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I’d like to think there’s just a guy named Olaf in a sparsely furnished office, all by himself,l. Deciding what hat is and is not corrupt like Santa Claus.
@@williamadams7136 Malta speaks Maltese first and English second. Only 10% speak English as their first language, it just has very high levels of English as a second language. Ireland speaks English as the primary native language. The Irish language is only spoken the home by a small minority of the population.
English would be a good lingua franca yes. But if we wanna speak about relative stuff like culture, i am very much against it. As a Dutchman ive grown tired of speaking English my whole life. I live in a city that looks no different from an ugly American city and the fact that everyone speaks English here and dresses in an American way is just ugly. Obviously i do the same, but we as Europeans have already become way too over-Americanized and ruled by American corporations and their ideologies. Making English the official language of the federal EU would just make it a mini-USA. Boring and dull. Devoid of identity. Hell i'd prefer bringing Latin back as the lingua franca of Europe. Lol.
@@TSGC16 whilst making Latin the official language would be cool it could be problematic in the message it sends and would annoy the Slavic and Germanic countries that don't have as much of a historical connection
@@OHOE1 Man, i really like Adam but theres just better Social Commentary and Politic-News out there than him. Like Some More News (especially his 'obvious solutions to obvious world-problems'-videos) and Hbomberguy.
@@todortodorov1263 Wanna check out the corruption and ineffiecny on a federal level? Brussels is full of it even tho the EU thinks they're the shining city on the hill.
@@todortodorov1263 It also points out how big the differences are between member states, that the east is corrupt and incompetent and that south is also non functioning. Why would a functioning country relegate power to non functioning ones?
I'd add to that Cyprus and Malta, but there's always Monaco and Liechtenstein. Or you know, any other tax haven in the world, most money is digital anyway.
@@Levitiy Napoleon didn't want a European federation. He wanted a French dominated Europe. Which is a wildly nationalistic viewpoint , than what has been said in the video.
Eh... don't underestimate the politicians/nobles of the late 18. and early 19. century. There were lots of huge ideas going around, not only Napoleon. Of course the common folk would have reacted like you said in many cases. Although back then many rural folks didn't care about politics at all and wouldn't have said no to anything as long as they can live on in peace.
@@juanitoalcachofa1183 the judicial system, our forces, most of our political corps... thats what happens when a dictator dies on his bed and leaves his retinue as the rulers. The only reason we're still in the EU is that nobody gives a fuck about us. If Europe knew half of the shit we're up to we'd be kicked out in a couple days.
@@Ivanfpcs the EU looks the other way for a reason, though. Nothing short of a technocratic government imposed from above (which carries its own lot of problems) would fix our corruption issues, mostly because our education reinforces them and because we tend to be too meek and passive to fight that corruption.
Step 1# Federalise Eu Step 2# Become global super power Step 3# Build orbital battle station capable of destructing planets Step 4# Become galactic super power
Step 5 : colonise the neighbouring Continental world's Step 6 : first contact, defend the borders Step 7 : create a galactic federation Step 8 : get roflstomped by the endgame crisis because we were too busy trying to fix the euro
1:13 Being from Switzerland, I would recommend to have not just one president. Make an executive council with several members (five to nine people) who all come from different countries. You could make rule, that they have to represent the regions somewhat proportional (east, west, Scandinavia, Mediterranean) so no-one feels completely left out. They have all the same power but for some representive tasks one person out of that group is a kind of president (that rotates every year and brings no additional power). That way they need to work together and you have continuation over many years.
The maker of the video certainly does not have in mind a democracy like Switzerland for his creation of the United States of Europe. EU proponents hate direct democracy (as usually, people tend to reject their plans) and have a strong belief in a benevolent rule of the elite. This is how the EEC and the EU have been built from the beginning.
If EU becomes more federalized, I think it would still the same system with a council (with 27 members states) that already exist. It would just have more responsabilities that have been federalized
@@sebastianzeitblom4668 nice completely biased hateful blind delusions you got there buddy, victor orban, putin, etc are anti EU and it shows who are the democracy haters
I am not sure how I fould feel about the top-level executive force to be split up among multiple people. In the Netherlands we basically do this with EVERYTHING (we call it the poldermodel) and generally it works out really well. A decision is not pushed through until every party has atleast something going for them, and the compromise made is mostly in everyone's favor in some way. The problem arises in times of crisis. During the pandemic, the Netherlands has been lagging behind the events every single time. Lockdowns take too long to be implemented, then take too long to raised. It has caused our country to be in a political divide it has never seen before.
Yep, but we're learning it because of the US not UK. In my country hardly anyone knew english prior to ww2, many people knew german, italian and some french and russian. Since US is by far single most important country and influence we' re just taking that into account. Prior to WW2 german had "lingua franca" role for most of central Europe.
@@benharris7358 yes since the colonisation of the americas the british had a huge population growth and thats why there are a lot more english speakers and it is also set as a international language so that everyone learns one so that everybody can understand
I’m at the language section, and I gotta say, I would pay actual money to see someone tell the french they need to learn and speak english en masse. It would make my fcking year
too much concentration of power...corruption would be 10x worse in a federal europe. will never happen anyway. its more likely the EU will disintigrate.
@@tednicholas4719 Corruption never happens when you have big government, according to Adam Something when you have BIG GOVERMENT you also have BIG MONEY, so it must be good right?
A better relationship with Russia is so much more important for us than the whole shitty EU and especially the east of EU.... the EU is shit and a fail project. Better a different European Federation with Russia and each state has his own currency and more autonomy than this actual shit.
@@HolyknightVader999 Are seriously considering it as a possibility? LOL It couldn't include Russia, that would be completly improbable, ridiculous, I mean even the NATO, which has most of Europe as members, was created as a defense organization against Russia, they don't have real democracy, and are constantly getting embargoed by EU. The only context here is foreign relations.
I feel like you really handwaved over a lot of the arguments you were addressing. The sovereignty argument is not just a ploy by evil dictators. This federation plan will need to address that somehow otherwise the tiny nations are actually giving up their sovereignty due to their citizens not being numerous enough to have any impact on the federal government. When the US formed this problem was addressed by having the bicameral legislature and in today's world that is fairly controversial due to the "tyranny of the minority" perception. What concessions are you willing to make to give these tiny nations an outsized level of influence due to them not being willing to give up any noticeable control over the top levels of government. Your tax haven argument seems similarly hand wavy. The reason Ireland is a safe haven now is because it greatly benefits Ireland. Taking that away means you have to give something tangible in return so what concessions would be made to entice them to join this federation? Language: Teaching everyone English seems like a reasonable solution but I do think you would need to enforce it everywhere. If you want to be a united force you need to actually be united from the top down. These multi-lingual countries work fairly well on a small scale and as long as they don't need a united military. Multi-lingual forces are historically proven to be unsustainable in any form of legit war due to the breakdown of communication between units as casualties mount. Money: You hand wave away the vast wealth differences by saying you are going to pay minimum wages to key sectors. Why would the small wealthy powers sign up to increase their taxes to directly pay other countries? This is a direct transfer of wealth away from one set of countries to another and all of those millions of individuals will likely talk a big game until they actually have to write a check. The overall problem seems that the EU already exists and can't solve some of these problems. If you want these nations to fully cede certain powers to this federal body you would need to sort out these issues first otherwise the nations won't agree to join. Just because something could be a great thing doesn't mean people will actually do it or that it would actually be a good thing in reality.
I don't know why but I find it funny that English would be become the common administrative language, especially when the English are the only people to have left the EU. That is very ironic.
It would not. Such a country wouldn’t need one common administrative language, it would continue the current language policy in the EU: "every national language is official, but only 3 of them are working languages".
its tragic and iconic for the EUs greatest flaw Europe's only basis for a unified identity is in its self-hatred It shapes itself into the very thing it initially was not: linguistically diverse, social and a counter-balance to the Anglo-American world... rejecting all of these things for the sake of being "united" all the EU then has to offer is more neoliberal anglo-centrism. You might as well declare yourself an American colony.
Unrelated to the video topic, but I would just like to point out that Adam gained 360,000 subscribers in August according to Social Blade, going from 26,000 to 386,000 in one month is complete insanity!
@@absoluteaficionado515 I just thought it was weird how this person with cyrillic letters in their name, replying on a person with Irish in their name, commenting on a video about a European Federation by someone who's said they're European several times, is talking about the American left. And now I, a Scottish person, is replying to them as well.
I think the biggest issue atm regarding a federation is that the EU's current government structure is defective and non-democratic. If the EU Commission had more of it's power delegated down to the EU Parliament, I imagine that a EU Federation would be viable and good, but as it stands, the EU Parliament needs to be able to propose legislature, not just vote on it.
Agreed, we got stuck half way the European integration and federalism. The EU is taking on many more responsibilities because it actually does make sense to act EU-wise on a lot of things, but when it comes to giving more powers and a consequent new EU political structure national governments start screaming. Giving more power to the parliament would make the council go beserk, so we're stuck. We need to break the gridlock and continue on our unification process or perish, a bridge won't hold until the last brick's in!
Though that is a relative thing. If you compare it to the structure of the Netherlands or Adam's own Hungary it's far more democratic. Which is why Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands have very high EU support while Sweden, Finland and Italy have much less.
@@zUJ7EjVD it did, but not for long the "liberal" warmongering "democrats" with billionaires backing them "won back" the government edit: republicans are still shit tho, the democrats did deserve the billionaire backing
@@beanlentil Still rather have them then. Then the warmongering billionaire back Republicans who are either religious Fundamentalist, political opportunist, or fascist
To be fair, we're already ruining our country by ourselves. We might've been progressive in the 90's, but damn people are becoming xenophobic and concervative af. I mean, the FvD is literally a crypto-fascist party at this point and has 8 seats, and VVD has masterfully helped the country naar de klote in the last decade.
@@KarlSnarks there are always people exaggerating things how things are going, like you. We are fine in the netherlands and compared to the rest of europe we are actually doing quite good. Low unemployement, economic growth, wage growth, good quality of life, good education, our healthcare is fine etc.
You know, Russia "currently engaging in active warfare on European soil" was true then and hasn't exactly gotten better. On the EU front, I absolutely think the 2022 invasion of Ukraine may be the thing that pushes Europe into creating an EU army. Germany, long a holdout on especially where the money would come from, has done a complete about-face on military spending, and the EU has stepped into the driver's seat on Europe's response, both in terms of sanctions and even on supplying arms to Ukraine. The EU has this tendency to whenever it faces a crisis or a potential breaking point, it simply refuses to give up and fights like hell. So far it has come out of every existential crisis just a little bit closer to a federation.
Like many others have said Nato and by extension the EU now have a purpose again. Russia's insanity in Ukraine has left them reeling but to everyone's surprise including EU member states they acted like a homogeneous entity to bring down sanctions on putins head. I would agree that these turbulent times now promote the EU to become one block country and form a European front to combat russian aggression.
Crises often forces slow institutions to innovate and move forward quickly. It's not guaranteed per se, but this war could mean we move closer to federalisation.
In the 24th Century, a number of worlds, and all of Earth, are united under the Federation... Except England, which is still negotiating Brexit. This is why the Picard family moved back to France.
I wonder if this will become a global thing. With estimates of 40% of all current jobs being lost to automation, there will defiantly need to be a shift away from the 40 hour work week. I honestly lose sleep when thinking about what the transition will look like.
My biggest fear is that larger 'states' like France and Germany that already have more power and influence would be able to overrule smaller countries, making decisions that benefit those regions and disadvantage smaller ones. This already happened with the EU. We really don't want things to get worse. Now, I'm from Greece, and as you can see in the charts people here don't really trust EU institutions since we had a pretty bad run with them. (Of course part of it is the fault of Greece, but not entirely. And when people can't take their money out of the bank, lose their jobs and see their wages and pensions getting halved because of the EU, you can't really blame them for being distrustful.)
The Whole point is that there won't be such inequality anymore, no state has more power than the others because there is only the European state. It's like in the US, does texas overrule stuff from other states?
My main concern about the process is that federal systems tend to be slow as dirt. If done well, they work well - but done poorly they actively slow down everything. Bureaucratism is already crippling the German federal system and because every point of every decision is argued between federal government and states, you tend to end up with an extremely watered down version of a solution, way after it was needed. Plus, you have to actively tackle the redundancies between nations to make use of a unified system. And those benefiting from the localized version would fight you all the way. As a small example, the ARD - Germany's public-service broadcasting network - was established as a collection of the individual state broadcasting agencies. However, despite being unified and sharing resources, information and often programming, it ends up very expensive because lots of redundant (and frankly unnecessary) structures still remain. Like 16 fully stocked TV orchestras on their payroll, despite classical concerts barely being part of the lineup these days. Same for religious services: Every sunday (possibly more often) they rent out 16 different churches to transmit the service for people who can't attend in person. Sure, that's a nice thing to do - but it's expensive and one would accomplish that just fine. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I imagine unifying stuff across Europe would be a hell of a task and can easily end up on half measures like that, bleeding resources into lesser known aspects like that. Out of sight, out of mind... Of course these aren't arguments against the concept of a federal Europe itself. However, it has to be done right or it will play directly into the hands of those against it.
Not only do federal systems slow down everything, it's borderline impossible to reach the politicians. This might differ by country, but living in Finland I feel like i have a pretty good access to the state politicians, excellent access to the county politicians, and literally zero access to the politicians in the European parliament. It's not viable for regular people to raise issues they find important because they don't ever get to talk, or even have their e-mail read, by the europarlaementary politicians. And even if they do, there's too many coalitions with stringent rules on what they stand for so individual opinions of even the politicians themselves do not matter. Especially politicians from the smaller countries have no actual role but to assign themselves to a larger coalition and vote everything exactly like the coalition tells them to. On the other hand, lobbying is much more extreme. Large multinational companies are completely capable of spending enough money to lobby for their interests in the European Parliament. This has already happened in the US, and will happen in a federalized EU: The government constantly voting against what the popular vote would be because of lobbyists paying their campaigning payroll. Representative democracy simply is not a viable model beyond a certain scale.
@@adisaikkonen i'd disagree with you there as some of the largest nations on earth by population are Representative democracy such as the USA, India, Indonesia, Brazil. not the most efficient system i'll give you but definitely viable
@@lucafaithfull7397 All of these countries are full of corruption and lobbying, with the government repeatedly deciding things against the common interest. That is definitely a failure of the system to be democratic.
@@paiosfranen uhuh and being gay is super easy in russia right? You definitely dont have an autocratic dictator in power right? I've not once denied that the Ukraine could be fascist, i have no idea if it is or not. Doesnt mean russia gets to wage war on it under the guise of fighting fascism. Because russia is also fascist and just wants to annex it
@@luminiche710 You'd think that but it's not that easy. I know a lot of students that don't have an issue with voting for PiS and I'm from western (progressive) city in Poland. Granted, mostly older people are attracted towards conservatism but it's more complicated than just age.
Also, as reply to the Language argument: I live in Switzerland. Switzerland has 4 official languages (And we have only live 8 Million people), these being German(in many many different dialects), French, Italien and Rumantsch (which is slowly but surely extincting). I am from the german speaking part, and I speak neither Italien, nor French nor Rumantsch. I personally also have very little interaction with the parts of Switzerland speaking other languages. And this on an area of 41,285 km² for the whole of Switzerland. And it works. So the language argument in my opinion pretty much falls apart when looking at Switzerland today alone.
@@riverman6462 If I do, I speak english. Or maybe they can speak German. But I rarely speak to people from the Italian or french speaking part, simce all my family and friends are in the german speaking part.
@@riverman6462 I'm not 100% sure actually. But people from different part used to not like each other that much in the past. Also, people from German speaking part learn french at school (literally everybody hates it though) and people from the other parts learn german. So there is like at least very little knowledge of the other persons language. But it was certainly more complicated in the past.
EU is a Semi-Presidential parliamentary system like France. - EU Council/French President. - EU Commission/French Cabinet. - Council (of Ministers)/French Senate. - EU Parliament/French National Assembly. - EU Court of Justice/French Supreme Court.
Damn I miss being an EU citizen. Hopefully one day soon my fellow countrymen will truly understand what a absolutely idiotic idea it was to leave the EU. Dreaming of the day I can call myself both an UK and EU citizen.
Fun fact: European countries never had a single language. There were a million ethnic groups in each kingdom, and migration was way more common between them. This was partially the reason why so many monarchies used latin as the language of administration.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Than you should learn more about history. The period between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages is also known as the Migration Period.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Migration periods are typically armed hordes. Commoners and peasants could not travel, which are lots of millions of people.
Yeah it really depends on which "country" you are looking at, and at what time. In the 1400s the Kingdom of Navarra certainly had a unified language. The Kingdom of France did not.
As an Irish person, I was always hesitant to deeper European Integration as previous unions that we have been part of didn’t work out very well for us… I too went on the Erasmus program and met wonderful likeminded people I am still in contact with years later. My biggest criticism would be the neoliberal trend the EU is heading towards. I think with a leftward shift I would support federalisation and more integration programmes like Erasmus would be helpful in reaching this goal Once Erasmus, always Erasmus 🇪🇺💙💛
Define "neoliberal". I hear that buzzword way too much and so far and don't think it even means what people think it is. People love to use that term to describe folks like Reagan , Tatcher, Bush...and even guys like Ben Shapiro try to call themselves liberal-something. I think we can agree none of those folks are true liberals. All of them were conservative authoritarians in the social side and somewhat liberal on the economic side...this one being doubtful considering how they had no qualms on big corps allying with the government to capture the markets. True liberalism endorses none of these tenets. Neo-con is probably a better term to describe this.
I did an Erasmus. Meh. Just staying with other Erasmus students all talking English staying between themselves and never really getting into the life of their new country nor bounding with local students. Meh.
Many Neoliberal parties support a federalized Europe. These parties are your allies in this case. Only relying on leftist parties won’t achieve majorities
@@MrAlepedroza Neoliberal favours a small state, reducing safety nets and social programs, free market policies, privatization of public companies, and other laissez faire policies. It's seen as a right wing ideology since it benefits large multinational corporations and rich people, while it often harms workers and the middle/lower class. Now I don't feel like having an eternal discussion about how great or terrible is neoliberalism, so I'll leave it here.
@@MrAlepedroza Neoliberalism is basically the currently practiced ideology in many (western) country's. I'm not gonna type out all of the reasons I dislike it, there's more than enough pieces about it to form your own opinion. And yeah, it's kind of a buzzword but it can be a helpful one
Does the "borer security" (shown at 1:25 ) have anything to do with Elon Musk's tunneling business? What dangers do they face, that warrant a the creation of a European Federation?
It's because once those tunnels are bored across Europe, transport will be so revolutionised that Europe will need a federal government to handle the great masses of people travelling through them daily.
Your cultural argument is very anecdotal, and boils down to "I'm young, urban, progressive, educated, worldly, and I hang out with others like me, ergo cultural differences: solved"
Honestly, living in germany there is a number of noticeable cultural differences between north, south, east and west Same in other countries Countries are not a monolith Even people within the same area have vastly different values and traditions and so on Differences in culture do not only occur exclusively at imaginary lines
Personally I would be very careful with the "English is already a very common language in the EU"-argument. The way those statistics emerge is unreliable at best. They seem to count everyone who had English in school, but 90% of those could hardly order a sandwich. In Germany, where I come from, you are lucky if 10% are actually capable of more than just stuttering a few words. But your main point still stands. Not every citizen needs to be able to perfectly communicate with every other citizen to form a federation.
@@therealdave06 I would say it has an inherent value if as many people within a federation can communicate with each other. And since your name seems to be crafted from Esperanto I would not be surprised if you would agree about that ^^ But thats obviously a bonus point and not a necessity.
@@realtimestatic Depending on where you live thats absolutely possible. Especially if your reference group is young, more urban and more educated the chances are good to get it beyond 10%. But 30% of the German population is above the age of 60. An age group that is more likely be able to speak Turkish than English. Its very easy to overestimate how common something is, just because it seems common in your own frame of reference. When I achieved my higher education entrance qualification 15% of the graduates could have seriously be considered "fluent" in English at best. When I visited trade school, where every single pupil already had a history of seriously being taught English for at least 6 years, I was literally the only one who understood what the teacher was saying in English class, which forced our teacher to always repeat everything in German. Nobody ever bothered to really measure how many Germans can speak actual useful English. So I cannot tell weither its 3%, 15% or 30%. But I can guarantee that the 50%-79% the source in the video came up with is a fantasy number that has nothing to do with reality.
