructure (erasmus/ Bologne Reforms/ research programmes such as  the supra-conductor accelerator of particles), cultural programmes and partnerships between national institutions and collections), the most effective anticoprporate policies such as the anti-gmo "moratoire", the Microsoft trials of the 90's, the Commercial regulations0, norms in security and health, etc. etc.

And to topple it all, the level of corruption at EU level is below any of the national levels, and for two reasons :

  - the system being relatively recent it is c;loser to the initial intention that at member level

 - the party system is not as influent on the European system, considering that the coalitions in place at EU level have no fund-raising power nor collection power corruption cannot be as organized at EU level as it can be at national level.


But they didn't meet the criteria to join in the first place. That's corruption and that's lying to your people, essentially a massive fraud. Greece could neve have met, or been anywhere near meeting, the criteria, but they were allowed to join. This has bankrupted Greece for decades to come and sentenced the majority of its population to poverty conditions for the same timescale.  This is undeniable.

You talk of the greater good and petty national debates, referring to the Uk no doubt. Spoken to any French farmers recently? The French government insisted on concession after concession for their farmers and when they didn't quite get sir way, we all know what happened. So cut the condescending garbage, there is no nation on earth and no politicians more self interested than France and French politicians.  Then we have the corruption at local and national level  that is common place and an open secret in countries like Portugal, Spain and especially Greece. We have different beliefs, different ways of going aout our business, we are too disparate. 


You need to travel a bit more. Once abroad you might realize we have much more in common than you imagine.

Anyway, this is like discussing the half-empty or half-full glass, except that if you take a more historical approach the world has become smaller and instead of having the european-centric approach this past century our ideological differences tend to disappear.

Regarding the agricultural policies I don't know any farmer and have little or no insight. And in anyway, as bad as it can be, seems anecdotical to me.

 

"there is no nation on earth and no politicians more self interested than France and French politicians"

to be honest we never get how u came up with such caricatures, there is also the "french would surrender" style of portraying the french and, again, it really seems to us like your encyclopedias are made with crayolas and toilet paper

 

 

 

 



Mr Khan on 12 October 2012
kowenicki said:
Mr Khan said:
kowenicki said:

What's this supposed to portray?

The names over the states portray a country with GDP roughly equal to that of the state, so, for instance, New Jersey's gross domestic product is about as much as the whole of Russia, or New Mexico on the level with Hungary.

It sinks the "GDPs are too disparate" argument right quick, when you've got France, Sweden, and Austria living in harmony with Uzbekistan, Ecuador, and Algeria.

Yeah I'd already worked it out.  It that has bugger all to do with what I was referring to and is frankly an embarrassing American lack of understanding of the world in which we live. 

See my edited reply above.

Usually the argument i hear is about financial disparity, not about social-cultural, mostly because the proposal for total political union has not yet gained traction.

Plus i must remind the jury of the American civil war. One language hasn't stopped Americans from having many cultural differences internally, and certainly analogues can be drawn towards the prime European cultural divide, between North and South of the Alps/Pyrenees, which could be easily made analogous to the Mason-Dixon line

Hell, used to be worse in America. Used to be West was distinct from North and South. Still is, sort of, but that phenomenon has grown isolated.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

forest-spirit on 12 October 2012

We have had peace between the greater powers of Europe for a long time, I'll give them that, but when the gates of hell opened up in the former Yugoslavia the union were busy measuring cucumbers. Credit should be given for the peace in Western/Central Europe but I'm not sure the European Union is the one to give it to.
I'm not opposed to a European Union, but the one we have today is just broken. They put countries with completely different economies in the same pot and act surprised when the result is a poisonous stew.

It sucks that the Noble price is used like this. I'm sure that there are plenty of people/orginisations out there working for peace that deserves this price much more than the European Union.



fighter on 12 October 2012
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
fighter said:
Mr Khan said:
fighter said:
kowenicki said:
Mummelmann said:
If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of the Nowegian population strongly disagree with their choice.


Of course they do.  They dont want to be in the EU.  I applaud them.

 

The Norwegians may not be integrally part of the EU but the cooperation level is as high as it gets (part of the single market and the Schengen area, norwegians are also allowed to vote locally when residents in the EU and so many other stuff i could list)

Greece is perhaps the single example of a EU defection. If you allow yourself to pull your face from your butt cheeks' pressure and look at, say, a 20 years scale, the number of ties between our regions, institutions and cultures is on an accelerating pace, more than doubling the number of members, increasing the weight of influence at national level to the point that most national laws are the declination of EU directives

It s as if the british euro-sceptics live in a lost valley riding diseased dinosaurs and wondering how to make fire to heat their tea (made of dirty filthy leafs and roots)

Exactly. Long-run, the European Union is going to be a powerful force for good in the world.

If we need a historical example, look at America; dysfunctional as fuck up until after the Civil War. But that didn't stop it from being a good idea before the civil war, which proved itself more thoroughly afterwards.


i hope it will soon start having more influence on intenational policies, the way the US and China, and to some extent Russia, Israel, and Iran have been behaving these past two decades is increasingly worrying.

It seems that for national political reasons, mainly staying in power, they rely a little too much on passion and not enough on reason. When the US and the UK were starting conflicts over WMDs the EU could have, with a supra-national minister of affairs, and through the vote of mainly France and Germany, tempered the idiotic duo of Blair and Bush

It was only ten years ago that these two so-called modern democracies engaged in two of the most idiotic conflicts of our times.

The EU should start negotiating a specific role in the UN organization to better prevent weak democracies as the US and the UK to renew their crap tactics.

Enough of the anti US and UK propaganda please, it's boring and oh so typical. 

You are kidding yourself if you think China, Russia, Iran and Iraq will listen to Europe. Appease is a French word isn't it?


dude, you initiated this whole thread with the low anti-EU propaganda. And I am only illustrating how sage the EU position would have been compared to how irresponsible those of the UK and US were.

The anti-french joke is no better. By the way my other half is spanish so that should maybe allow your british "mind" to at least semi-consider that the EU should do a better job of representing the position of its' 400 million + inhabitants than either China or the US


It wasn't a joke.  On the second paragraph. As long as career politicians are representing you, you have a problem. Be they French, British, American or whatever.  I have no faith in any of them in matters of finance, let alone national security, you are mistaking my view as being anti European. Its more driven by being anti big government. 

i don't know about the career politicians, that seems like a long debate

Anyway, if you prefer a small state and prefer to keep European state separated to better respect cultural differences I respect that position

I believe in the EU project and the fact that the first layers of European Integration have been awarded the nobel peace prize makes sense to me. After all, it's the first big thing the EU achieved and it was well part of it's initial mission : end the european wars.