Haha i agree. Im from SLO and thought the English here is not the best, but in Austria and Germany and especially Italy the situation with English is terrible
The section on self-determination feels very glossed over here and not really handles the central issues. What you can't get around simply by pointing to the self-interest and deception of the national political classes is the tension between national self-determination and transnational democracy across the whole of Europe. This is something that must be handled for an idea like this, and you basically have to come down on one side or the other: If you have a democratic vote in Europe, and one side wins the democratic vote, what happens if there are nations where it did not? Say if the whole European population voted 60/40 in favour of introducing some policy, put in a country like the Czech republic the people voted 30/70 against it. In any issue where there is a democratic decision to be made, this tension is unmistakably at play, even if not in such sharp focus as in this example. Either you side with the people's decision and have a majoritarian democratic system wherein the citizens of the federation are able to have control over the government and popular sovereignty. Alternatively, you side with the nation's decision, say that Czechia cannot be compelled into such a policy or can exercise some kind of veto whenever it doesn't want to abide by the majority decision. In that case, you have a system where democracy is limited by national self-determination, where people who do not see a decision that was made by the majority of the people as legitimate unless it also had support in the area where they live do not have to accept it, and so you don't have a democratic system anymore in the sense of one-person-one-vote where everybody's vote counts equally. You either require total unanimity or a supermajority, which fails democratically along the same lines as FPTP, electoral colleges, or other such rules that constrain democracy and which are overwhelmingly of benefit to conservatives and against the interests of the masses.
In America we just kind of deal with it and realize the benefits of being unified out weigh those times when a population center is unhappy with policy. It's even worse for us because our votes aren't worth the same, a person voting for president in ohio effects the electoral college more than a person voting for president in california. How about that for regional inequality? And we're still a super power that could destroy any european country one on one in just about any competition that doesn't involve social justice. Because we pool our resources. Together ape strong.
@@ThisChangeIsAwful I think the difference is about nationalities. In the context of the European Union, the divisions between people are about nationalism. Not in the sense of "my nation good, your nation bad", but rather the politically neutral identification of one cohesive nation as distinct from other cohesive nations. This leads to a situation where some people cannot accept even a democratic decision if it falls outside the borders of national democracy. In the United States the differences between a voter in one place vs another are usually regional. Of course you have national minorities and immigrants as well, but for the majority of people they do not experience any challenge to the rather strong national identifier of being Americans. The idea of one nation being forced into abiding by a decision made by another nation is like the American perception of "people in rural areas being forced to do what people in cities vote for", but with the added multiplier of not perceiving the other voters as being at all part of the same demos. It is simply politically unacceptable to a great many people that a decision which is made over the head of their entire nation can be legitimate or valid from a democratic standpoint. It would take a great deal of change in national identity and political identification, through experience with things like Europe-wide referendums, for people to accept the entire European population as being a single demos. Today, the nearly universally shared understanding is that it is nations voting, some voting one way and others another, like how americans talk about the electoral college being necesary to keep "big states" or cities from having all the voting power, ignoring that in a one-person-one-vote system it is people who vote, not territory (i.e. pieces of dirt). In Europe this is how the EU is perceived, in large part because that's how elections actually work for the EU-parliament. Even if there were elections which didn't take national borders into account though, that would not change the deep-seated understanding among people that their vote is cast as part of their nation, and that it is the votes of nations that matter, not the individual human voters that make those nations up.
Im glad you hammer this point, if the autonomy and representation of nations is handled poorly it could lead to a crisis and perhaps even civil war in the future due to a powerful group pushing there politics in the federation.
Are you sure? EU's track record is pretty terrible. In Finland it was, for the longest time, financially incentivized to take your cows and drive them to lapland to be butchered, then drive them back. Why? Because EU wanted to more evenly spready agriculture, and as such incentivized doing it in the northernmost parts. It's still more profitable to ship large amounts of laundry over to Estonia, have them wash it there, and ship it back. Both of these are offspring of the EU regulations and incentives, and neither of them looks very net zero. At the same time it's full of hypocrites. Rural and less developed regions are kept from developing or even doing sustained forestry, meanwhile France, Germany, Spain etc that have converted all of their area to productive farmland resist any attempts at rewilding or diversifying their land use. And since these are the big countries, they have more power and therefore their interests come first. Federalized EU's "sustainable" "net zero" future would just involve massively unsustainable central Europe that shafts the more remote regions to underdevelopment in hopes that they make up for the rich center.
The problem is, centralization doesn't guarantee coordination. A more coordinated Europe will definitely make a lot of things easier. Only if those two were identical.
It's simply impossible to slow down climate change without supra-national coordination. It's a global fubar situation. Whatever issues might have prevented successful EU programs in the past, they will be ironed out or we are fucked (a recent study estimated that the effects of climate change actions taken or not taken today will be personally experienced by people under the tender age of 40, which, I assume, is pretty much everyone in this comment section).
@@andybogdan4380 There is a chance that under a federal system certain populations would wind up winning elections while minorities would form and not get much, like the Hungarians being outvoted by the Germans or what have you. Then again, globalization is taking place, and people across all countries in the EU have found that 90% of the time they can agree pretty easily. So I don't think that ethnic tensions will be that high, though I recognize that it may pose a significant problem nonetheless.
And it might be the way regions like Catalonia and Flanders can get the level of independence from their current countries they want. If the federal europe is based on linguistic boundaries instead of previous geopolitical ones, you could have a European federal government and a sort of state government, based on language and possibly cultural borders. I'd just abolish or significantly reduce current national governments.
Now, Let's take this apart... 1. The rich-poor divide. Your solution is basicly - give everyone the Euro, and make standardised wages for certain jobs all the same across europe - First of all - the Euro part won't work, because eastern countries have to weak economies to transfer safely into the euro, and as Greece has shown us, forced transfer isn't a good idea. 2nd - countries with a less valued currency would be fucked. Let's say I live in Poland. 1 Euro = ~4 Polish Złoty. Let's say, that I have 10k złoty as my life savings. If the currency changes suddenly to the euro, my savings are basicly cut by 3/4, because the prices will go signifficantly up, while the money I currently have stays the same. - Standardised wages all across Europe. This is very idealistic. It's no secret, that western countries thrive on the brain drain from the east. No sane German or French politician will close off the flood of eastern european slave labour. I mean - during corona many polish season workers stayed home, and the german economy took a hit. This is too idealised to come true, as long as "the old europe" get's benefits out of eastern migrants, nothing will realisticly change. 2. National sovereignty You said it yourself - "certain branches of government are transfered to the federal government". Those would be: -Commom Military - As for now, people advocating for an european army want it to fight for example in north africa, but holy shit - why. I don't want young men from my country dying in Africa, because France has a geopollitical game over there, I don't want my fellow countrymen, and possibly even me fighting for other countries. Poland did this already in WWII, Afghanistan and Iraq, and from each of those conflicts we've got nothing, or we even got screwed over. I'd rather have my army securing the interests of my country, and not fighting for example in Libya. -Foreign affairs. Why wouldn't this work? France fights currently againts Turkey in Africa for geopollitical reasons, but why, wasn't Turkey an EU candidate? Germany is currently making moves together with Russia, although most of eastern europe is againt it. And even within the east, hungary does its own thing with Russia, wich is against the interests of its biggest european partner - Poland. To many conflicting interests. If Europe was to federalise - what interests would we pursuit? Africa? But 3/4 of Europe has no interests in Africa, if anything the constant wars there have caused the refugee crisis in the first place. Russia? But Eastern Europe is against it. And don't get me started with the Balkans... Inevitably we would follow the interests of Germany and France, ignoring the others, because let's face it - those are the 2 big bosses of europe, and the rest aren't on the same level of privilege in europe. -Finances. So basicly an european parliment, wich majority is from other countries than mine will decide about taxes in my country. Very empowering for the people indeed. And common finances mean common debt. So basicly my taxes will also go towards fixing mistakes made in the past by Greece, Spain, etc. Why should I pay for someone else's mistakes? I'd rather my taxes go towards hospitals, schools and public transport in my own country. -Border security and Asylum system. So about that... It's so funny, that politicians always say "refugees are our responsibility, we have to help them", but think for a second... Why are those refugees or migrants or whoever in this situation in the first place? Colonies and wars. Western Europe has for centuries colonised Africa, making the continent one big mess. All those tribal civil wars, ruined economies, failed states are a result of colonialism. Why do countries from northern and eastern europe, who never had significant or long-lasting colonies have to pay for the mess that western europe made. They destroyed those countries and made their life a misery (even more so, since even right now there is a fricking war fought in Libya by France - a western country) so let them pay the consequences for their actions, and not put another burden on the shoulders of eastern europe, because all those communism years in the east were also because of Nazi Germany, and Britains lack of care for it's supposed "allies" in ww2. 3. Cultural Differences. You've just shown one demographic - young, middle class student. Go to a boomer and ask him how much he identifies with a guy on the other side on te continent. And you might say "Oh, they will die out" - that's true, but as for now they're the majority, and that won't change any time soon. And you only basicly said "we are all the same, because he have the same beliefs, interests, topics of interests, etc". Moreover, you said "scholarship" - so of course on one of these you will find only people with common interests, beliefs and topics to talk about as you - you're on a scholarship with similar people - that's how this works. And I bet that even among all those students most of them had different views on what the word "liberal" means. I mean - I live in Poland, and as crazy as it may sound, our "sjw" are advocating for a more freedom in the market, meanwhile our conservatives cite Marx and communist time politicians. An unique feature that developed because of the unique culture and history of Poland. What you said isn't an argument, that we are basicly all the same, and there are no differences. And aren't those what makes us unique? Shouldn't we preserve those differences and remain diverse, instead of becomming one bland same looking people? I thought diversity was our strenght? 4. Language - English. But why English? The UK isn't even a part of the EU anymore, and I thought, that a federalised Europe is meant to be a counterballance for China and... the USA. So we would have a bunch of countries, who 1. Never been in the "anglosphere", yet they adopted English anyways 2. Are screaming "We don't need american protection"... in english 3. Have culturally no connections to english whatsoever 4. Haven't even the native country for the english language in its borders Sounds kinda dumb if you ask me. English is so popular mostly because of Pax Americana, and because western europe was under american protection during the cold war. Similarly in the east most boomers for example speak Russian for the same reasons. So no matter how loud the EU screams "We are now an independent block", as long as they do it in english, it will just sound funny. Why not adopt one of the european languages. But wich one? Return to the early modern period and choose french? Or maybe german, since its the biggest economy, but wouldn't that be an insult to basicly all countries who fought against germany not so long ago? So what else? I'd say the only neutral option would be Latin, but... good luck learning that... 5. Geopolitics. So a European Federation would eliminate all geopolitical conflicts, because common good would reign supreme. That's outright hilarious, and here's why: France is right now fighting a war in Libya. If we'd create a common european army, people from fricking Finland, Bulgaria, Ireland, etc, who have literally no interests in Libya whatsoever would fight and die basicly for France in their war. And don't say that wouldn't happen, because the main advocates for an european army said that we need it, mainly because of ongoing conflicts, and that means basicly only Libya, because Ukraine isn't a member of the EU, and last time I checked there isn't any european regiment in Donbas. Why don't stay with local armies, and insted create an alliance, to remove the argument of the US, that "do as we say, because only we can defend you". The european good wouldn't be the common good. A good thing for Poland, Sweden, Finland and Ukraine would be a poor, distant Russia, but from the german perspective Russia is an important ally, to make germany an energetic hub for gas. So wich one do we pick? The common asylum system - I've already described that. What are the chances for a unified Europe? Preety good as it seems - I agree with you, but it wont be as idealistic as you proposed. It would be more like a post WWI "Kaiserreich" economically speaking, with a germany, that is the economic powerhouse, and small puppet states, who work for the Kaiserreich, with a little "Meditteranean Alliance" lead by France. In a united Europe scenario Eastern Europe becommes one big german colony and Southern Europe becomes a debt slave that can only conform with the big bosses, because if they don't, the debt bailout won't come. Please read about the conzept of "Mittleeuropa" formulated by Friedrich Naumann. This will be an united europe - Germano and Franco - centric. Realisticly speaking Bulgaria or Slovakia will never be equal to Germany or France. The strong rule over the weak, it's just how things are. Your proposition is a highly idealistic one. In reality the already rich areas of western europe will only get richer, while the east and south depopulates, and get's treated worse. We already had a state, that was comprised of many ethnicities, where one people group was treated above others, that also had a rich core, and poor outskirts, and that even had basicly one language - Yugoslavia. We know how that turned out. The nationalities treated worse rebelled. The same would happen to a united europe, unless all nationalities really become equal, Sofia and Bukarest will become as significant as Paris or Berlin, but as we all know from history - chasing a utopia usually ends in a catasrophy. If you managed to read all this, you are a legend, kudos tou you :D
It's exactly that: a federal EU is simply a tool to exploit eastern and southern europe more effectively, it's about being a more efficient imperialist organization.
I was stopping the video after each section trying to make an argument why its a bad idea for federelised Europe and you have literally summarized everything I thought about. GJ and good to know im not alone realising how important even the language and cultural differences are as an argument against fed EU (totaly downplayed in the video).
A very good list of reasons why Denmark, Sweden and Finland are at the bottom of the "More decisions should be taken at EU level" graph, though we can add the fear that our public institutions, such as education, would be downgraded to central European levels, even if public services in central Europe are still very good. A new Kalmar Union would be more likely to happen, than us welcoming our new French and German overlords.
A european army would basically boil down to (at least if the wages are anything like in the richer countries) the military being composed of eastern block privates and officers from countries like germany, france. And with every army being made up, at least primarily, from people that lean right this would create a hilarious divide. Like, I am sorry, but even if I got to send hungarian homophobes to die senselessly in deserts I have no interest in fighting in, in the first place, I find that an awfully crass situation. Not to mention, you are basically asking federal employees, that may have joined for specifically nationalistic reasons into the ranks of their army to "choose" between joblessnes and joining up with a military force of a federation they might oppose. Not to mention, that might not work everywhere. In my country you can't this easily "fire" federal employees, meaning if they for ideological reasons opposed the EU they would still be entitled to keep their job as this wasn't the job they initially signed up for. Government jobs are seen secure here, because, while they usually pay less than the open market, they give you a 'job for life'. Good luck convincing those employees to give up their job willingly. What would probably end up happening is that the country is stuck employing them but can't use them in the EU, which would literally result in a transition period wherein twice the troops would have to be maintained financially. And this is just my personal opinion as someone in this line of work. I wouldn't die for europe. Why the hell would I offer up my life for the idea of a hungarians opinion having a sway in my living situation when I currently don't have to. I joined up because I want to preserve our constitutional values. The EU doesn't have a constitution and if it did I somehow doubt it'd both feature the same ideas that ours protects and the same interpretations of those ideas in its judicial branch.
Basically, the European federation would be nothing more than a single naming declaration after all the natural bureaucratic shifts have already occurred within existing EU institutions
The EU is a Semi-Presidential parliamentary system like France. - EU Council/French President. - EU Commission/French Cabinet. - Council (of Ministers)/French Senate. - EU Parliament/French National Assembly. - EU Court of Justice/French Supreme Court.
They talk of the ever closer union still. So no its very clearly not the case that the current state of the EU is what federalists want. I believe that's just a political game. If you name the EU the USE instead you've changed expectations. Some will leave and others will stay. But from that point you could start reach deep into member states and violate them.
@@AB-zl4nh That's just ridiculously misinformed, on every point - The government in France in subordinated to the President and of the political color of the parliament, nothing to see with the Council/Commission interactions - The French Senate is a de facto advisory body without power other than oversight and moderation of the parliament - There is no such thing as a "French Supreme Court" Seriously next time go read wikipedia before writing so much nonsense with so much confidence
As an American, a Federated Europe would likely see US spend less on military since it wouldn't be in the Union's best interest to have a fuckton of bases there anymore, and then we can actually have the US fix some domestic issues with the budget
We'd also need to fix our elections, corruption and a 250 year old rigging by the south (The Electoral Collage) is what is mainly screwing over america.
Not really. The US spends a lot of military money in places that European countries don't care about as much (Southeast/East Asia, Middle East), and in ways that European countries won't care to have (the US has a ton of nukes, but I think a united EU would be fine with taking over France's arsenal). Also, US military spending isn't as efficient as say, France's military spending (they do mostly-successful military interventions in Africa even though they spend barely more than 2% GDP on their military). Besides, US military spending doesn't actually cost the *full* 700 billion, because a lot of their military budget effectively subsidises their arms industry, which increases arms exports and therefore tax revenue. I got the last two points Perun's video on comparing military budgets; he explains it better there.
There was even a politician in the 40s who tried to make Europe into a federation, he got into power and everything but those god damn Brexiteers stopped him.
@@PlatinumAltaria I would rather root this idea to one Sicilian politician from 13th century, or to one Corsican politician from the beginning of the 19th century. I'm referring to the idea of the Holy Roman Empire, for which Frederick II (mind the "e" or get your fingers off!) was emperor, and Napoleon almost became one.
@@peterpathos4313 That only applies when you compare your opponent to the angry Austrian, I'm pointing out that people have had the idea of uniting Europe in the past, and that it hasn't gone well. See also Caesar, Napoleon, Attila...
My best case against the federalization of Europe would be that at the moment Europe is not very democratic. The European parliament hardly has any power and it is the only elected body of the EU. To sell a European Federation you would need to greatly overhaul the democratic organization of Europe (and that includes having a strong legislative power)
That's simply not true. The european commission is elected by the european council which consists of the elected governments of all member states. The EU is as democratic as all of its member states only that in the EU there is not one but 27 governments who have to agree on the most important things.
@@burt792 what happens when countries in the EU aren't so democratic. There are a lot of governments in the EU these days that didn't win by votes but by political games
I've been looking for a video like this for years, thank you so much! The two things I would say however, would be that there should be no President in the US sense of the word. I believe we should have a Council of Representatives instead of just having one person with the power like the US (I know that's not actually how the US Presidency works, but it does feel like it's still a bit much). It would be fine to have one dedicated person from this council represent the Federation when it comes to International Geopolitical Meetups like at G20 summits and stuff like that, as long as they don't hold political power above any of the others. I also think that as long as the "United in Diversity" aim remains a priority, we'll do fine as a Federation.
I mean a president in the, say, Italian model (a head of state without all of the actual powers of the president of France or the US) doesn't seem too bad of an idea
It would be be to have a government decided on by the Parlament and a president as a representative with maybe a few powers. It would make sense to have the people elect him although this could result in the president being german or french most of the time.
My idea would be to have two Consuls and one Tribune, each one with six-year terms but elections that are staggered and held every two years. No candidate is eligible to run if a citizen of their nation holds one of the three offices currently. That way there is small change every election cycle but also continuity, while preventing big countries from ever monopolizing the offices. Say a German, French, and Italian are currently in office...even if one of them is retiring, all competitors in the upcoming election would have to be from a different country. Similar to how (indirectly, via another rule, but not technically) the US President and Vice President can't really be from the same state. One Consul is elected to serve as the Head of State and oversee all foreign relations, external trade, and military affairs, while one Consul is elected to serve as the Head of Government and oversee all domestic governance. The Tribune chairs the EU Senate while in session, and is empowered with vetoing national laws or staying court decisions that infringe on the rights of EU Citizenship-which may be overruled by the EU Court of Justice. The Consuls can veto each other, the Tribune can veto anybody (and can veto vetoes). The Senate replaces the Commission and is elected from 7 different multi-member districts that are roughly equal in population without dividing countries (1: Germany; 2: France; 3: Romania, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Cyprus; 4: Italy and Malta; 5: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; and 6: Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Luxembourg). This would slightly de-value the votes of a very large country (likely to be frequently represented in the 3 executive offices) like Germany, which would have a population deviation of 4.5% compared to the other Districts, to help achieve balance.
It's extremely disappointing to see this debate being reduced to: "Well, any form of criticism of the EU is just a reactionary far-right distraction from domestic issues." Especially as a somewhat skeptical left-leaning person.
Because most of the time it is. I'm from Bosnia and basically all anti-EU talk is done by incompetent, corrupt, far right politicians blaming Germany for everything, despite us being just a EU candidate, not even affected by all the EU regulations.
The biggest problem I have related to centralization of power: the bigger the area that is represented through a single entity (EU in this case), the harder it is to get rid of when things go wrong. I prefer decentralization, even if it's somewhat less efficient.
I understand where you are coming from but I think centralization is an inescapable part of the near future due to the largest countries continuing to become more powerful. A multi polar world balance is only possible if countries further integrate.
@@olluman123 no dude, the european countries individually are too weak to rival countries like russia or china who have larger populations. At the end of the day america and china are superpowers look at their economies, population and sheer land mass, europe can only compete united, if u fail to do that these emerging superpowers will rip you apart like the small african kindgdoms during the scramble.
When you showed the graph for the EU member states views on a federalised EU, I was trying to find where the UK was and it took me a while to realise we wouldn't be on that 💔
@@corruptedcola393 HGV shortages have been accelerating for years. I have a best friend who was one for 20+ years, quit it and is currently a middle aged PhD student finally discovering his potential. HGV is high pay for unethical conditions and abuse… which have nothing to do with Britain’s exiting of the European Union. The same shortages are happening in the US too, and highway automation will probably happen within my lifetime. Brexit is making a lot of political sense too, when you see Austria and Germany flirt with mandatory health procedures... and a run away border crisis in Belarus. Enjoy you’re delusional of an economic union pretending it’s a nation - cute.
@@corruptedcola393 Ok but in all seriousness, have you or anyone you know felt worse off for leaving? Our economy unlike what literally everyone said has remained the second strongest in Europe and has even extended its lead over France. Please tell me that at the very least, you think Brexit wasn't as bad as all the commentators made it out to be?
7:33 This is something I've been experiencing as well. I find it easier to relate to my foreign friends than friends back home or people who are native to the land. I think knowing other cultures and people's ways of thinking makes them more reasonable to talk with and open to new ideas.
That’s a common phenomenon. It’s the same reason why cities close to the sea or near important trade routes are usually more liberal - the influence of traveler’s and merchants introduces them to new concepts naturally and reduces the fear of the unknown so many people have.
I think a swiss system would be great, allowing for referendums and initiatives, along with a 7-member coequal cabinet (federal council) that cannot fire one another and rotates every year the figurehead presidency. Instead of country, let regions, linguistic areas, and parties fill the council proportionally. Further, let the capital cities of the EU be federal cities (ie directly federalised with the union rather than their country).
@@josecipriano3048 But you can with a population of several million, Switzerland has about 8 million people? This argument is a classic against direct democracy, but it has fallen apart every time. Why? One word, localities. The debate always occurs at the small scale and then once all that is done, the votes are cast for the national referendum. If you think it’s too many people to reach then may I present you the Indian election and the US Census two systems which collect information on massive scales. Europe with its better infrastructure should be able to easily mimic this. Side Note: Switzerland itself isn’t a city state where organizing would be easy. It stretches the same distance between New York and Washing, DC
There's something else a federalized Europe will need as well- a voting system that accurately represents voters' political distribution. CGP Grey talked about this extensively. The US has a federal system where representation is heavily skewed into a political duopoly upheld by an electoral college that uses first-past-the-post, allowing a political minority to be over-represented. As advice for federalizing Europe, I'd recommend that voting-ranges encompass populations such that each votes for multiple representatives instead of one, allowing for multiple parties and candidates to compete, and that voters use ranked-choice or approval voting systems to choose the candidate(s) they prefer. Hopefully this would avoid political duopoly that can be captured by elite and corporate money.
I think that an mmp system using single transferable vote for each range would be better, as it is more proportionate when it comes to smaller parties, or you could have an even higher amount of reps per range
The UK used to use FPTP in the European Parliament, till the EU mandated that something resembling PR be used. Labour, being a large party that was winning under FPTP, chose the most similar system they could: splitting the country into constituencies with as few as three members, and translating votes to seats using the d'Hondt method (which favours larger parties, particularly in constituencies with few members). Ironically, the major parties are so unpopular that this voting system let UKIP (and later the Liberal Democrats and Greens) climb to the top, so that Labour and the Conservatives became, in the European Parliament, the small parties which their choice of system discriminated against.
Personally, I'd favour proportional representation with one multi-member constituency for each country (like how Germany fills its European Parliamentary seats), and an EU-wide Condorcet vote for the President of the Commission.
@@alphamikeomega5728 I'd support a system where, after a parliamentary election, the political parties decide one or more commission candidate teams to endorse, and then the people vote on which commission they prefer using party endorsement as a heuristic. A commission team can be endorsed by multiple parties, and parties can endorse multiple commission teams.
Its so interesting how much you focused on corruption, understandably, as a Hungarian. From the perspective of a Dane, the greater unifying dilemma would be that of wage negotiations. From the Italians, about regional autonomy and state decentralisation. So on and so forth until most Europeans who are concerned with a federal idea would return to you a different priority. All in all, very intriguing to see all of the different volksgeists of Europe talking past each other as, other than COVID, no more than 3 nations care about any one topic.
I think the biggest obstacle will be each country's subliminal identity issue. The divide may be smaller on some borders like maybe Austria, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and Scandinavia -- where historical grievances are slowly, happily, becoming increasingly obsolete. But there are some countries, my prime example would be the UK, where post-imperialistic tendencies, views, and stereotypes still linger in the common consciousness of the people, ready to rear. All in all, I think the younger generations of those under 40 are a lot more integrated and connected through shared media, games, news, work, school exchange, etc. The generation of 40-60 is mostly neutral but tends to hold the subconscious views of their parents. The biggest obstacle might be the generation that lived in a (post) war Europe.
@@RagingGoblin Building upon this, it seems like increased international integration and federation in Europe (and all over the world, really) is likely to become easier and easier as the Internet becomes a more societally entrenched thing. It's like a reversal of the trend towards nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Yes, but where does all that money come from? All they're doing is bleeding dry the German and French workers and middle-class, to subsidise every other country in Europe.
@@ricardogens9834 yeahh oh poor German innocent hard workers, Basically europe is stealing from their pockets! hahahahahahahhah sure thing bro. As if "Europe" didn´t mean France And Germany ONLY , Meaning that THEY have the biggest populations AND Influence and Power. hahahahhahhaah bro tf
@@fabiandanesti1497 Go look at net contributors vs net beneficiaries to the EU instead of trying and failing to be funny... Yes, the EU is a way for the German and French economy to have a guaranteed market that is bigger than their own domestic markets,but the ones who net benefit the most from the EU's policies is definitely not the French and German lower class, its their elites.
@@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938 wouldn't work if imbeciles like these were the ones put in charge of it- thats why we have politicians, who are usually more educated and know better
Slovenia with 2M voters would become completely irrelevant in elections in federalised Europe. The EU doesn't have any mechanism to make small countries more relevant (like for example electoral college in the US.) You would still be able to vote but it wouldn't change anything. Compare 2M Slovenians to 68M Germans.
@@jirislavicek9954 You say "the EU doesn't have any mechanism to make small countries more relevant" as if a system that would make it fair could _never_ be implemented. I'm aware of everything you said, which is why I wouldn't want a federalised Europe if the system was unfair like that. However, if a fair system is ever proposed, that's a different story.
@@TheCrazyFreak It doesn't have it at the moment. And I don't see any political will to change it. It surely won't come from the big countries. Possibly in future.
As an American you can’t model a European federation after our government, the states were all formed as administrative subdivisions, near culturally identical. I have no real issue having my president being from Delaware. But I wouldn’t expect an Irishman to ever accept a Greek as his leader anymore than I would accept a Brazilian. I would follow the Swiss model to have any hope of a sustainable system.
@dihvocfoscocudvyvdd actually it was the opposite in the more distant past. The kings and queens and high statemen often didn't even come from the country they ruled and didn't use the local language in administration. Kind of fascinating that the idea that the ruler must be from your country only game about with nationalism.
You can say the same about a Sardinian ruling over a Venetian's land. I know many of you think we are are like a big Sicily but in reality Italy is really diverse with many regional languages and cultures. In the past a Sardinian president ruling northern Italy would have been madness, now it's totally normal.
Let's just look at a union between Germany and Denmark. Let's imagine that Denmark becomes extremely anti-military, and doesn't want to have an army. But Germany really likes war, so in our 2-country federation Denmark is forced to send troops to fight. It's so small by comparison that it has no say even in a democratic system. This is obviously just a weird form of imperialism: Denmark in this system is just a satellite state of Germany. Germany would have near-total control, and would therefore have the direct interest to take even more power. This isn't some conspiracy to keep Orbán in power, it's just that people understand how these systems work. The only countries whose governments would go in for this are the countries in western Europe that are currently the core of the EU: in other words rich nations that would benefit immensely from all this imperial expans- I mean "federation". We don't need bigger, more powerful countries. We need smaller ones that can better represent their constituents.
But what hinders us from giving each country the same one vote? We shouldnt differentiate from importance or wealth. Do we even have too? Democracy is by the people,for the people. Not by ressources and militarys.
@@yannickfuhrmann7907 If you give each country one vote then you get the opposite problem: groups of smaller countries with shared interests can co-opt democracy for their own gain. What was Yugoslavia would now have 7 votes, Germany would have 1. That senate system doesn't work in the US, so it's obviously not going to work here. Idk why we're replicating the US government, it's a terrible institution even without being run by Americans. And no, because it turns out that you can lie to people to get them to vote against their own interests. Idk why anyone thinks that would be different if you combined a bunch of countries into one.
@@PlatinumAltaria well. Thats just how it is supposed to go then. It is still democracy. And every human also works for their own self interest so yeah. Its reflecting.
@@yannickfuhrmann7907 Uh no, people DON'T work for their own interests, otherwise no one would be voting for the right. If you don't understand that then it's no wonder that you support European self-imperialism.
@@PlatinumAltaria people are voting for the right because THEY are concerned for the safety and traditions of their own people. You can follow a religion based trough a community but its still your decision to join the community and be apart of it. Be it for the feeling of being together with like minded people or just the joy of praying from YOUR point of you because YOU think uts right.
My biggest problem with the EU is that it feels like an undemocratic dinosaur and a retirement home for domestic politicians. I've lived in it my whole life and I still have no idea why it needs a Commission, Parliament, two Councils and who knows what else, or what they do, or how the politicians in charge are selected. There are small elections once every 5 years for one of these (in which the smaller countries get the short end of the stick anyway) and that's it. I would be all for making it more powerful but only if it was also reformed to be much more of a direct democracy. However, the EU politicians have the same flaws as nationals and don't want to give up any power.
It's a gradual shift, we've had the concept of Nation States for nearly five centuries now and as humans we've only grown accustomed to it in the past century, so obviously the jump to something so radical, especially in somewhere so culturally entrenched as Europe (and I mean entrenched in terms of the concept of the nation state) that you'll obviously have some growing pains. Most of the EU top brass are an older generation that lived through the first pains of integration, the younger generation that grew up more integrated have a different view and are more open, so give it time. Like Adam says in his video, it's all gradual change.
The EU has a psychological problem. The united states used to be single countries too, but nowadays they don't think "those TEXANS are diluting our NEW HAMPSHIRE" votes. Everyone has a say in a democracy, that's what rule of the people is about. To ensure that we have progressive governments that respect democracy, there are requirements to joining the union.
Lots of people have good criticisms of this idea and the EU yet he acts as if it's all nothing but EU bashing of crazy far right people who want complete end of the EU
@@oliveroconnor5983 Good example, because corruption and criminality is so rare in the US federal government; it's not like we've ever seen multiple presidents/presidential candidates of the United states involved in acts of criminality, criminal negligence or being paid off by lobbyists or federal institutions that have acted against the interests of the U.S population by say, doing 239 tests of biological and chemical weapons in highly populated cities from releasing clouds of highly cancerous chemcials in St Louis and Minneapolis to releasing harmful bacteria in the subways of New York.
An comparison to India, the only miltilingual, multicultural, multireligious federation, that spans across a whole (sub-)continent is also interesring. A lot can be learned from this federation, about how we can form a European Federation. We can learn good and also make stuff better.
@@infinix2003 It doesn't matter too much that English is the official language when most people have it at a basic level since their mother tongue takes priority and probably do not study in an English Medium School.
India also had a violent episode in its history where the nation separated into another state on religious & ethnic grounds... Pakistan (including East Pakistan which again separated into Bangladesh after a violent civil war in the 1970s). There were also violent incidents by Sikh separatists & from the government to suppress it.
The "national sovergeinty" argument was incredibly crudely dismissed, despite being arguably the biggest problem. The fact is that EU member sovergeinty and EU federalisation are in direct opposition to each other. You cannot have a federalised European union without the reduction of national sovergeinty and vice versa. Regardless of how you put it. The interests of each nation will not disappear if EU became a federation. Sweden would still have a military industrial block looking to preserve its interests. Finland would still have a massive wood and forestry export industry etc. If there wouldn't be a nation looking to preserve its interests and economy, the people would do it. You'd have 5.5 million Finns and 10.5 million swedes voting against 83 million Germans and 67 million french. The system would be incredibly flawed without some sort of electoral college system, and oh god what a shitstorm that would be. I'm not saying this problem would be totally unovercomable, but that the video did a pretty shitty job at honestly looking at the issue, pretty much dismissing it outright. It would be an issue for every EU member state, but mostly for the countries on the fringes of the union, and the members with smaller populations, not just for Hungary and whatever country's political system the author seems to dislike. It is an issue currently, so to say that it wouldn't be an issue if the co-operation was tightened to a federal level is lunacy. Also "just merge militaries" is super reductionist, and also would hugely strip away a lot of sovergeinty. Most northern european armed forces are constitutionally constructed as defence forces. Their duties mandated by law, are to protect the countries borders and national sovergeinty only. Would the EU federation force these Defence forces to merge together with the rest of the EU army and be pontentially sent to Greece to fight against Turkey in an escalating border conflict, against that countrys constitution? Not to mention what an undending moneypit the merging process of not only the command and rank structures would be, but also the equipment and doctrine. In ten years, and with 10 trillion euros, the EU could not create a functioning EU armed forces.
To the point of the eu needing an electoral college system: As you can already see in the US, that system is incredibly flawed and strips rights away from the population. Many people in the USA dont have a vote that really matters, just because of the region they live in. In my opinion the way to solve that would be a system like in germany: The parliament is elected in a simple election, while there is also a council of member states, represented by the state's local government, which preserves each members interests.
He wouldn't listen it seems as in his video he just outlined criticism to the idea from this angle as nothing more than EU bashing and not making sense
That's not quite right though, the people of a single nation don't actually all share the same economic and political interests (except in the sense of class interests I guess) what you're describing is regional interests, which already exist within the nations in question. As a Canadian citizen we get by despite the vastly disparate interests of different provinces and different regions within provinces. I live in Alberta and I fucking hate the provincial governments obsession with the oil industry as it actually only benefits a small portion of the rural land owning population and the wealth isn't even redistributed enough to keep the roads functional to drive on. Good heavens Alberta's roads are appalling. You can literally tell when you've passed through the border with BC by the frequency of bumps. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's really easy to get people to go against their own interests if they're invested in a common identity.
Living in Canada here, if the system works anything like what we have here, then your national sovereignty remains intact. There will be some restrictions of course, certain federal laws required for unification, but each province is mostly in control of it's own economy, has it's own government and has the protected right to self governance, right down to the individual municipalities. There are massive differences between BC, Alberta, Saskatewan, Manitoba, Ontoria, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, plus the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.. (felt like i jerk if i didn't include them all... lol) but it works (for the most part, but i mean this is politics, you'll never get everyone to agree). The overarching consensus here is that the benefits of being a federation are well worth the small amount of control each province has to concede. I mean, a good comparison would be how you mentioned finland's wood and forestry industry. That's not really any different here, with BC accounting for a vast majority of canada's forestry industry and it's the provincial government that oversees that industry, not the federal government.
What would that be? Banning credit card charges? Banning rooming charges? Workers rights? Environmental rights? Putting multi billion fees on Google/Apple/Facebook?
As a Belgian I was suprised to learn this, as that's not that much more than what I make as a lab technician with a Bachelor's degree. It's way less than what doctors make here.
I look at the other post here about how much 2000€ is, and I think it's probably a good idea to ensure controls are in place so doctors do not become landlords.
In the Netherlands, national minimum wage is €1701, but for medical personal the collective labor agreement is higher. Almost all medical personnel (including nurses and medical assistents) earn above €2000 already. Only non-specialized home-care employees earn less than €2000, they earn slightly more than the national minimum. The biggest trade union and some political parties are pushing for national minimum hourly wage of €14 (€2480 monthly for 40 hour weeks) because the cost of living has increased a lot.
@@vxicepickxv The other side of the coin is that where I live, you could probably get a mortgage to get a house on 2000€, but you definitly won't have enough to have several ones
Prietene, cu 2000€ mori de foame in orice tara din vest. Daca se aduc standardele in Romania la același nivel cu cel vestic nu vei mai considera salariul acela dizerabil. Doar daca se mentin nivelurile de trai ar functiona.
It's really weird to me that Americans or even western Europeans think of Poland as an unilaterally conservative country when it's divided almost exactly like the US is, it's liberal cities versus conservative rural areas. In the recent presidential election the liberal pro LGBT candidate lost by around 1,5% despite our ruling government doing everything in their power to undercut him. It was almost exactly 50/50 with a slight edge for conservatives, why then are we all seen as anti LGBT conservatives when progressive Americans would never see their own country that way when Trump won the election? The huge city/rural area divide is seen with the mayoral elections, a conservative candidate from the ruling party hasn't won the mayoral election in a single big city, liberal candidates almost always win the mayoral elections. And the country is divided between the largely urbanized and wealthier western Poland and poorer and rural eastern Poland, it's almost exactly like the North/South divide in the US. So it's upsetting to me that we're all seen as anti LGBT conservatives because the conservative party has been ruling for 7 years. Also in our senate the liberal senators are the slight majority, sadly our senate doesn't even come close to how politically influential it is compared to the US senate. Nobody likes to be generalized just because they live in a certain country, please don't assume that we're all like that because that's how our government is. We didn't do that for you with Trump and we'd like to be treated the same, with democracy sometimes idiots get elected and they make the whole country look stupid and backwards but if they didn't get like 90% of the vote then there is no reason to assume that it reflects the ideology of everyone in said country.
good point - but thats exactly what adam mentioned in his video, the fact, that there is not a seperation of countries but rather a seperation within countries, and pretty much the same one everywhere, so scaling it up wouldnt change a thing
@@michelhenning9311 Yep, I absolutely agree both with Adam and you. I just reiterated it because I absolutely hate when people from the US say that Polish people are racist, xenophobic, homophobic etc instead of saying that there are quite a lot of those people, around 40%. I'm not racist, homophobic etc so why am I classified as a racist just for the fact I was born in Poland? I think it's a pretty bigoted thing in itself
Except you couldn’t be more wrong. The general feeling about Poland from the American population is that you are a pull between the eastern bloc and Western Europe, and the current political status of your country is affected by that past. Hey, maybe it’s wrong, but nobody really considers Poland ultra nationalist. Maybe it has something to do with an extensive amount of polish nationalists online? Who are very vocal about their ideas and opinions? But it has little to no effect on the American population. Also, the entirety of the left leaning progressives in the US believed we were going to become a fascist country when trump swore in. In fact, many still believe we are. Most of Europe is regarded as pro-LGBT & anti-racist to us.
@@adenrius have you played any online game with French people? i can tell you that even the young people would be very angry about it. I think its better that they speak their own language, at least you can immediately distinguish when you are dealing with the cancer of the internet.
Of course english would need to be the "official" language for the administration and the government, just like it is today for the pparliamant or the council. What's striking with people working there is how many language they know and their general interest for european culture. It's really inspiring tbh PS: I'm french
As a 19 year old french person, I really wouldn't care at all, since I use english almost more than french nowadays, although, and responses above me have shown, that older people definitly won't be happy about it
@@durshurrikun150 I know, but that won't happen as long as the entire world is capitalist and we're probably quite a bit away from moving away from that one.
don't worry, the video is only well thought out as long as it benefits him. You shouldn't think about what it would really mean to merge armies, that it would conflict with many treaties, that it would mean every European country would endorse every shitty thing France is doing right now on other countries' soil ... it would cost less !! we don't know why and how it would cost less but it's ok because on this channel we know about trains, not how to manage a transcontinental armed force.
I'm not completely sold on the federalization of Europe, given the caution that would need to be taken in order to balance power. Something you didn't touch on is just that: the imbalance of political power distribution among European countries (with the power both economically and militarily of France and Germany I would question in particular). I would be interested in hearing people's thought on this question. Another point I would like to touch on, is that while conservative political tendencies are often framed as the ones who would oppose further cooperation, In France, at least, where I live, certain popular liberal political ideologies have also been in opposition to the EU. For example, the public vote on whether to accept the EU constitution In 2005, was polled in favor by the general population; yet after a huge campaign lead by BOTH conservative and liberal parties, this public opinion completely changed. even with the unreliability of polling as an accurate guage of public opinion, the statistical difference observed is too significant to reduce the impact of their actions. Meanwhile, a presidential condidate who won 22 percent of votes in the first round has stated that if he was elected, and if his demands of the EU were not met "we would have to resort to plan B": a thinly veiled insinuation that not only would he opt out of many EU agreements, but he might have resorted, or planned to leave the EU all together. Is this observable in other parts of Europe? Do the progressive parties also stand in opposition to EU cooperation?
Although I agree with the idea of "monke together strong" I cannot help but to fear that smaller nations in the EU would get assimilated into and resemble more and more cultures of Germany and/or France if federalization were to happen, not to mention that the voices of the smaller nations would get outnumbered by the sheer number of votes from the bigger nations.
Personally I don’t think this will be the case, since France and Germany together aren’t even close to a majority they will always be forced to work with smaller nations (and that’s assuming every nation votes for only one party) this can be clearly seen in that the UK’s parties are often forced to collaborate with northern Irish parties to form a government, Europe would be the same but to a larger extend. Even if they could form a majority you can see that cultures do tend to stick around if not forcibly removed (which a democracy can’t really do) based on examples like Spain. So while Europe would probably become more unified in identity the individual cultures would remain prevalent.
When I heard that you compared Poland to Taliban of Europe it made my blood boil. i understand what you meant by it, but even I as a left leaning person in Poland, would't go as far as calling the right wing that.
Would be nice, but there's no way countries privileged in the Union like Germany or France would give up their control to any amount of less significant countries. It's a nice dream, but the chances of that I estimate at about the chances that we'll see a Federal Asia anytime soon.
@@tomaspaukner3218 it is the country where Polish people emigrate the most, surely it was more common when they were in the UK, but the process won't just stop
@@KateeAngel I know that, but there's a very low probability of the UK joining any more federalized form of the EU. At the same time, nobody stops the polish government to go full out and support high added value jobs, use the networks they can thru the EU to boost education and infrastructure on steroids,... and make their people see poland is an exciting country for the future. Why does the society not do that? Thats a whole another discussion. Same issue here in CZE tho, youre not alone.
problem comes when you have an "iron clad defence" for your day and the terms surrounding an issue changes. then what was once secure becomes a new loophole.
There's one big counter-argument that's missing from your video: the fact that the EU is first an foremost an economical union. This is like, the one thing where everyone agrees : the EU should focus on protecting it's economical interests. As a result of that, the global political orientation of EU structures have always leaned towards liberalism and free market ideology. They have signed several Free Trade Agreements, they have often prevented their member states from introducing more market regulation laws (and in some cases even forced them to roll back on some of them). In 2012, they imposed a lot of austerity measures upon Spain, which did nothing to help them recover from their economical crisis, but had devastating social consequences. If a European Federation were to form, what could realistically be done to prevent an over-representation of this political ideology ? In all likelihood, not much. So, in summary, in an ideal world where everyone agreed that solidarity is the most important value in our society, sure, a European Federation would be pretty neat. But as things stand now, it would be a terrible idea.
We can’t even get a singular education system for the 16 states of Germany, so I think it’ll be difficult to achieve a similar education system for all of Europe… again because of different interests
My concern is that Europe is predisposed to being divided. the interests of Spain will always be different to Poland. As seen in the Eurozone crisis, the currencies of Greece and Germany shouldn't be the same. Their economies and most importantly exports are vastly different meaning one will lose out from sharing a currency by necessity.
Well, it's about pros and cons. Big countries like US and China have the same problem. And even individual European countries have same issues, just in smaller scale. So it's not really issue, it's just about how you manage it. Overall, different regions will always have differences. Classical problem would be countryside vs cities.
That's the thing with this - Greece and Germany *can* have one currency, but only in a federalized EU, just like in US Florida has no problem sharing currency with NY or California. Remember, few years after Euro was adopted there was a thing called European Constitution, and it definitely was planned for it all to work together - Euro as a single currency of European Federation (not by name, but by essence). Unfortunately, not all countries could ratify it via parliament, referendums needed to be had, French and Dutch got scared of something (mostly Turkey in EU, I suppose), and it never came to be. After that Euro was left standing on one leg - it just couldn't do what it was supposed to properly. And Lisbon treaties are not a new leg for it - just a shitty walking aid. I vividly remember that time, I was a teenager, my country has just joined in, in 2004 I went to France via Erasmus program, everybody there seemed to be very pro-EU, I really thought that by the time I will be 30 I will live in United States of Europe. And then, in spring 2005 opinion polls started to shift in France - I remember I saw on Euronews street interviews with people who were against the EU Constitution - many stating some bullshit reasons like " But the flag! If we vote yes we will lose our flag and hymn! ". Damn, even a teenager like myself could understand that EU is *the* only chance of any European country west of Russia to be really independent, and they blew it. And now, remembering recent events, French just suck it up to US whenever they have to, as divided Europe will from this point on always be dominated by the current superpower, and they call that independence. Well, I guess they got to keep the flag.
@@mukkaar Thank you for this well thought out comment, I was just going to ask what they believe the similarities are between Alaska and Texas but you already more elegantly stated my underlying point. Well said.
Polands differences to spain is why we should federalize. Poland can leverage the federal government to help with it's local interests as well as spain. "Monke strong together, weak alone."
You are clearly wrong on the national sovereignty argument. You use Viktor Orbán there as your example but seem to forget that he is indeed elected official, elected by Hungarians with quite a strong mandate too. If Europe federalized then control over the issues the federation would handle would indeed go away from Hungarians in favor of what ever German and French wanted (seeing as that's what it comes down to in a democratic numbers game). Sure people would still have democratic control over their decision making, and in the case of the more corrupt states,"the people" might have more control over it, it just wouldn't be Hungarian people but Germans or French. It is very clear that in this case say the anti immigration electorate of Hungary would obviously lose power to the pro immigration electorate of Germany and lose their national sovereignty on the matter. This isn't limited to just Hungary either and is instead true by definition, and claiming it isn't is very strange. Any power or responsibility you transfer from a local entity to the supposed federal entity means the local people lose majority portion of their control on that issue, they can still vote, their votes just cease to matter. Be it French nuclear power, Spanish migrant workers, German gas deals or Norwegian fishing, any local issue turned into a federal one means majority of the voters come from areas outside of where the issue is actually being handled which translates to loss of sovereignty, the more responsibilities and powers the federal government has, the more loss occurs. The Orban example does imply that you don't care about the loss of sovereignty, not because it wouldn't happen, but because it would take power away from people you don't like and give more to those you do like, which I believe is the crux of the matter here. This is exactly why people oppose EU federation.
"You use Viktor Orbán there as your example but seem to forget that he is indeed elected official, elected by Hungarians with quite a strong mandate too." Stopped reading after this passage. You have no idea what you're talking about: There has never been a clean Hungarian election in the country's entire history.
@@weeabooman2867 In an undemocratic system lol. You're preaching about protecting homophobia, what right to talk about democracy do you think you have?
"A federation made up of different languages and traditions just can't work" Switzerland: "Am I a joke to you?" Belgium, Finland and Ireland: "We're here, too." Edit: > Malta entered the chat > Cyprus entered the chat > Luxembourg entered the chat
While you make good points in general, the one thing that always gets me is that centralization of powers usually ends up with wide scale centralization of corruption. Speaking as an American, federal powers were originally designated for international trade and national defence. And now look at us.. 😔
True thing to consider but I want to add: major reasons for the U.S.'s current state is the removal of regulatory and supervisory conditons for media decades ago, allowing the rise of disinformation networks like Fox News, a highly flawed and undemocratic electoral system and continuous reduction in funding and increase in religious influence in education. Among others. What is happening now is simply the harvest of seeds (legislation) sowed decades ago and the continued watering of those seeds. And for many years now people could see where this road will ultimately lead. The EU at this point doesn't have these issues (not in any comparable fashion, anyway) but we also need to stay vigilant because they may creep in. And just as with the US, you only feel the results of those rotten seeds once it's too late and they've become entangled, so tackling topics such as media responsibility, disinformation and the state of education has to be done proactively. Case in point: how to deal with russia's destabilization attempts?
The EU embodies upper middle class Liberal values, which are put on a pedestal over all others. The Erasmus experience makes this blatant. The EU will never tolerate other values, such as Christian, Islamic, Militarist or Communist values. EU values are mostly driven forward by the ECJ and the non-EU ECHR.
India has more linguistic, cultural and economic diversity than entire continental europe yet we exist as one country with far less regional autonomy For a country/federation to be together you need the leadership i.e. Politicians at top to propagate that idea plus some good marketing via media
@Snorri Modern Indian state has managed to keep a region which will most likely classify as a continent in terms of human diversity together with next to nil regional conflict India has more regional diversity compared to Europe but while India is a country Europe is divided on linguistic lines
@@snuurferalangur4357 it's not European magic that had resulted in India staying together its the success of Indian leadership and people.. Other European colonies where they forced diverse people to stay together have all failed in middle east and Africa European themselves can't stay along if they are slightly diverse... Yugoslavia is a good example... Croats, Bosnians and Serbs have less diversity than an average colony in India yet they started killing each other as soon commie block collapsed 2 world wars and several conflict later Europeans now preaching how well they work together is a joke
@@snuurferalangur4357 even after that partition India remains a massive country and didn't get disintegrated further Since 1947 no civil wars and almost all major secessionist movements put down peacefully, India is a successful federation of diverse nation states There are states in India with size and population greater than European countries and speak languages which don't even sound alike
As a Swede, I couldn't help but notice that the three EU countries most opposed to further integration on the bottom-right graph @ 15:57 were also the three EU countries that sport Nordic crosses. Furthermore, Norway and Iceland aren't even in the EU. EU membership has been neat in a lot of ways but all attempts to increase integration have only forced us to lower our standards (labour rights etc) and there is a genuine feeling of separation from continental Europe. I think most Nordic countries and thereby most Scandinavian ones would probably want to remain where they are, on the periphery.
@@Giruno56 Scandinavian countries are soft euros sceptic countries. Norway and Iceland are not EU members. Denmark has 3 functioning opt outs and has refused to abolish them through referendums several times. Sweden does not use the Euro and has strong anti eu parties on both the left and the right.
@@victorm6430 They are just lunatics.d No tax heavens? For poor countries low tax rate and low bureaucracy is the way to improve their situation so they wanna keep poor poor? And tes more central power means more bureaucracy which is the most terrible thing. And united army, is this a joke? People often serve in the army because it's the army of their country, if it was the same for all the countries people wouldn't feel like their defending their home anymore but something they don't really understand and agree with. All of this sound like you can solve all the problems by passing new laws f.e. passing a law that says nobody is poor anymore xd. I am from Poland and i am strongly against this whole idea.
Calling Polish government alt-right is a huge simplification. While culturally right, economically it invests into a lot of pointless welfare that's supposed to help the poor but only facilities the spread of pathological behavior. It's populist, not alt-right.
Thats the problem of analyzing political scenarios from an outside perspective. Federalizing europe would have much wider implications than adam suggests, for example the fact that he didn't consider russia or china trying to stop the whole process financing separatists.
He is a heavy leftist, from his viewpoint Poland is alt-right. “Alternative” Right Wing Governments doesn’t exist in Europe. They’re just conservatives like from the 80s-2000s. They’re anti EU cause the EU is indeed taking away national sovereignty and replacing it with a centralized bureaucracy. Some countries were forced to take immigrants even the population voted against it. Due to the large cultural differences the EU would have to rule antidemocratic in some of its right wing regions.
I don't know that much about Polish politics but it seems to me that those "far right" politicians are in fact ex-communist populists playing on the Catholic string with a hint of nationalism.
As a German I recently had a shower thought going: If Poland in their descent to crazy-town one day goes full loony and starts a war it can't win... do we get Silesia back? Of course just kidding. Since there are too few Germans living there anymore it would make no sense, but I did wonder what the consequences for Poland are at the most extreme...
@@dschehutinefer5627 Careful what you wish. Some of us here in Silesia are considering starting a war with Germany then quickly surrendering... and then Y'all have to deal with governing this shit show. Viel gluck !
@@riverman6462 Then definition of "coup d'etat" has suffered great amount of inflation if we consider that one as a attempt to overthrow goverment. Seriously How can you take that guy with Bull horns hat and with face paint to be to be sophisticated enough to make the effort? Give me a break.
Oh, absolutely. That doesn't rule out a federal level though. There are a lot of things where one federal institution is much more suited and efficient than myriads of local institutions. Of course the opposite is also true.
@@SomePotato exactly the main point I disagree on is finances as individual states within nations should have the right to tax and promote industry not the EU. Westminster has no care for northern England, I find it hard to see brussels caring more. but that is fine they don't need to, we need more local government.
@@fabriciofazano the problem is not that they don't know, but that they don't care. Opposite interests are a thing, and the "common good" an utopia. So the question is: "will the bureaucrat in Bruxelles prioritize the interests of 10000 rumenian/italian french workers or the interest of 10 big lobbysts?". Current EU history gives the answer: "he will do the interest of the lobbyst"
Argument that fixes all the cultural differences (from east to west from south to north): "I'm an hungarian guy who went to Germany and everything was fine" just LOL
To me it showcased that point pretty well. Small communities in rural areas would not be affected by cultural differences between nations, because those communities are too small to matter in the grand scheme. No culture would be lost by federalizing. It would only lead to even better sharing and enriching those cultures with different ones. Spaniards people would still keep their siestas and Slovaks would still drink always. Those are imbedded to us during our early development which is done by our parents. Culture wouldn’t disappear, it would only change to better fit this federal europe. Which if you want higher standards of living for everybody is only a good thing.
I like your videos and I agree with a lot of the critics you make to modern world. But you can’t simply liquidate centuries of cultural differences with that simple example. In the first place, Europe isn’t only made of middle class university students; there is a majority of the population for which these differences still count. In second place, maybe we should consider why, with a cultural background so vast and diverse we can simply say that Europe’s cultural differences are “outdated”; maybe because we have no interest whatsoever not only for our national cultural tradition, but even for our European tradition, as modern Europe is basically Europe trying since past ww2 to be like the USA. I am too in favour of a federalised Europe; but if this project must become reality, it must do so in respect with national and continental tradition, because a nation without identity is nothing. And you can’t simply put these question away because you met some foreign people and you became friends
Why a federal Europe? Why not a *CONfederal* Europe? Switzerland seems to handle it pretty well. And that would ensure that people with different living conditions would still have power to influence their *own* lives. No amount of influence over other Europeans would ever make up for a loss of influence over ourselves. I don't oppose tighter European cooperation. My issue is where the power comes from. A European army that's shared between nations and where *all* the nations have the power to veto its use or even pull out of its membership is a far cry from one ruled by a organization ruling over all of Europe giving locals no real way of fighting for freedom in the case of a conflict as one example. And rules and laws that makes sense in urban areas on the plains of Europe makes less or even no sense at all in more rural areas. There's 10 million people living in the Ruhr valley, it makes sense to have a railway there, the villages and cities there can easily finance it even privately. In a country like Norway or Switzerland that's mostly mountains, it makes less sense. And in the case of Norway the country as a *whole* has a population of about half of the Ruhr valley alone spread out over a area that's long enough that if you where to cut out Norway from a map and turn it around it would reach to about Rome in Italy. All in one country. And one representative in the Norwegian parliament this year was elected in with just 4908 voters in a 5 seat constituency, and she was voted in to ensure that the local population would keep emergency services and a maternity ward that didn't require driving over a mountain pass that's often impossible to drive across in winter. Contrast that to the average number of voters pr seat in Norway of about 17 200 voters pr seat here. In a larger nation like Germany such a view simply wouldn't be represented. Even within that constituency there was two political partiers bigger then hers, so she wouldn't be represented in the first past the post seats in Germany. And for the proportional seats in Germany, they're at a national level and requires 5% of the voters, while she only got 0,2% of the voters in Norway. So people potentially not being able to get emergency treatment due to plans to close down a hospital on one side of a mountain in order to make things more efficient with a hospital on the *other* side would have been ignored till after it was already a reality and people started actually dying, and it became news worthy... Similar issues would crop up all over the place. Urban areas are already naturally overrepresented due to their population. You don't really *need* 10 people who are all socialists from a city to represent the socialist view. Or 7 capitalists or whatever. That city or that urban area is still well represented. And just picking the largest party from a lot of rural areas isn't doing any good either. Norway has created a solution where we have proportionality at every level yet we can still get people like that woman with 0,2% of the votes into our parliament as well as a really close approximiation of the proportionality of political parties popularity within our parliament. That works for a small nation like Norway. But ut would be unfair for less then 5000 people in Northern Norway to decide how people in the Ruhr valley or some other high population density area should live. Just like the opposite is true.
@Leads I'm *against* federalism and argue for confederalism, as I think that it's important that the power originates from the bottom up rather than the other way around. But no, I don't think we can solve all the challenges that we face as individual countries. We need to coordinate our efforts more.
Big thanks for Skillshare for sponsoring today's video!
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O k
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No
Still cant get over the fact that the european anti corruption force is called Olaf
Originally they wanted to go with Steve, but that didn't sound right :)
I’d like to think there’s just a guy named Olaf in a sparsely furnished office, all by himself,l. Deciding what hat is and is not corrupt like Santa Claus.
I cant stop laughing at 3am
The funniest thing about it is that people who refer to it never see the funny thing about it and take it completely serious
😂😂
It’s too ironic that Ireland is the only native English-speaking country in the European Union.
You forgot Malta.
@@williamadams7136 Malta speaks Maltese first and English second. Only 10% speak English as their first language, it just has very high levels of English as a second language. Ireland speaks English as the primary native language. The Irish language is only spoken the home by a small minority of the population.
It's a Lingua Franca. No one's tongue, everyone's tongue. I's a compromise. It's fine.
English would be a good lingua franca yes.
But if we wanna speak about relative stuff like culture, i am very much against it. As a Dutchman ive grown tired of speaking English my whole life. I live in a city that looks no different from an ugly American city and the fact that everyone speaks English here and dresses in an American way is just ugly.
Obviously i do the same, but we as Europeans have already become way too over-Americanized and ruled by American corporations and their ideologies. Making English the official language of the federal EU would just make it a mini-USA. Boring and dull. Devoid of identity.
Hell i'd prefer bringing Latin back as the lingua franca of Europe. Lol.
@@TSGC16 whilst making Latin the official language would be cool it could be problematic in the message it sends and would annoy the Slavic and Germanic countries that don't have as much of a historical connection
Adam: Military should unite
*Luxemburg who shares a helicopter with Belgium*: I’m 4 parallel universes ahead of you
We shall invade the swiss
Hardest I laughed today, thank you
@@OHOE1 Good luck, the Swiss are all out practicing their long-distance sharpshooting at the gun range
@@OHOE1 Man, i really like Adam but theres just better Social Commentary and Politic-News out there than him.
Like Some More News (especially his 'obvious solutions to obvious world-problems'-videos)
and Hbomberguy.
"The Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers says its my turn as pilot"
You know the whole "Russia war on european soil" truly aged well on this one
In Eastern Europe, wispers of war were constantly present since 2014. They didn't stop after the media got bored with it.
Right? Glad the crisis was already on someones radar already
@@YeahButCanISniffUrPantsFist I disagree with you name cause I am sniffing yours already
well it's been happening since 2014 🙄
@@prplt word
The title: the case for a federal europe
The video: the case for why the Hungarian government is incompetent and corrupt
What better case for federalization, than pointing out inefficiency and corruption on local level?
its ok. Everyone of us knows the failures of his goverment best :)
@@todortodorov1263 everywhere isn't Hungary?
@@todortodorov1263 Wanna check out the corruption and ineffiecny on a federal level? Brussels is full of it even tho the EU thinks they're the shining city on the hill.
@@todortodorov1263 It also points out how big the differences are between member states, that the east is corrupt and incompetent and that south is also non functioning. Why would a functioning country relegate power to non functioning ones?
Your federation is going to have a giant Switzerland shaped hole in it tho :(
Easy solution: stop recognizing the existence of Switzerland. Now you have a map with a weird country-shaped sea in the middle of Europe
Would you please make a video on what the Westerosi economy would perform after season 8?
Hey! Another my favorite channel shows up:)
Undiscovered, probably uninhabited
@Adolf Hitler what’s your take on this?
* finger gets pointed at Ireland as being a taxhaven *
Luxembourg and the Netherlands:
Innocent whistle
I'd add to that Cyprus and Malta, but there's always Monaco and Liechtenstein. Or you know, any other tax haven in the world, most money is digital anyway.
@@morriganbermejo4042 And it's your right to be a stupid asshole. Is it a smart way to progress as a nation though?
@@morriganbermejo4042 Cutting your head of works for me. I guess that's good too then. Your logic seems to have some small flaws in its fundamentals.
America is the second biggest tax Haven in the world. Pandora papers opened a lot of eyes
And Switzerland too, no?
Imagine going back 200 years and showing this video to an European. They would either laugh in your face or have an aneurysm on the spot
All of them, except one. Napoleon.
@@Levitiy Napoleon didn't want a European federation. He wanted a French dominated Europe. Which is a wildly nationalistic viewpoint , than what has been said in the video.
Eh... don't underestimate the politicians/nobles of the late 18. and early 19. century. There were lots of huge ideas going around, not only Napoleon.
Of course the common folk would have reacted like you said in many cases. Although back then many rural folks didn't care about politics at all and wouldn't have said no to anything as long as they can live on in peace.
I'll laugh in your face now this is a stupid idea. Concentration of power is always a bad thing
@@brandonspencer7093 Well said comrade, abolish the government! ANARCO SINDICALISM NOW!1!!
"federal anti-corruption court"
you'd see half of Spain pushing to get out of the EU ASAP
Mediteranian countries have a huge corruption problem, we need to fix this together, hopefully with the help from the EU 🇵🇹🤝🇪🇸🤝🇮🇹🤝🇬🇷
I perceive the Judicial System in Spain as one of the most corrupt in Western Europe. Sad to see my country not living up to international standards.
@@juanitoalcachofa1183 the judicial system, our forces, most of our political corps... thats what happens when a dictator dies on his bed and leaves his retinue as the rulers.
The only reason we're still in the EU is that nobody gives a fuck about us. If Europe knew half of the shit we're up to we'd be kicked out in a couple days.
@@Ivanfpcs the EU looks the other way for a reason, though. Nothing short of a technocratic government imposed from above (which carries its own lot of problems) would fix our corruption issues, mostly because our education reinforces them and because we tend to be too meek and passive to fight that corruption.
All of Eastern and Southern Europe, Really.
Step 1# Federalise Eu
Step 2# Become global super power
Step 3# Build orbital battle station capable of destructing planets
Step 4# Become galactic super power
You play Stellaris too, i see
Rise of the empire lol
Step 5 : colonise the neighbouring Continental world's
Step 6 : first contact, defend the borders
Step 7 : create a galactic federation
Step 8 : get roflstomped by the endgame crisis because we were too busy trying to fix the euro
*laughts in grand moff Tarkin*
Declare war to all galactic power and win
1:13 Being from Switzerland, I would recommend to have not just one president. Make an executive council with several members (five to nine people) who all come from different countries. You could make rule, that they have to represent the regions somewhat proportional (east, west, Scandinavia, Mediterranean) so no-one feels completely left out. They have all the same power but for some representive tasks one person out of that group is a kind of president (that rotates every year and brings no additional power). That way they need to work together and you have continuation over many years.
As an American, please.
The maker of the video certainly does not have in mind a democracy like Switzerland for his creation of the United States of Europe. EU proponents hate direct democracy (as usually, people tend to reject their plans) and have a strong belief in a benevolent rule of the elite. This is how the EEC and the EU have been built from the beginning.
If EU becomes more federalized, I think it would still the same system with a council (with 27 members states) that already exist. It would just have more responsabilities that have been federalized
@@sebastianzeitblom4668 nice completely biased hateful blind delusions you got there buddy, victor orban, putin, etc are anti EU and it shows who are the democracy haters
I am not sure how I fould feel about the top-level executive force to be split up among multiple people. In the Netherlands we basically do this with EVERYTHING (we call it the poldermodel) and generally it works out really well. A decision is not pushed through until every party has atleast something going for them, and the compromise made is mostly in everyone's favor in some way.
The problem arises in times of crisis. During the pandemic, the Netherlands has been lagging behind the events every single time. Lockdowns take too long to be implemented, then take too long to raised. It has caused our country to be in a political divide it has never seen before.
i find it somewhat ironic and hilarious that the entire EU is learning English while the UK has essentially left the chat.
Yep, but we're learning it because of the US not UK. In my country hardly anyone knew english prior to ww2, many people knew german, italian and some french and russian. Since US is by far single most important country and influence we' re just taking that into account. Prior to WW2 german had "lingua franca" role for most of central Europe.
No it’s because the whole world is learning it right now and a lot of countries people speak English so that’s why
@@MormixIngmar, the fact remains that English used to be only spoken in England. How the world has changed.
@@benharris7358 yes since the colonisation of the americas the british had a huge population growth and thats why there are a lot more english speakers and it is also set as a international language so that everyone learns one so that everybody can understand
@@MormixIngmar, I dont need a history lesson mate. I know that. Im saying there is a certain amount of irony in the situation.
I’m at the language section, and I gotta say, I would pay actual money to see someone tell the french they need to learn and speak english en masse. It would make my fcking year
I think that the rest of Europe should become Francophone.
@@yurironoue5888 ouai
@@yurironoue5888 Haha, yeah, no!
@@yurironoue5888 Get outta here, Napoleon. 😉
I totally agree
In simple terms, Monke strong together, weak alone
I dont like this terminology as mussolini used it
History tells us that always works out, it has never gone wrong :)
too much concentration of power...corruption would be 10x worse in a federal europe. will never happen anyway. its more likely the EU will disintigrate.
@@tednicholas4719 Corruption never happens when you have big government, according to Adam Something when you have BIG GOVERMENT you also have BIG MONEY, so it must be good right?
Exactly, this was all about how china and russia are our enemies. We need a bigger army and to be scared. Sounds like Trumps "china".
13:30 I really wanted you to finish “Poland for example is extremely anti Russian” with “whilst Russia is extremely pro Russia”
Russia probably wouldn't be part of a federal europe tbf.
Most of Eastern Europe hates Russia's guts. Which would be great if the new EU doesn't include Russia, but horrible if it does.
A better relationship with Russia is so much more important for us than the whole shitty EU and especially the east of EU.... the EU is shit and a fail project. Better a different European Federation with Russia and each state has his own currency and more autonomy than this actual shit.
@@HolyknightVader999 Are seriously considering it as a possibility? LOL It couldn't include Russia, that would be completly improbable, ridiculous, I mean even the NATO, which has most of Europe as members, was created as a defense organization against Russia, they don't have real democracy, and are constantly getting embargoed by EU. The only context here is foreign relations.
@@tomaszsotysik9438 A lot of European countries also still hate Germany. Can you expect Poles and Frenchmen to share the same bunk with the Germans?
I feel like you really handwaved over a lot of the arguments you were addressing.
The sovereignty argument is not just a ploy by evil dictators. This federation plan will need to address that somehow otherwise the tiny nations are actually giving up their sovereignty due to their citizens not being numerous enough to have any impact on the federal government. When the US formed this problem was addressed by having the bicameral legislature and in today's world that is fairly controversial due to the "tyranny of the minority" perception. What concessions are you willing to make to give these tiny nations an outsized level of influence due to them not being willing to give up any noticeable control over the top levels of government.
Your tax haven argument seems similarly hand wavy. The reason Ireland is a safe haven now is because it greatly benefits Ireland. Taking that away means you have to give something tangible in return so what concessions would be made to entice them to join this federation?
Language: Teaching everyone English seems like a reasonable solution but I do think you would need to enforce it everywhere. If you want to be a united force you need to actually be united from the top down. These multi-lingual countries work fairly well on a small scale and as long as they don't need a united military. Multi-lingual forces are historically proven to be unsustainable in any form of legit war due to the breakdown of communication between units as casualties mount.
Money: You hand wave away the vast wealth differences by saying you are going to pay minimum wages to key sectors. Why would the small wealthy powers sign up to increase their taxes to directly pay other countries? This is a direct transfer of wealth away from one set of countries to another and all of those millions of individuals will likely talk a big game until they actually have to write a check.
The overall problem seems that the EU already exists and can't solve some of these problems. If you want these nations to fully cede certain powers to this federal body you would need to sort out these issues first otherwise the nations won't agree to join. Just because something could be a great thing doesn't mean people will actually do it or that it would actually be a good thing in reality.
I don't know why but I find it funny that English would be become the common administrative language, especially when the English are the only people to have left the EU.
That is very ironic.
Modified Esperanto should be EU's common language. Change my mind 😬😬
Wait till you hear about Latin in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe
@@MrAlepedroza well, Esperanto is a terrible conlang. You're welcome.
It would not. Such a country wouldn’t need one common administrative language, it would continue the current language policy in the EU: "every national language is official, but only 3 of them are working languages".
its tragic and iconic for the EUs greatest flaw
Europe's only basis for a unified identity is in its self-hatred
It shapes itself into the very thing it initially was not: linguistically diverse, social and a counter-balance to the Anglo-American world... rejecting all of these things for the sake of being "united"
all the EU then has to offer is more neoliberal anglo-centrism. You might as well declare yourself an American colony.
Unrelated to the video topic, but I would just like to point out that Adam gained 360,000 subscribers in August according to Social Blade, going from 26,000 to 386,000 in one month is complete insanity!
Soon he will have half a million. I consider this as an absolute win.
His Dubai video made him popular
It's people from Hasan
Yes but his last video on the statue topic kinda corroded his integrity.
@@sternleiche how so?
"The federalisation of Europe won't be the founding of the Galactic Empire"
You do know your video's meant to say why Europe SHOULD federalize, right?
*Novum Imperium Romanum
It actually shouldn't. No matter how the American left cringes and cries about that, it shouldn't and It won't happen.
@@арефнар What's America got to do with Europe?
@@fukyoutubestupidfuckinghandles Clearly a lot of Americans think that America is as important as it gets in every topic
@@absoluteaficionado515 I just thought it was weird how this person with cyrillic letters in their name, replying on a person with Irish in their name, commenting on a video about a European Federation by someone who's said they're European several times, is talking about the American left. And now I, a Scottish person, is replying to them as well.
I think the biggest issue atm regarding a federation is that the EU's current government structure is defective and non-democratic. If the EU Commission had more of it's power delegated down to the EU Parliament, I imagine that a EU Federation would be viable and good, but as it stands, the EU Parliament needs to be able to propose legislature, not just vote on it.
EU Commission just sucks
Agreed, we got stuck half way the European integration and federalism. The EU is taking on many more responsibilities because it actually does make sense to act EU-wise on a lot of things, but when it comes to giving more powers and a consequent new EU political structure national governments start screaming. Giving more power to the parliament would make the council go beserk, so we're stuck. We need to break the gridlock and continue on our unification process or perish, a bridge won't hold until the last brick's in!
Though that is a relative thing. If you compare it to the structure of the Netherlands or Adam's own Hungary it's far more democratic.
Which is why Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands have very high EU support while Sweden, Finland and Italy have much less.
*In order to ensure the continuing growth of Adam Something, the European Union will be reorganized into the first European Empire!*
The first?
@@PlatinumAltaria reference
@Dar Rin Zee It's a fucking prequels joke
For safe and secure society !
So this is how Democracy does. With 100 likes on RUclips
"[...] When the next capitol riot eventually succeeds" Damn, Adam.
@@zUJ7EjVD it did, but not for long
the "liberal" warmongering "democrats" with billionaires backing them "won back" the government
edit: republicans are still shit tho, the democrats did deserve the billionaire backing
@@beanlentil
Still rather have them then.
Then the warmongering billionaire back Republicans who are either religious Fundamentalist, political opportunist, or fascist
@@beanlentil How original, the pot is calling the kettle black.
@@5Chaor true, republicans are nothing but Victor Orbans speaking bastardised English
I mean, it’s inevitable at this point
The Netherlands: Not unless everybody get real cool about a whole lotta stuff real fast.
same in Scandinavia
To be fair, we're already ruining our country by ourselves. We might've been progressive in the 90's, but damn people are becoming xenophobic and concervative af. I mean, the FvD is literally a crypto-fascist party at this point and has 8 seats, and VVD has masterfully helped the country naar de klote in the last decade.
@@KarlSnarks The magic of an aging society
@@KarlSnarks there are always people exaggerating things how things are going, like you. We are fine in the netherlands and compared to the rest of europe we are actually doing quite good. Low unemployement, economic growth, wage growth, good quality of life, good education, our healthcare is fine etc.
@@KarlSnarks Fvd is goed
You know, Russia "currently engaging in active warfare on European soil" was true then and hasn't exactly gotten better.
On the EU front, I absolutely think the 2022 invasion of Ukraine may be the thing that pushes Europe into creating an EU army. Germany, long a holdout on especially where the money would come from, has done a complete about-face on military spending, and the EU has stepped into the driver's seat on Europe's response, both in terms of sanctions and even on supplying arms to Ukraine. The EU has this tendency to whenever it faces a crisis or a potential breaking point, it simply refuses to give up and fights like hell. So far it has come out of every existential crisis just a little bit closer to a federation.
Like many others have said Nato and by extension the EU now have a purpose again. Russia's insanity in Ukraine has left them reeling but to everyone's surprise including EU member states they acted like a homogeneous entity to bring down sanctions on putins head. I would agree that these turbulent times now promote the EU to become one block country and form a European front to combat russian aggression.
Crises often forces slow institutions to innovate and move forward quickly. It's not guaranteed per se, but this war could mean we move closer to federalisation.
Doubt it since Finland and sweden will join Nato also
@Nighthunter you obviously don't know anything about Germany
@@ihatetheantichrist7207 he seems to do, because everything he said was right
In the 24th Century, a number of worlds, and all of Earth, are united under the Federation...
Except England, which is still negotiating Brexit. This is why the Picard family moved back to France.
Lol. True
Isn’t it Trek canon that Ireland reunited in like 2024? I’m not saying they predicted the effects of Brexit buuutttttt
first step: "Are you from the sovereign EU Federation or the sovereign AUKUS Federation?"
Brits hate French so much, they refuse to coexist within the same federation
@@janmelantu7490 Sadly, due to the lack of the Eugenics wars, I believe we are in the mirror (Terran Empire) universe.
Fun fact: The Irish govement is trying to introduce a 4 day work week, with the same pay, holidays benefits etc as a 5 day one
Are they "really doing" a 4 days 8 hours? Or a Canadian 4 days 10hours?
@@semikolondev 4 day 8 hours and possibly a half day on Friday
@@semikolondev it will be for public and private sectors
More time to dedicate to drinking.
I wonder if this will become a global thing. With estimates of 40% of all current jobs being lost to automation, there will defiantly need to be a shift away from the 40 hour work week. I honestly lose sleep when thinking about what the transition will look like.
Strongest argument: The EU flag looks sick
We should officially call it the "Stargate"
I get why people from some countries in the EU are desperate for this change, but what about those of us whose countries doesn't suck? No thank you.
@@shongueesha7875 whicj countries in eu have a better flag than eu? i couldnt name one
TOTALY AGREE, needs some red color, sick, hammer and don't forget about stars- comrades gonna like it.
And the European anthem is straight up glorious!
My biggest fear is that larger 'states' like France and Germany that already have more power and influence would be able to overrule smaller countries, making decisions that benefit those regions and disadvantage smaller ones. This already happened with the EU. We really don't want things to get worse. Now, I'm from Greece, and as you can see in the charts people here don't really trust EU institutions since we had a pretty bad run with them. (Of course part of it is the fault of Greece, but not entirely. And when people can't take their money out of the bank, lose their jobs and see their wages and pensions getting halved because of the EU, you can't really blame them for being distrustful.)
The Whole point is that there won't be such inequality anymore, no state has more power than the others because there is only the European state.
It's like in the US, does texas overrule stuff from other states?
My main concern about the process is that federal systems tend to be slow as dirt. If done well, they work well - but done poorly they actively slow down everything. Bureaucratism is already crippling the German federal system and because every point of every decision is argued between federal government and states, you tend to end up with an extremely watered down version of a solution, way after it was needed.
Plus, you have to actively tackle the redundancies between nations to make use of a unified system. And those benefiting from the localized version would fight you all the way. As a small example, the ARD - Germany's public-service broadcasting network - was established as a collection of the individual state broadcasting agencies. However, despite being unified and sharing resources, information and often programming, it ends up very expensive because lots of redundant (and frankly unnecessary) structures still remain. Like 16 fully stocked TV orchestras on their payroll, despite classical concerts barely being part of the lineup these days. Same for religious services: Every sunday (possibly more often) they rent out 16 different churches to transmit the service for people who can't attend in person. Sure, that's a nice thing to do - but it's expensive and one would accomplish that just fine. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I imagine unifying stuff across Europe would be a hell of a task and can easily end up on half measures like that, bleeding resources into lesser known aspects like that. Out of sight, out of mind...
Of course these aren't arguments against the concept of a federal Europe itself. However, it has to be done right or it will play directly into the hands of those against it.
Not only do federal systems slow down everything, it's borderline impossible to reach the politicians. This might differ by country, but living in Finland I feel like i have a pretty good access to the state politicians, excellent access to the county politicians, and literally zero access to the politicians in the European parliament. It's not viable for regular people to raise issues they find important because they don't ever get to talk, or even have their e-mail read, by the europarlaementary politicians. And even if they do, there's too many coalitions with stringent rules on what they stand for so individual opinions of even the politicians themselves do not matter. Especially politicians from the smaller countries have no actual role but to assign themselves to a larger coalition and vote everything exactly like the coalition tells them to.
On the other hand, lobbying is much more extreme. Large multinational companies are completely capable of spending enough money to lobby for their interests in the European Parliament. This has already happened in the US, and will happen in a federalized EU: The government constantly voting against what the popular vote would be because of lobbyists paying their campaigning payroll. Representative democracy simply is not a viable model beyond a certain scale.
@@adisaikkonen do you mean scale of complexity (such a language, geopolitical interest) or scale of number of people, or scale of landmass?
@@lucafaithfull7397 Number of people, primarily. I'm sure the other factors contribute.
@@adisaikkonen i'd disagree with you there as some of the largest nations on earth by population are Representative democracy such as the USA, India, Indonesia, Brazil. not the most efficient system i'll give you but definitely viable
@@lucafaithfull7397 All of these countries are full of corruption and lobbying, with the government repeatedly deciding things against the common interest. That is definitely a failure of the system to be democratic.
Man, as a Ukrainian I appreciate the: "war on a European soil" statement about Donbas. Thanks. 😉
@@lukabajic9729 you know, extensive drug use is harmful. Keep yourself safe and healthy.
@@lukabajic9729 mmm yes russia isnt fascist I see yes very informed very smart take that only the most intelligent individual could make
@@paiosfranen uhuh and being gay is super easy in russia right? You definitely dont have an autocratic dictator in power right?
I've not once denied that the Ukraine could be fascist, i have no idea if it is or not. Doesnt mean russia gets to wage war on it under the guise of fighting fascism. Because russia is also fascist and just wants to annex it
@@Overlord734 its factual that significant sections of the ukranian military were recruited from fascist paramilitary groups like the Azov Batallion
@@lukabajic9729 nice try, mr. Orban
As a Pole I am glad you mentioned the political divide within ours countries and as of PIS, they’re slowly, but surely losing ground.
I always giggle when i read the party's name! They named themselves accuratly
Give them a couple of years and all of their voters will die of old age :>
@@luminiche710 You'd think that but it's not that easy. I know a lot of students that don't have an issue with voting for PiS and I'm from western (progressive) city in Poland. Granted, mostly older people are attracted towards conservatism but it's more complicated than just age.
@@luminiche710 They are losing power, but the damage they have done in recent years will be repaired after decades :')
@@Psztyk236 what your problem with conservatism, it doesnt restrict progress its actualy a substantual part of it
Also, as reply to the Language argument:
I live in Switzerland. Switzerland has 4 official languages (And we have only live 8 Million people), these being German(in many many different dialects), French, Italien and Rumantsch (which is slowly but surely extincting). I am from the german speaking part, and I speak neither Italien, nor French nor Rumantsch. I personally also have very little interaction with the parts of Switzerland speaking other languages. And this on an area of 41,285 km² for the whole of Switzerland. And it works.
So the language argument in my opinion pretty much falls apart when looking at Switzerland today alone.
How do you speak to someone from Italien parts of Switzerland? Just very curious
@@riverman6462 If I do, I speak english. Or maybe they can speak German. But I rarely speak to people from the Italian or french speaking part, simce all my family and friends are in the german speaking part.
@@turwaith What about the time when English wasn't well known by the Swiss? How did you guys get over the language barrier?
@@riverman6462 I'm not 100% sure actually. But people from different part used to not like each other that much in the past. Also, people from German speaking part learn french at school (literally everybody hates it though) and people from the other parts learn german. So there is like at least very little knowledge of the other persons language. But it was certainly more complicated in the past.
@@turwaith I see. Do you think the distrust back then was fueled by Nationalism from the Three Superpowers that surrounds Switzerland on all sides?
Straight off: the EC is the Executive, so that would be the cabinet, not the Senate. The Council is the Senate.
I am the Senate
@@NickShvelidze Not yet.
@@iansutcliffe7003 *Does a flip and kills 3 Jedi Masters*
Yup, adam is ignorant...
Wouldn't the Council be more akin to the National Governors Association?
My fellow countrymen: "But, EU federation would take away power from Slovaks"
Me: "Good"
slovakian nationalism is extremely strange to me for some reason
@@tylerwhaley4872 haha yea. Janosik was Hungarian anyway
@@FerdaMravenecPVD Hungarian here
I am pretty sure many of our far right is of Slavic origin. They are incredibly stupid everywhere.
EU is a Semi-Presidential parliamentary system like France.
- EU Council/French President.
- EU Commission/French Cabinet.
- Council (of Ministers)/French Senate.
- EU Parliament/French National Assembly.
- EU Court of Justice/French Supreme Court.
@@AB-zl4nh interesting
Damn I miss being an EU citizen. Hopefully one day soon my fellow countrymen will truly understand what a absolutely idiotic idea it was to leave the EU. Dreaming of the day I can call myself both an UK and EU citizen.
You guys will rejoin, don’t worry. A second referendum is going to be enacted after the conservatives lose next election.
but if we do go back how will we get rid of the 'pesky immigrants'?
@@thejuiceking2219 Just continue what you're doing. You won't have any more immigrants because no one will want to move there.
Nothing stopping you from going to live and work in France etc, I`ll even give you a ride to the Airport for free.
EU federalism is why a lot of us voted leave. How and you Call us your fellow countrymen when you want destroy our country?
Fun fact: European countries never had a single language. There were a million ethnic groups in each kingdom, and migration was way more common between them. This was partially the reason why so many monarchies used latin as the language of administration.
Use Latin for symbolic things, English when you can't have all the official languages
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Than you should learn more about history. The period between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages is also known as the Migration Period.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Migration periods are typically armed hordes. Commoners and peasants could not travel, which are lots of millions of people.
Yeah it really depends on which "country" you are looking at, and at what time. In the 1400s the Kingdom of Navarra certainly had a unified language. The Kingdom of France did not.
so latin WAS IN FACT a centralized language...
so.... it CAN BE DONE
As an Irish person, I was always hesitant to deeper European Integration as previous unions that we have been part of didn’t work out very well for us… I too went on the Erasmus program and met wonderful likeminded people I am still in contact with years later. My biggest criticism would be the neoliberal trend the EU is heading towards. I think with a leftward shift I would support federalisation and more integration programmes like Erasmus would be helpful in reaching this goal
Once Erasmus, always Erasmus 🇪🇺💙💛
Define "neoliberal". I hear that buzzword way too much and so far and don't think it even means what people think it is. People love to use that term to describe folks like Reagan , Tatcher, Bush...and even guys like Ben Shapiro try to call themselves liberal-something.
I think we can agree none of those folks are true liberals. All of them were conservative authoritarians in the social side and somewhat liberal on the economic side...this one being doubtful considering how they had no qualms on big corps allying with the government to capture the markets.
True liberalism endorses none of these tenets. Neo-con is probably a better term to describe this.
I did an Erasmus. Meh. Just staying with other Erasmus students all talking English staying between themselves and never really getting into the life of their new country nor bounding with local students.
Meh.
Many Neoliberal parties support a federalized Europe. These parties are your allies in this case. Only relying on leftist parties won’t achieve majorities
@@MrAlepedroza Neoliberal favours a small state, reducing safety nets and social programs, free market policies, privatization of public companies, and other laissez faire policies. It's seen as a right wing ideology since it benefits large multinational corporations and rich people, while it often harms workers and the middle/lower class. Now I don't feel like having an eternal discussion about how great or terrible is neoliberalism, so I'll leave it here.
@@MrAlepedroza Neoliberalism is basically the currently practiced ideology in many (western) country's. I'm not gonna type out all of the reasons I dislike it, there's more than enough pieces about it to form your own opinion.
And yeah, it's kind of a buzzword but it can be a helpful one
Does the "borer security" (shown at 1:25 ) have anything to do with Elon Musk's tunneling business? What dangers do they face, that warrant a the creation of a European Federation?
Typo. In the video they said border security
No, it's security that fights smugglers by boring them to death, a variation on "The Funniest Joke in the World" by Monty Python.
@@AdamSomething ah yes, the joke:
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
@@AdamSomething that was one off the most subtle references I have ever heard
It's because once those tunnels are bored across Europe, transport will be so revolutionised that Europe will need a federal government to handle the great masses of people travelling through them daily.
Your cultural argument is very anecdotal, and boils down to "I'm young, urban, progressive, educated, worldly, and I hang out with others like me, ergo cultural differences: solved"
Yep, pretty much
He's saying that while showing how big cultural differences can exist within one country and within members of the same family.
Yes, he's a social fascist.
Honestly, living in germany there is a number of noticeable cultural differences between north, south, east and west
Same in other countries
Countries are not a monolith
Even people within the same area have vastly different values and traditions and so on
Differences in culture do not only occur exclusively at imaginary lines
The anecdote has merit. It's saying that there's a greater divide in a nation itself, than between nations.
Personally I would be very careful with the "English is already a very common language in the EU"-argument.
The way those statistics emerge is unreliable at best. They seem to count everyone who had English in school, but 90% of those could hardly order a sandwich.
In Germany, where I come from, you are lucky if 10% are actually capable of more than just stuttering a few words.
But your main point still stands. Not every citizen needs to be able to perfectly communicate with every other citizen to form a federation.
@@therealdave06 I would say it has an inherent value if as many people within a federation can communicate with each other.
And since your name seems to be crafted from Esperanto I would not be surprised if you would agree about that ^^
But thats obviously a bonus point and not a necessity.
As a German I would think way more than 10% can speak English
@@realtimestatic Depending on where you live thats absolutely possible.
Especially if your reference group is young, more urban and more educated the chances are good to get it beyond 10%.
But 30% of the German population is above the age of 60. An age group that is more likely be able to speak Turkish than English.
Its very easy to overestimate how common something is, just because it seems common in your own frame of reference.
When I achieved my higher education entrance qualification 15% of the graduates could have seriously be considered "fluent" in English at best.
When I visited trade school, where every single pupil already had a history of seriously being taught English for at least 6 years, I was literally the only one who understood what the teacher was saying in English class, which forced our teacher to always repeat everything in German.
Nobody ever bothered to really measure how many Germans can speak actual useful English.
So I cannot tell weither its 3%, 15% or 30%.
But I can guarantee that the 50%-79% the source in the video came up with is a fantasy number that has nothing to do with reality.
In Britain most southerners can’t understand northerners and the Scottish, and we seem to dis-function just fine 🇬🇧
Haha i agree. Im from SLO and thought the English here is not the best, but in Austria and Germany and especially Italy the situation with English is terrible
Woke up to this. Today will be a great day. Get well soon man.
Woke
@@problemsolver3254 XD
@@le_travie7724 xD
The section on self-determination feels very glossed over here and not really handles the central issues. What you can't get around simply by pointing to the self-interest and deception of the national political classes is the tension between national self-determination and transnational democracy across the whole of Europe. This is something that must be handled for an idea like this, and you basically have to come down on one side or the other:
If you have a democratic vote in Europe, and one side wins the democratic vote, what happens if there are nations where it did not? Say if the whole European population voted 60/40 in favour of introducing some policy, put in a country like the Czech republic the people voted 30/70 against it. In any issue where there is a democratic decision to be made, this tension is unmistakably at play, even if not in such sharp focus as in this example.
Either you side with the people's decision and have a majoritarian democratic system wherein the citizens of the federation are able to have control over the government and popular sovereignty. Alternatively, you side with the nation's decision, say that Czechia cannot be compelled into such a policy or can exercise some kind of veto whenever it doesn't want to abide by the majority decision. In that case, you have a system where democracy is limited by national self-determination, where people who do not see a decision that was made by the majority of the people as legitimate unless it also had support in the area where they live do not have to accept it, and so you don't have a democratic system anymore in the sense of one-person-one-vote where everybody's vote counts equally. You either require total unanimity or a supermajority, which fails democratically along the same lines as FPTP, electoral colleges, or other such rules that constrain democracy and which are overwhelmingly of benefit to conservatives and against the interests of the masses.
this is a very interesting comment
In America we just kind of deal with it and realize the benefits of being unified out weigh those times when a population center is unhappy with policy. It's even worse for us because our votes aren't worth the same, a person voting for president in ohio effects the electoral college more than a person voting for president in california. How about that for regional inequality? And we're still a super power that could destroy any european country one on one in just about any competition that doesn't involve social justice. Because we pool our resources. Together ape strong.
@@ThisChangeIsAwful I think the difference is about nationalities. In the context of the European Union, the divisions between people are about nationalism. Not in the sense of "my nation good, your nation bad", but rather the politically neutral identification of one cohesive nation as distinct from other cohesive nations. This leads to a situation where some people cannot accept even a democratic decision if it falls outside the borders of national democracy.
In the United States the differences between a voter in one place vs another are usually regional. Of course you have national minorities and immigrants as well, but for the majority of people they do not experience any challenge to the rather strong national identifier of being Americans. The idea of one nation being forced into abiding by a decision made by another nation is like the American perception of "people in rural areas being forced to do what people in cities vote for", but with the added multiplier of not perceiving the other voters as being at all part of the same demos.
It is simply politically unacceptable to a great many people that a decision which is made over the head of their entire nation can be legitimate or valid from a democratic standpoint. It would take a great deal of change in national identity and political identification, through experience with things like Europe-wide referendums, for people to accept the entire European population as being a single demos. Today, the nearly universally shared understanding is that it is nations voting, some voting one way and others another, like how americans talk about the electoral college being necesary to keep "big states" or cities from having all the voting power, ignoring that in a one-person-one-vote system it is people who vote, not territory (i.e. pieces of dirt). In Europe this is how the EU is perceived, in large part because that's how elections actually work for the EU-parliament. Even if there were elections which didn't take national borders into account though, that would not change the deep-seated understanding among people that their vote is cast as part of their nation, and that it is the votes of nations that matter, not the individual human voters that make those nations up.
Im glad you hammer this point, if the autonomy and representation of nations is handled poorly it could lead to a crisis and perhaps even civil war in the future due to a powerful group pushing there politics in the federation.
@@ThisChangeIsAwful until civil war happen
Getting to net zero would be much easier under a more centralised Europe.
Are you sure? EU's track record is pretty terrible. In Finland it was, for the longest time, financially incentivized to take your cows and drive them to lapland to be butchered, then drive them back. Why? Because EU wanted to more evenly spready agriculture, and as such incentivized doing it in the northernmost parts. It's still more profitable to ship large amounts of laundry over to Estonia, have them wash it there, and ship it back. Both of these are offspring of the EU regulations and incentives, and neither of them looks very net zero.
At the same time it's full of hypocrites. Rural and less developed regions are kept from developing or even doing sustained forestry, meanwhile France, Germany, Spain etc that have converted all of their area to productive farmland resist any attempts at rewilding or diversifying their land use. And since these are the big countries, they have more power and therefore their interests come first. Federalized EU's "sustainable" "net zero" future would just involve massively unsustainable central Europe that shafts the more remote regions to underdevelopment in hopes that they make up for the rich center.
The problem is, centralization doesn't guarantee coordination. A more coordinated Europe will definitely make a lot of things easier. Only if those two were identical.
no it wouldn't, Germany and Eastern countries almost always water down any climate agreements
@Dar Rin Zee What makes you think that I'm an Indian? Beside this has nothing to do, like at all.
It's simply impossible to slow down climate change without supra-national coordination. It's a global fubar situation. Whatever issues might have prevented successful EU programs in the past, they will be ironed out or we are fucked (a recent study estimated that the effects of climate change actions taken or not taken today will be personally experienced by people under the tender age of 40, which, I assume, is pretty much everyone in this comment section).
As a Pole I must say that apparently bashing our own government is something we have in common haha
I to nasza wielka wada
@@pep-qew No tak, zachowujmy się jak Rosjanie, wtedy będzie lepiej
@@hara2009 nie oto mi chodziło
To be super frank here: Federalized Europe is our only shot at the reunification of Hungary with Transylvania.
Never going to happen. It would also mean Romania and Hungary become one in Europe. Ethnic tensions would go sky high.
@@andybogdan4380 There is a chance that under a federal system certain populations would wind up winning elections while minorities would form and not get much, like the Hungarians being outvoted by the Germans or what have you. Then again, globalization is taking place, and people across all countries in the EU have found that 90% of the time they can agree pretty easily. So I don't think that ethnic tensions will be that high, though I recognize that it may pose a significant problem nonetheless.
Congratulations you have convinced the whole pro orban electorate to support european federalism .
Now here me out, there is a chance with Federalised Europe to restore the Roman Empire.
And it might be the way regions like Catalonia and Flanders can get the level of independence from their current countries they want. If the federal europe is based on linguistic boundaries instead of previous geopolitical ones, you could have a European federal government and a sort of state government, based on language and possibly cultural borders. I'd just abolish or significantly reduce current national governments.
Now, Let's take this apart...
1. The rich-poor divide. Your solution is basicly - give everyone the Euro, and make standardised wages for certain jobs all the same across europe
- First of all - the Euro part won't work, because eastern countries have to weak economies to transfer safely into the euro, and as Greece has shown us, forced transfer isn't a good idea. 2nd - countries with a less valued currency would be fucked. Let's say I live in Poland. 1 Euro = ~4 Polish Złoty. Let's say, that I have 10k złoty as my life savings. If the currency changes suddenly to the euro, my savings are basicly cut by 3/4, because the prices will go signifficantly up, while the money I currently have stays the same.
- Standardised wages all across Europe. This is very idealistic. It's no secret, that western countries thrive on the brain drain from the east. No sane German or French politician will close off the flood of eastern european slave labour. I mean - during corona many polish season workers stayed home, and the german economy took a hit. This is too idealised to come true, as long as "the old europe" get's benefits out of eastern migrants, nothing will realisticly change.
2. National sovereignty
You said it yourself - "certain branches of government are transfered to the federal government". Those would be:
-Commom Military - As for now, people advocating for an european army want it to fight for example in north africa, but holy shit - why. I don't want young men from my country dying in Africa, because France has a geopollitical game over there, I don't want my fellow countrymen, and possibly even me fighting for other countries. Poland did this already in WWII, Afghanistan and Iraq, and from each of those conflicts we've got nothing, or we even got screwed over. I'd rather have my army securing the interests of my country, and not fighting for example in Libya.
-Foreign affairs. Why wouldn't this work? France fights currently againts Turkey in Africa for geopollitical reasons, but why, wasn't Turkey an EU candidate? Germany is currently making moves together with Russia, although most of eastern europe is againt it. And even within the east, hungary does its own thing with Russia, wich is against the interests of its biggest european partner - Poland. To many conflicting interests. If Europe was to federalise - what interests would we pursuit? Africa? But 3/4 of Europe has no interests in Africa, if anything the constant wars there have caused the refugee crisis in the first place. Russia? But Eastern Europe is against it. And don't get me started with the Balkans... Inevitably we would follow the interests of Germany and France, ignoring the others, because let's face it - those are the 2 big bosses of europe, and the rest aren't on the same level of privilege in europe.
-Finances. So basicly an european parliment, wich majority is from other countries than mine will decide about taxes in my country. Very empowering for the people indeed. And common finances mean common debt. So basicly my taxes will also go towards fixing mistakes made in the past by Greece, Spain, etc. Why should I pay for someone else's mistakes? I'd rather my taxes go towards hospitals, schools and public transport in my own country.
-Border security and Asylum system. So about that... It's so funny, that politicians always say "refugees are our responsibility, we have to help them", but think for a second... Why are those refugees or migrants or whoever in this situation in the first place? Colonies and wars. Western Europe has for centuries colonised Africa, making the continent one big mess. All those tribal civil wars, ruined economies, failed states are a result of colonialism. Why do countries from northern and eastern europe, who never had significant or long-lasting colonies have to pay for the mess that western europe made. They destroyed those countries and made their life a misery (even more so, since even right now there is a fricking war fought in Libya by France - a western country) so let them pay the consequences for their actions, and not put another burden on the shoulders of eastern europe, because all those communism years in the east were also because of Nazi Germany, and Britains lack of care for it's supposed "allies" in ww2.
3. Cultural Differences. You've just shown one demographic - young, middle class student. Go to a boomer and ask him how much he identifies with a guy on the other side on te continent. And you might say "Oh, they will die out" - that's true, but as for now they're the majority, and that won't change any time soon. And you only basicly said "we are all the same, because he have the same beliefs, interests, topics of interests, etc". Moreover, you said "scholarship" - so of course on one of these you will find only people with common interests, beliefs and topics to talk about as you - you're on a scholarship with similar people - that's how this works. And I bet that even among all those students most of them had different views on what the word "liberal" means. I mean - I live in Poland, and as crazy as it may sound, our "sjw" are advocating for a more freedom in the market, meanwhile our conservatives cite Marx and communist time politicians. An unique feature that developed because of the unique culture and history of Poland. What you said isn't an argument, that we are basicly all the same, and there are no differences. And aren't those what makes us unique? Shouldn't we preserve those differences and remain diverse, instead of becomming one bland same looking people? I thought diversity was our strenght?
4. Language - English. But why English? The UK isn't even a part of the EU anymore, and I thought, that a federalised Europe is meant to be a counterballance for China and... the USA. So we would have a bunch of countries, who
1. Never been in the "anglosphere", yet they adopted English anyways
2. Are screaming "We don't need american protection"... in english
3. Have culturally no connections to english whatsoever
4. Haven't even the native country for the english language in its borders
Sounds kinda dumb if you ask me. English is so popular mostly because of Pax Americana, and because western europe was under american protection during the cold war. Similarly in the east most boomers for example speak Russian for the same reasons. So no matter how loud the EU screams "We are now an independent block", as long as they do it in english, it will just sound funny. Why not adopt one of the european languages. But wich one? Return to the early modern period and choose french? Or maybe german, since its the biggest economy, but wouldn't that be an insult to basicly all countries who fought against germany not so long ago? So what else? I'd say the only neutral option would be Latin, but... good luck learning that...
5. Geopolitics. So a European Federation would eliminate all geopolitical conflicts, because common good would reign supreme. That's outright hilarious, and here's why:
France is right now fighting a war in Libya. If we'd create a common european army, people from fricking Finland, Bulgaria, Ireland, etc, who have literally no interests in Libya whatsoever would fight and die basicly for France in their war. And don't say that wouldn't happen, because the main advocates for an european army said that we need it, mainly because of ongoing conflicts, and that means basicly only Libya, because Ukraine isn't a member of the EU, and last time I checked there isn't any european regiment in Donbas. Why don't stay with local armies, and insted create an alliance, to remove the argument of the US, that "do as we say, because only we can defend you".
The european good wouldn't be the common good. A good thing for Poland, Sweden, Finland and Ukraine would be a poor, distant Russia, but from the german perspective Russia is an important ally, to make germany an energetic hub for gas. So wich one do we pick?
The common asylum system - I've already described that.
What are the chances for a unified Europe? Preety good as it seems - I agree with you, but it wont be as idealistic as you proposed. It would be more like a post WWI "Kaiserreich" economically speaking, with a germany, that is the economic powerhouse, and small puppet states, who work for the Kaiserreich, with a little "Meditteranean Alliance" lead by France. In a united Europe scenario Eastern Europe becommes one big german colony and Southern Europe becomes a debt slave that can only conform with the big bosses, because if they don't, the debt bailout won't come. Please read about the conzept of "Mittleeuropa" formulated by Friedrich Naumann. This will be an united europe - Germano and Franco - centric. Realisticly speaking Bulgaria or Slovakia will never be equal to Germany or France. The strong rule over the weak, it's just how things are. Your proposition is a highly idealistic one. In reality the already rich areas of western europe will only get richer, while the east and south depopulates, and get's treated worse. We already had a state, that was comprised of many ethnicities, where one people group was treated above others, that also had a rich core, and poor outskirts, and that even had basicly one language - Yugoslavia. We know how that turned out. The nationalities treated worse rebelled. The same would happen to a united europe, unless all nationalities really become equal, Sofia and Bukarest will become as significant as Paris or Berlin, but as we all know from history - chasing a utopia usually ends in a catasrophy.
If you managed to read all this, you are a legend, kudos tou you :D
It's exactly that: a federal EU is simply a tool to exploit eastern and southern europe more effectively, it's about being a more efficient imperialist organization.
Nice to see that I wasn't the only one that thought of Greece and was like didnt we already try that?
I was stopping the video after each section trying to make an argument why its a bad idea for federelised Europe and you have literally summarized everything I thought about. GJ and good to know im not alone realising how important even the language and cultural differences are as an argument against fed EU (totaly downplayed in the video).
A very good list of reasons why Denmark, Sweden and Finland are at the bottom of the "More decisions should be taken at EU level" graph, though we can add the fear that our public institutions, such as education, would be downgraded to central European levels, even if public services in central Europe are still very good.
A new Kalmar Union would be more likely to happen, than us welcoming our new French and German overlords.
A european army would basically boil down to (at least if the wages are anything like in the richer countries) the military being composed of eastern block privates and officers from countries like germany, france. And with every army being made up, at least primarily, from people that lean right this would create a hilarious divide. Like, I am sorry, but even if I got to send hungarian homophobes to die senselessly in deserts I have no interest in fighting in, in the first place, I find that an awfully crass situation.
Not to mention, you are basically asking federal employees, that may have joined for specifically nationalistic reasons into the ranks of their army to "choose" between joblessnes and joining up with a military force of a federation they might oppose.
Not to mention, that might not work everywhere. In my country you can't this easily "fire" federal employees, meaning if they for ideological reasons opposed the EU they would still be entitled to keep their job as this wasn't the job they initially signed up for. Government jobs are seen secure here, because, while they usually pay less than the open market, they give you a 'job for life'. Good luck convincing those employees to give up their job willingly. What would probably end up happening is that the country is stuck employing them but can't use them in the EU, which would literally result in a transition period wherein twice the troops would have to be maintained financially.
And this is just my personal opinion as someone in this line of work. I wouldn't die for europe. Why the hell would I offer up my life for the idea of a hungarians opinion having a sway in my living situation when I currently don't have to. I joined up because I want to preserve our constitutional values. The EU doesn't have a constitution and if it did I somehow doubt it'd both feature the same ideas that ours protects and the same interpretations of those ideas in its judicial branch.
Basically, the European federation would be nothing more than a single naming declaration after all the natural bureaucratic shifts have already occurred within existing EU institutions
The EU is a Semi-Presidential parliamentary system like France.
- EU Council/French President.
- EU Commission/French Cabinet.
- Council (of Ministers)/French Senate.
- EU Parliament/French National Assembly.
- EU Court of Justice/French Supreme Court.
They talk of the ever closer union still.
So no its very clearly not the case that the current state of the EU is what federalists want.
I believe that's just a political game. If you name the EU the USE instead you've changed expectations. Some will leave and others will stay. But from that point you could start reach deep into member states and violate them.
Not really because Europe becoming one country would have a lot more impact than you might think.
@@AB-zl4nh That's just ridiculously misinformed, on every point
- The government in France in subordinated to the President and of the political color of the parliament, nothing to see with the Council/Commission interactions
- The French Senate is a de facto advisory body without power other than oversight and moderation of the parliament
- There is no such thing as a "French Supreme Court"
Seriously next time go read wikipedia before writing so much nonsense with so much confidence
Brussels ready usurped all the power. Good change would be only cosmetic
As an American, a Federated Europe would likely see US spend less on military since it wouldn't be in the Union's best interest to have a fuckton of bases there anymore, and then we can actually have the US fix some domestic issues with the budget
We'd also need to fix our elections, corruption and a 250 year old rigging by the south (The Electoral Collage) is what is mainly screwing over america.
Not really. The US spends a lot of military money in places that European countries don't care about as much (Southeast/East Asia, Middle East), and in ways that European countries won't care to have (the US has a ton of nukes, but I think a united EU would be fine with taking over France's arsenal). Also, US military spending isn't as efficient as say, France's military spending (they do mostly-successful military interventions in Africa even though they spend barely more than 2% GDP on their military). Besides, US military spending doesn't actually cost the *full* 700 billion, because a lot of their military budget effectively subsidises their arms industry, which increases arms exports and therefore tax revenue. I got the last two points Perun's video on comparing military budgets; he explains it better there.
@@_human_1946 Not to mention the fact that the US already has a lot of money and it's frankly just not using it efficiently.
@@_human_1946 they got kicked out of africa
Unfortunately, a European Federation would 100% spark a cold war with the US
You know a person lives in Germany when they start talking about federal Europe 😅
There was even a politician in the 40s who tried to make Europe into a federation, he got into power and everything but those god damn Brexiteers stopped him.
I live in Romania and I think it would be a good thing.
@@PlatinumAltaria I would rather root this idea to one Sicilian politician from 13th century, or to one Corsican politician from the beginning of the 19th century.
I'm referring to the idea of the Holy Roman Empire, for which Frederick II (mind the "e" or get your fingers off!) was emperor, and Napoleon almost became one.
@@peterpathos4313 That only applies when you compare your opponent to the angry Austrian, I'm pointing out that people have had the idea of uniting Europe in the past, and that it hasn't gone well. See also Caesar, Napoleon, Attila...
@@PlatinumAltaria depending how you understand "gone well". Some of them have gone pretty well, starting somewhat around Roman empire.
My best case against the federalization of Europe would be that at the moment Europe is not very democratic. The European parliament hardly has any power and it is the only elected body of the EU. To sell a European Federation you would need to greatly overhaul the democratic organization of Europe (and that includes having a strong legislative power)
That's simply not true. The european commission is elected by the european council which consists of the elected governments of all member states. The EU is as democratic as all of its member states only that in the EU there is not one but 27 governments who have to agree on the most important things.
@@burt792 what happens when countries in the EU aren't so democratic. There are a lot of governments in the EU these days that didn't win by votes but by political games
@@Alertacobra12 that's true for any democracy. They were all elected though.
@@burt792 yes... elected... with only pre-approved canditates if we are lucky, only 1 candidate if unlucky.
@@Fiffelito no they are not pre approved
"Poland is the European taliban" xDDD
You just offended my whole nation, but yes.
Hahahah I can spot a polish kilometers away with their laugh. "xDD" hahahah I use it when writing to my polish friend.
@@Lucas_Simoni it's a very popular emoticon here, a de facto standard for a hard laugh amongst young people
It is accurate tho.
Half of our country are just taliban without headgear...
@@mikek9297 Almost all of Poland is conservative only big cities are not "taliban"
@@kosa9662 Not really. The west and north are much more liberal, including rural areas. The south east is a conservative hellhole though.
I've been looking for a video like this for years, thank you so much!
The two things I would say however, would be that there should be no President in the US sense of the word. I believe we should have a Council of Representatives instead of just having one person with the power like the US (I know that's not actually how the US Presidency works, but it does feel like it's still a bit much). It would be fine to have one dedicated person from this council represent the Federation when it comes to International Geopolitical Meetups like at G20 summits and stuff like that, as long as they don't hold political power above any of the others.
I also think that as long as the "United in Diversity" aim remains a priority, we'll do fine as a Federation.
Should have looked no further than your local libertarian political party. They've been pushing this crap for years.
I mean a president in the, say, Italian model (a head of state without all of the actual powers of the president of France or the US) doesn't seem too bad of an idea
Prime minister ??
It would be be to have a government decided on by the Parlament and a president as a representative with maybe a few powers. It would make sense to have the people elect him although this could result in the president being german or french most of the time.
My idea would be to have two Consuls and one Tribune, each one with six-year terms but elections that are staggered and held every two years. No candidate is eligible to run if a citizen of their nation holds one of the three offices currently. That way there is small change every election cycle but also continuity, while preventing big countries from ever monopolizing the offices. Say a German, French, and Italian are currently in office...even if one of them is retiring, all competitors in the upcoming election would have to be from a different country. Similar to how (indirectly, via another rule, but not technically) the US President and Vice President can't really be from the same state.
One Consul is elected to serve as the Head of State and oversee all foreign relations, external trade, and military affairs, while one Consul is elected to serve as the Head of Government and oversee all domestic governance. The Tribune chairs the EU Senate while in session, and is empowered with vetoing national laws or staying court decisions that infringe on the rights of EU Citizenship-which may be overruled by the EU Court of Justice. The Consuls can veto each other, the Tribune can veto anybody (and can veto vetoes). The Senate replaces the Commission and is elected from 7 different multi-member districts that are roughly equal in population without dividing countries (1: Germany; 2: France; 3: Romania, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Cyprus; 4: Italy and Malta; 5: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; and 6: Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Luxembourg). This would slightly de-value the votes of a very large country (likely to be frequently represented in the 3 executive offices) like Germany, which would have a population deviation of 4.5% compared to the other Districts, to help achieve balance.
It's extremely disappointing to see this debate being reduced to: "Well, any form of criticism of the EU is just a reactionary far-right distraction from domestic issues." Especially as a somewhat skeptical left-leaning person.
Because most of the time it is. I'm from Bosnia and basically all anti-EU talk is done by incompetent, corrupt, far right politicians blaming Germany for everything, despite us being just a EU candidate, not even affected by all the EU regulations.
I noticed that too, and not all criticism is from some politician or some crazy guy asking for it to be dissolved completely
@@doliague2590 Do you have examples?
Most of it is. But even the exceptions, that is to say the more rational arguments, are based in flawed premises
@@entitledOne Bosnia isn't an EU Candidate, though.
We're literally too Horrifying shitty to even be CONSIDERED for Membership.
The biggest problem I have related to centralization of power: the bigger the area that is represented through a single entity (EU in this case), the harder it is to get rid of when things go wrong. I prefer decentralization, even if it's somewhat less efficient.
I understand where you are coming from but I think centralization is an inescapable part of the near future due to the largest countries continuing to become more powerful. A multi polar world balance is only possible if countries further integrate.
@@dhruvnegi8056 so we are pathetic weaklings unless we obey brussels?
@@olluman123 no dude, the european countries individually are too weak to rival countries like russia or china who have larger populations. At the end of the day america and china are superpowers look at their economies, population and sheer land mass, europe can only compete united, if u fail to do that these emerging superpowers will rip you apart like the small african kindgdoms during the scramble.
@@olluman123 is a bison a pathetic weakling for staying with its herd?
@@hunterzolomon1303 oh, so india is going to colonise us? Reeeaally?
When you showed the graph for the EU member states views on a federalised EU, I was trying to find where the UK was and it took me a while to realise we wouldn't be on that 💔
Thank God too.
@@Mike-gd4zd Nah, leaving held no economic/political sense. The current HGV shortage is evidence of this.
@@corruptedcola393 HGV shortages have been accelerating for years. I have a best friend who was one for 20+ years, quit it and is currently a middle aged PhD student finally discovering his potential. HGV is high pay for unethical conditions and abuse… which have nothing to do with Britain’s exiting of the European Union. The same shortages are happening in the US too, and highway automation will probably happen within my lifetime.
Brexit is making a lot of political sense too, when you see Austria and Germany flirt with mandatory health procedures... and a run away border crisis in Belarus. Enjoy you’re delusional of an economic union pretending it’s a nation - cute.
@@corruptedcola393 Ok but in all seriousness, have you or anyone you know felt worse off for leaving? Our economy unlike what literally everyone said has remained the second strongest in Europe and has even extended its lead over France. Please tell me that at the very least, you think Brexit wasn't as bad as all the commentators made it out to be?
Thank fuck for that
7:33 This is something I've been experiencing as well. I find it easier to relate to my foreign friends than friends back home or people who are native to the land. I think knowing other cultures and people's ways of thinking makes them more reasonable to talk with and open to new ideas.
That’s a common phenomenon. It’s the same reason why cities close to the sea or near important trade routes are usually more liberal - the influence of traveler’s and merchants introduces them to new concepts naturally and reduces the fear of the unknown so many people have.
I think a swiss system would be great, allowing for referendums and initiatives, along with a 7-member coequal cabinet (federal council) that cannot fire one another and rotates every year the figurehead presidency. Instead of country, let regions, linguistic areas, and parties fill the council proportionally.
Further, let the capital cities of the EU be federal cities (ie directly federalised with the union rather than their country).
You can't do referenda with a population of over 500 million people. It's imposible to have a meaningful debate like that.
Federalising Strasbourg would work (although the French would probably get a stroke) but Brussels is *also* the capital of Belgium.
@@josecipriano3048 But you can with a population of several million, Switzerland has about 8 million people? This argument is a classic against direct democracy, but it has fallen apart every time. Why? One word, localities. The debate always occurs at the small scale and then once all that is done, the votes are cast for the national referendum. If you think it’s too many people to reach then may I present you the Indian election and the US Census two systems which collect information on massive scales. Europe with its better infrastructure should be able to easily mimic this.
Side Note: Switzerland itself isn’t a city state where organizing would be easy. It stretches the same distance between New York and Washing, DC
@@josecipriano3048 complete nonsense, india is a functioning democracy and it has more people
Everytime a referendum has been held in a member country the "bad" result was rejected or they just make people vote again until the result is good.
"Now sweden is a progressive heaven and Poland is a European Taliban".
Me, watching from Poland: ayyyy fair enough
Yeah, Sweden is a real nice place nowadays… /s
@@designtechdk No-go zones intensify
Ahh yes sweden nowdays a nice place, sure buddy
you live better in swedish prisons than on US minimum wage....
@@designtechdk Sweden is unironically a nice place to live on average, way better than Poland.
There's something else a federalized Europe will need as well- a voting system that accurately represents voters' political distribution.
CGP Grey talked about this extensively. The US has a federal system where representation is heavily skewed into a political duopoly upheld by an electoral college that uses first-past-the-post, allowing a political minority to be over-represented.
As advice for federalizing Europe, I'd recommend that voting-ranges encompass populations such that each votes for multiple representatives instead of one, allowing for multiple parties and candidates to compete, and that voters use ranked-choice or approval voting systems to choose the candidate(s) they prefer.
Hopefully this would avoid political duopoly that can be captured by elite and corporate money.
I think that an mmp system using single transferable vote for each range would be better, as it is more proportionate when it comes to smaller parties, or you could have an even higher amount of reps per range
The European Parliament works using proportional representation.
The UK used to use FPTP in the European Parliament, till the EU mandated that something resembling PR be used. Labour, being a large party that was winning under FPTP, chose the most similar system they could: splitting the country into constituencies with as few as three members, and translating votes to seats using the d'Hondt method (which favours larger parties, particularly in constituencies with few members).
Ironically, the major parties are so unpopular that this voting system let UKIP (and later the Liberal Democrats and Greens) climb to the top, so that Labour and the Conservatives became, in the European Parliament, the small parties which their choice of system discriminated against.
Personally, I'd favour proportional representation with one multi-member constituency for each country (like how Germany fills its European Parliamentary seats), and an EU-wide Condorcet vote for the President of the Commission.
@@alphamikeomega5728 I'd support a system where, after a parliamentary election, the political parties decide one or more commission candidate teams to endorse, and then the people vote on which commission they prefer using party endorsement as a heuristic. A commission team can be endorsed by multiple parties, and parties can endorse multiple commission teams.
I'm Swiss. Once the EU adopts the plebiscite, I'll vote yes on the next initiative (or no if it's a referendum against) to join the EU.
So we're two, at least.
Its so interesting how much you focused on corruption, understandably, as a Hungarian. From the perspective of a Dane, the greater unifying dilemma would be that of wage negotiations. From the Italians, about regional autonomy and state decentralisation. So on and so forth until most Europeans who are concerned with a federal idea would return to you a different priority. All in all, very intriguing to see all of the different volksgeists of Europe talking past each other as, other than COVID, no more than 3 nations care about any one topic.
I think the biggest obstacle will be each country's subliminal identity issue. The divide may be smaller on some borders like maybe Austria, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and Scandinavia -- where historical grievances are slowly, happily, becoming increasingly obsolete.
But there are some countries, my prime example would be the UK, where post-imperialistic tendencies, views, and stereotypes still linger in the common consciousness of the people, ready to rear.
All in all, I think the younger generations of those under 40 are a lot more integrated and connected through shared media, games, news, work, school exchange, etc. The generation of 40-60 is mostly neutral but tends to hold the subconscious views of their parents. The biggest obstacle might be the generation that lived in a (post) war Europe.
@@RagingGoblin Building upon this, it seems like increased international integration and federation in Europe (and all over the world, really) is likely to become easier and easier as the Internet becomes a more societally entrenched thing. It's like a reversal of the trend towards nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
As a Pole, I am absolutely horrified of the idea of even stronger European integration. How *dare* they give us even more money?!
Yes, but where does all that money come from? All they're doing is bleeding dry the German and French workers and middle-class, to subsidise every other country in Europe.
@@ricardogens9834 yeahh oh poor German innocent hard workers, Basically europe is stealing from their pockets! hahahahahahahhah
sure thing bro. As if "Europe" didn´t mean France And Germany ONLY , Meaning that THEY have the biggest populations AND Influence and Power. hahahahhahhaah bro tf
@@fabiandanesti1497 Go look at net contributors vs net beneficiaries to the EU instead of trying and failing to be funny... Yes, the EU is a way for the German and French economy to have a guaranteed market that is bigger than their own domestic markets,but the ones who net benefit the most from the EU's policies is definitely not the French and German lower class, its their elites.
Right here these statements demonstrate why it wouldn't work...
@@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938 wouldn't work if imbeciles like these were the ones put in charge of it- thats why we have politicians, who are usually more educated and know better
Adam: for the sake of perspective, Slovenia has a population of 2 million
Me: he mentioned my country 👁️👄👁️
I love Slovenia, it's a beautiful country! Greetings from Italy!
@@anonimusus4306 Thank you. x3 So is Italy! ❤️
Slovenia with 2M voters would become completely irrelevant in elections in federalised Europe. The EU doesn't have any mechanism to make small countries more relevant (like for example electoral college in the US.) You would still be able to vote but it wouldn't change anything. Compare 2M Slovenians to 68M Germans.
@@jirislavicek9954 You say "the EU doesn't have any mechanism to make small countries more relevant" as if a system that would make it fair could _never_ be implemented. I'm aware of everything you said, which is why I wouldn't want a federalised Europe if the system was unfair like that. However, if a fair system is ever proposed, that's a different story.
@@TheCrazyFreak It doesn't have it at the moment. And I don't see any political will to change it. It surely won't come from the big countries.
Possibly in future.
As an American you can’t model a European federation after our government, the states were all formed as administrative subdivisions, near culturally identical. I have no real issue having my president being from Delaware. But I wouldn’t expect an Irishman to ever accept a Greek as his leader anymore than I would accept a Brazilian. I would follow the Swiss model to have any hope of a sustainable system.
@dihvocfoscocudvyvdd
actually it was the opposite in the more distant past.
The kings and queens and high statemen often didn't even come from the country they ruled and didn't use the local language in administration.
Kind of fascinating that the idea that the ruler must be from your country only game about with nationalism.
You can say the same about a Sardinian ruling over a Venetian's land. I know many of you think we are are like a big Sicily but in reality Italy is really diverse with many regional languages and cultures. In the past a Sardinian president ruling northern Italy would have been madness, now it's totally normal.
Let's just look at a union between Germany and Denmark. Let's imagine that Denmark becomes extremely anti-military, and doesn't want to have an army. But Germany really likes war, so in our 2-country federation Denmark is forced to send troops to fight. It's so small by comparison that it has no say even in a democratic system. This is obviously just a weird form of imperialism: Denmark in this system is just a satellite state of Germany. Germany would have near-total control, and would therefore have the direct interest to take even more power. This isn't some conspiracy to keep Orbán in power, it's just that people understand how these systems work. The only countries whose governments would go in for this are the countries in western Europe that are currently the core of the EU: in other words rich nations that would benefit immensely from all this imperial expans- I mean "federation". We don't need bigger, more powerful countries. We need smaller ones that can better represent their constituents.
But what hinders us from giving each country the same one vote? We shouldnt differentiate from importance or wealth. Do we even have too? Democracy is by the people,for the people. Not by ressources and militarys.
@@yannickfuhrmann7907 If you give each country one vote then you get the opposite problem: groups of smaller countries with shared interests can co-opt democracy for their own gain. What was Yugoslavia would now have 7 votes, Germany would have 1. That senate system doesn't work in the US, so it's obviously not going to work here. Idk why we're replicating the US government, it's a terrible institution even without being run by Americans.
And no, because it turns out that you can lie to people to get them to vote against their own interests. Idk why anyone thinks that would be different if you combined a bunch of countries into one.
@@PlatinumAltaria well. Thats just how it is supposed to go then. It is still democracy. And every human also works for their own self interest so yeah. Its reflecting.
@@yannickfuhrmann7907 Uh no, people DON'T work for their own interests, otherwise no one would be voting for the right. If you don't understand that then it's no wonder that you support European self-imperialism.
@@PlatinumAltaria people are voting for the right because THEY are concerned for the safety and traditions of their own people. You can follow a religion based trough a community but its still your decision to join the community and be apart of it. Be it for the feeling of being together with like minded people or just the joy of praying from YOUR point of you because YOU think uts right.
My biggest problem with the EU is that it feels like an undemocratic dinosaur and a retirement home for domestic politicians. I've lived in it my whole life and I still have no idea why it needs a Commission, Parliament, two Councils and who knows what else, or what they do, or how the politicians in charge are selected. There are small elections once every 5 years for one of these (in which the smaller countries get the short end of the stick anyway) and that's it.
I would be all for making it more powerful but only if it was also reformed to be much more of a direct democracy. However, the EU politicians have the same flaws as nationals and don't want to give up any power.
It's a gradual shift, we've had the concept of Nation States for nearly five centuries now and as humans we've only grown accustomed to it in the past century, so obviously the jump to something so radical, especially in somewhere so culturally entrenched as Europe (and I mean entrenched in terms of the concept of the nation state) that you'll obviously have some growing pains. Most of the EU top brass are an older generation that lived through the first pains of integration, the younger generation that grew up more integrated have a different view and are more open, so give it time. Like Adam says in his video, it's all gradual change.
The EU has a psychological problem. The united states used to be single countries too, but nowadays they don't think "those TEXANS are diluting our NEW HAMPSHIRE" votes.
Everyone has a say in a democracy, that's what rule of the people is about. To ensure that we have progressive governments that respect democracy, there are requirements to joining the union.
Lots of people have good criticisms of this idea and the EU yet he acts as if it's all nothing but EU bashing of crazy far right people who want complete end of the EU
@@ayoCC Literally only Texas was a single country.
@@weeabooman2867 I mean, Hawaii existed for a while before they got gobbled up, alongside some smaller efforts from areas like Vermont
You can't solve corrupt governments by installing something even more powerful above them.
you simply shift corruption up and then apply more scrutiny on the new institution to reduce it drastically.
I mean, you can. There’s historical precedence. Corrupt governors in the US found it a lot harder to be corrupt when federal power grew
@@oliveroconnor5983 Good example, because corruption and criminality is so rare in the US federal government; it's not like we've ever seen multiple presidents/presidential candidates of the United states involved in acts of criminality, criminal negligence or being paid off by lobbyists or federal institutions that have acted against the interests of the U.S population by say, doing 239 tests of biological and chemical weapons in highly populated cities from releasing clouds of highly cancerous chemcials in St Louis and Minneapolis to releasing harmful bacteria in the subways of New York.
@@oliveroconnor5983
Bruh America has legalized corruption on the federal level, it's called lobbying
An comparison to India, the only miltilingual, multicultural, multireligious federation, that spans across a whole (sub-)continent is also interesring. A lot can be learned from this federation, about how we can form a European Federation. We can learn good and also make stuff better.
English is the official language in India
@@infinix2003 India has 22 official languages with English and Hindi being one of them
@@reubennelson4086 yeah, mainly English and little bit of Hindi is used in official documents in India
@@infinix2003 It doesn't matter too much that English is the official language when most people have it at a basic level since their mother tongue takes priority and probably do not study in an English Medium School.
India also had a violent episode in its history where the nation separated into another state on religious & ethnic grounds... Pakistan (including East Pakistan which again separated into Bangladesh after a violent civil war in the 1970s). There were also violent incidents by Sikh separatists & from the government to suppress it.
The "national sovergeinty" argument was incredibly crudely dismissed, despite being arguably the biggest problem.
The fact is that EU member sovergeinty and EU federalisation are in direct opposition to each other. You cannot have a federalised European union without the reduction of national sovergeinty and vice versa. Regardless of how you put it. The interests of each nation will not disappear if EU became a federation. Sweden would still have a military industrial block looking to preserve its interests. Finland would still have a massive wood and forestry export industry etc. If there wouldn't be a nation looking to preserve its interests and economy, the people would do it.
You'd have 5.5 million Finns and 10.5 million swedes voting against 83 million Germans and 67 million french. The system would be incredibly flawed without some sort of electoral college system, and oh god what a shitstorm that would be.
I'm not saying this problem would be totally unovercomable, but that the video did a pretty shitty job at honestly looking at the issue, pretty much dismissing it outright. It would be an issue for every EU member state, but mostly for the countries on the fringes of the union, and the members with smaller populations, not just for Hungary and whatever country's political system the author seems to dislike. It is an issue currently, so to say that it wouldn't be an issue if the co-operation was tightened to a federal level is lunacy.
Also "just merge militaries" is super reductionist, and also would hugely strip away a lot of sovergeinty. Most northern european armed forces are constitutionally constructed as defence forces. Their duties mandated by law, are to protect the countries borders and national sovergeinty only. Would the EU federation force these Defence forces to merge together with the rest of the EU army and be pontentially sent to Greece to fight against Turkey in an escalating border conflict, against that countrys constitution? Not to mention what an undending moneypit the merging process of not only the command and rank structures would be, but also the equipment and doctrine. In ten years, and with 10 trillion euros, the EU could not create a functioning EU armed forces.
To the point of the eu needing an electoral college system:
As you can already see in the US, that system is incredibly flawed and strips rights away from the population. Many people in the USA dont have a vote that really matters, just because of the region they live in.
In my opinion the way to solve that would be a system like in germany:
The parliament is elected in a simple election, while there is also a council of member states, represented by the state's local government, which preserves each members interests.
He wouldn't listen it seems as in his video he just outlined criticism to the idea from this angle as nothing more than EU bashing and not making sense
That's not quite right though, the people of a single nation don't actually all share the same economic and political interests (except in the sense of class interests I guess) what you're describing is regional interests, which already exist within the nations in question. As a Canadian citizen we get by despite the vastly disparate interests of different provinces and different regions within provinces. I live in Alberta and I fucking hate the provincial governments obsession with the oil industry as it actually only benefits a small portion of the rural land owning population and the wealth isn't even redistributed enough to keep the roads functional to drive on. Good heavens Alberta's roads are appalling. You can literally tell when you've passed through the border with BC by the frequency of bumps. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's really easy to get people to go against their own interests if they're invested in a common identity.
Living in Canada here, if the system works anything like what we have here, then your national sovereignty remains intact. There will be some restrictions of course, certain federal laws required for unification, but each province is mostly in control of it's own economy, has it's own government and has the protected right to self governance, right down to the individual municipalities. There are massive differences between BC, Alberta, Saskatewan, Manitoba, Ontoria, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, plus the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.. (felt like i jerk if i didn't include them all... lol) but it works (for the most part, but i mean this is politics, you'll never get everyone to agree). The overarching consensus here is that the benefits of being a federation are well worth the small amount of control each province has to concede. I mean, a good comparison would be how you mentioned finland's wood and forestry industry. That's not really any different here, with BC accounting for a vast majority of canada's forestry industry and it's the provincial government that oversees that industry, not the federal government.
you re right, FREE SCOTLAND
Not if it fall for the same neoliberalist pitfalls that the EU has gone into.
Man eu is a mess
@@DyslexicMitochondria hey bro I watch your videos. Love your channel
@@DyslexicMitochondria ya except when compared to any other large federation like the US
What would that be? Banning credit card charges? Banning rooming charges? Workers rights? Environmental rights? Putting multi billion fees on Google/Apple/Facebook?
@@neodym5809 no? Those are kinda the opposite of neoliberalism.
i'm from romania, and when i heard "2000€ minimum salary" (for doctors, but still) my eyes went wide open. that's indeed a lot of money
As a Belgian I was suprised to learn this, as that's not that much more than what I make as a lab technician with a Bachelor's degree.
It's way less than what doctors make here.
I look at the other post here about how much 2000€ is, and I think it's probably a good idea to ensure controls are in place so doctors do not become landlords.
In the Netherlands, national minimum wage is €1701, but for medical personal the collective labor agreement is higher. Almost all medical personnel (including nurses and medical assistents) earn above €2000 already. Only non-specialized home-care employees earn less than €2000, they earn slightly more than the national minimum.
The biggest trade union and some political parties are pushing for national minimum hourly wage of €14 (€2480 monthly for 40 hour weeks) because the cost of living has increased a lot.
@@vxicepickxv The other side of the coin is that where I live, you could probably get a mortgage to get a house on 2000€, but you definitly won't have enough to have several ones
Prietene, cu 2000€ mori de foame in orice tara din vest. Daca se aduc standardele in Romania la același nivel cu cel vestic nu vei mai considera salariul acela dizerabil. Doar daca se mentin nivelurile de trai ar functiona.
It's really weird to me that Americans or even western Europeans think of Poland as an unilaterally conservative country when it's divided almost exactly like the US is, it's liberal cities versus conservative rural areas. In the recent presidential election the liberal pro LGBT candidate lost by around 1,5% despite our ruling government doing everything in their power to undercut him. It was almost exactly 50/50 with a slight edge for conservatives, why then are we all seen as anti LGBT conservatives when progressive Americans would never see their own country that way when Trump won the election? The huge city/rural area divide is seen with the mayoral elections, a conservative candidate from the ruling party hasn't won the mayoral election in a single big city, liberal candidates almost always win the mayoral elections. And the country is divided between the largely urbanized and wealthier western Poland and poorer and rural eastern Poland, it's almost exactly like the North/South divide in the US. So it's upsetting to me that we're all seen as anti LGBT conservatives because the conservative party has been ruling for 7 years. Also in our senate the liberal senators are the slight majority, sadly our senate doesn't even come close to how politically influential it is compared to the US senate. Nobody likes to be generalized just because they live in a certain country, please don't assume that we're all like that because that's how our government is. We didn't do that for you with Trump and we'd like to be treated the same, with democracy sometimes idiots get elected and they make the whole country look stupid and backwards but if they didn't get like 90% of the vote then there is no reason to assume that it reflects the ideology of everyone in said country.
good point - but thats exactly what adam mentioned in his video, the fact, that there is not a seperation of countries but rather a seperation within countries, and pretty much the same one everywhere, so scaling it up wouldnt change a thing
@@michelhenning9311 Yep, I absolutely agree both with Adam and you. I just reiterated it because I absolutely hate when people from the US say that Polish people are racist, xenophobic, homophobic etc instead of saying that there are quite a lot of those people, around 40%. I'm not racist, homophobic etc so why am I classified as a racist just for the fact I was born in Poland? I think it's a pretty bigoted thing in itself
Except you couldn’t be more wrong. The general feeling about Poland from the American population is that you are a pull between the eastern bloc and Western Europe, and the current political status of your country is affected by that past. Hey, maybe it’s wrong, but nobody really considers Poland ultra nationalist.
Maybe it has something to do with an extensive amount of polish nationalists online? Who are very vocal about their ideas and opinions? But it has little to no effect on the American population.
Also, the entirety of the left leaning progressives in the US believed we were going to become a fascist country when trump swore in. In fact, many still believe we are.
Most of Europe is regarded as pro-LGBT & anti-racist to us.
I'm just looking forward to the French being told the official language is going to be English.
As a French, I won't mind. A lot of clueless old french will, though.
@@gabrielcuratolo7162 Rien empêche de continuer à parler français et à défendre son "héritage"
@@adenrius have you played any online game with French people? i can tell you that even the young people would be very angry about it. I think its better that they speak their own language, at least you can immediately distinguish when you are dealing with the cancer of the internet.
Of course english would need to be the "official" language for the administration and the government, just like it is today for the pparliamant or the council.
What's striking with people working there is how many language they know and their general interest for european culture. It's really inspiring tbh
PS: I'm french
As a 19 year old french person, I really wouldn't care at all, since I use english almost more than french nowadays, although, and responses above me have shown, that older people definitly won't be happy about it
17:55 but what if i want a galactic European Federal Empire? there already is the Moon Europa, we have naming rigths on that one
French will get to do just that, they know a thing or two about empires
But what about French interests in Africa?
Would other Europeans want to participate in military activities driven by other eu countries?
God forbid we stop invading Africa
There won't be other eu countries. We will have single parliament, and common military.
@@pitdarkangel2961 You can't do that as long as the most european countries rely on imperialism.
@@durshurrikun150 I know, but that won't happen as long as the entire world is capitalist and we're probably quite a bit away from moving away from that one.
don't worry, the video is only well thought out as long as it benefits him. You shouldn't think about what it would really mean to merge armies, that it would conflict with many treaties, that it would mean every European country would endorse every shitty thing France is doing right now on other countries' soil ... it would cost less !! we don't know why and how it would cost less but it's ok because on this channel we know about trains, not how to manage a transcontinental armed force.
I'm not completely sold on the federalization of Europe, given the caution that would need to be taken in order to balance power. Something you didn't touch on is just that: the imbalance of political power distribution among European countries (with the power both economically and militarily of France and Germany I would question in particular). I would be interested in hearing people's thought on this question. Another point I would like to touch on, is that while conservative political tendencies are often framed as the ones who would oppose further cooperation, In France, at least, where I live, certain popular liberal political ideologies have also been in opposition to the EU. For example, the public vote on whether to accept the EU constitution In 2005, was polled in favor by the general population; yet after a huge campaign lead by BOTH conservative and liberal parties, this public opinion completely changed. even with the unreliability of polling as an accurate guage of public opinion, the statistical difference observed is too significant to reduce the impact of their actions. Meanwhile, a presidential condidate who won 22 percent of votes in the first round has stated that if he was elected, and if his demands of the EU were not met "we would have to resort to plan B": a thinly veiled insinuation that not only would he opt out of many EU agreements, but he might have resorted, or planned to leave the EU all together. Is this observable in other parts of Europe? Do the progressive parties also stand in opposition to EU cooperation?
Although I agree with the idea of "monke together strong" I cannot help but to fear that smaller nations in the EU would get assimilated into and resemble more and more cultures of Germany and/or France if federalization were to happen, not to mention that the voices of the smaller nations would get outnumbered by the sheer number of votes from the bigger nations.
Personally I don’t think this will be the case, since France and Germany together aren’t even close to a majority they will always be forced to work with smaller nations (and that’s assuming every nation votes for only one party) this can be clearly seen in that the UK’s parties are often forced to collaborate with northern Irish parties to form a government, Europe would be the same but to a larger extend. Even if they could form a majority you can see that cultures do tend to stick around if not forcibly removed (which a democracy can’t really do) based on examples like Spain. So while Europe would probably become more unified in identity the individual cultures would remain prevalent.
Smaller nations aren't the minority, though. Just the balkans alone outnumber western Europe lol.
@@hex_6590 balkans is a shithole and cant be taken seriously...
@@ccdsds3221 This has literally 0 connection to what I said. Balkans aren't the minority.
@@hex_6590 context matters. It's the most divided place in europe... you cant sum them up just like that...
Really wish Brexit never happened. It sucks to live in the UK…
buy an house in sotland... the sooner the better i guess.
@@herlescraft Unless another Independence Referendum happens then don't bother, as long as England holds the reigns they will drag us down with them.
@@herlescraft I do not believe that Scotland would be accepted in the EU, because if it does, Spain will get balkanised real fast
You Anglos are not european, you have no business being in an european union.
Come to the Mainland, we have Gas 😂
Watching this rather enviously from Scotland. Keep our seat warm for us, we’ll be back.
the fuck you will
As a french, I would love to see the UK disintegrate because of the poor decisions of the conservatives XD
As a welsh person, yes Scotland cut and run. Once the welsh governments gets their head out their arse we’ll be soon to follow you.
At least you can nationalize things if you want. Make sure to do that before you join the EU again they won't let you do it.
Imagine voting for "independence" to become an EU state HAHAHAHA
When I heard that you compared Poland to Taliban of Europe it made my blood boil.
i understand what you meant by it, but even I as a left leaning person in Poland, would't go as far as calling the right wing that.
he say that????
@@scorpionking2580 yes in the first minutes of the Video
Religious fundamentalists, no?
I would prefer an elected Constitutional Assembly as an alternative way for a federalized Europe
Would be nice, but there's no way countries privileged in the Union like Germany or France would give up their control to any amount of less significant countries.
It's a nice dream, but the chances of that I estimate at about the chances that we'll see a Federal Asia anytime soon.
Long live strong and United Europe!
Support EU federation from Poland.
Yes, there are a lot of Polish people who support that!
and a lot more who dont
You want even faster emigration to UK and depopulation of Poland?
@@KateeAngel I missed the part where the UK is part of the EU. 🤭
@@tomaspaukner3218 it is the country where Polish people emigrate the most, surely it was more common when they were in the UK, but the process won't just stop
@@KateeAngel I know that, but there's a very low probability of the UK joining any more federalized form of the EU. At the same time, nobody stops the polish government to go full out and support high added value jobs, use the networks they can thru the EU to boost education and infrastructure on steroids,... and make their people see poland is an exciting country for the future.
Why does the society not do that? Thats a whole another discussion. Same issue here in CZE tho, youre not alone.
Just make sure your anti-corruption laws are iron clad (ei: "donations" loophole) and you shouldn't have any problems.
I mean the eu is letting all that slip away now
Australia: whistling innocently
problem comes when you have an "iron clad defence" for your day and the terms surrounding an issue changes. then what was once secure becomes a new loophole.
Sinn Fein would die then
@@Flipflopflopper So would every political Party in Ireland.
There's one big counter-argument that's missing from your video: the fact that the EU is first an foremost an economical union.
This is like, the one thing where everyone agrees : the EU should focus on protecting it's economical interests.
As a result of that, the global political orientation of EU structures have always leaned towards liberalism and free market ideology. They have signed several Free Trade Agreements, they have often prevented their member states from introducing more market regulation laws (and in some cases even forced them to roll back on some of them).
In 2012, they imposed a lot of austerity measures upon Spain, which did nothing to help them recover from their economical crisis, but had devastating social consequences.
If a European Federation were to form, what could realistically be done to prevent an over-representation of this political ideology ? In all likelihood, not much.
So, in summary, in an ideal world where everyone agreed that solidarity is the most important value in our society, sure, a European Federation would be pretty neat.
But as things stand now, it would be a terrible idea.
We can’t even get a singular education system for the 16 states of Germany, so I think it’ll be difficult to achieve a similar education system for all of Europe… again because of different interests
We could but just don't currently for some reason
My concern is that Europe is predisposed to being divided. the interests of Spain will always be different to Poland. As seen in the Eurozone crisis, the currencies of Greece and Germany shouldn't be the same. Their economies and most importantly exports are vastly different meaning one will lose out from sharing a currency by necessity.
Well, it's about pros and cons. Big countries like US and China have the same problem. And even individual European countries have same issues, just in smaller scale. So it's not really issue, it's just about how you manage it. Overall, different regions will always have differences. Classical problem would be countryside vs cities.
That's the thing with this - Greece and Germany *can* have one currency, but only in a federalized EU, just like in US Florida has no problem sharing currency with NY or California.
Remember, few years after Euro was adopted there was a thing called European Constitution, and it definitely was planned for it all to work together - Euro as a single currency of European Federation (not by name, but by essence). Unfortunately, not all countries could ratify it via parliament, referendums needed to be had, French and Dutch got scared of something (mostly Turkey in EU, I suppose), and it never came to be. After that Euro was left standing on one leg - it just couldn't do what it was supposed to properly. And Lisbon treaties are not a new leg for it - just a shitty walking aid.
I vividly remember that time, I was a teenager, my country has just joined in, in 2004 I went to France via Erasmus program, everybody there seemed to be very pro-EU, I really thought that by the time I will be 30 I will live in United States of Europe. And then, in spring 2005 opinion polls started to shift in France - I remember I saw on Euronews street interviews with people who were against the EU Constitution - many stating some bullshit reasons like " But the flag! If we vote yes we will lose our flag and hymn! ". Damn, even a teenager like myself could understand that EU is *the* only chance of any European country west of Russia to be really independent, and they blew it. And now, remembering recent events, French just suck it up to US whenever they have to, as divided Europe will from this point on always be dominated by the current superpower, and they call that independence. Well, I guess they got to keep the flag.
@@mukkaar Thank you for this well thought out comment, I was just going to ask what they believe the similarities are between Alaska and Texas but you already more elegantly stated my underlying point. Well said.
@@ivankuzin8388 Oh no referendum how terrible! Can you imagin citizens deciding for themselves in a democratic maner!? Truly terrifying.
Polands differences to spain is why we should federalize. Poland can leverage the federal government to help with it's local interests as well as spain. "Monke strong together, weak alone."
You are clearly wrong on the national sovereignty argument. You use Viktor Orbán there as your example but seem to forget that he is indeed elected official, elected by Hungarians with quite a strong mandate too. If Europe federalized then control over the issues the federation would handle would indeed go away from Hungarians in favor of what ever German and French wanted (seeing as that's what it comes down to in a democratic numbers game). Sure people would still have democratic control over their decision making, and in the case of the more corrupt states,"the people" might have more control over it, it just wouldn't be Hungarian people but Germans or French. It is very clear that in this case say the anti immigration electorate of Hungary would obviously lose power to the pro immigration electorate of Germany and lose their national sovereignty on the matter. This isn't limited to just Hungary either and is instead true by definition, and claiming it isn't is very strange. Any power or responsibility you transfer from a local entity to the supposed federal entity means the local people lose majority portion of their control on that issue, they can still vote, their votes just cease to matter. Be it French nuclear power, Spanish migrant workers, German gas deals or Norwegian fishing, any local issue turned into a federal one means majority of the voters come from areas outside of where the issue is actually being handled which translates to loss of sovereignty, the more responsibilities and powers the federal government has, the more loss occurs. The Orban example does imply that you don't care about the loss of sovereignty, not because it wouldn't happen, but because it would take power away from people you don't like and give more to those you do like, which I believe is the crux of the matter here. This is exactly why people oppose EU federation.
"You use Viktor Orbán there as your example but seem to forget that he is indeed elected official, elected by Hungarians with quite a strong mandate too."
Stopped reading after this passage. You have no idea what you're talking about: There has never been a clean Hungarian election in the country's entire history.
@@zap3231 Fidesz won with a supermajority. You're the person who doesn't know what he's talking about.
@@weeabooman2867 In an undemocratic system lol. You're preaching about protecting homophobia, what right to talk about democracy do you think you have?
@@zap3231 A Polish one
@@weeabooman2867 Yes because that's a "right" lol
Your last comment "When the next capital riot actually succeeds" Is golden. From a US citizen. All good points though.
Thats more like adult people being childish rather than actual ''riot''. I would be more worried about how many rioting has been there.
"A federation made up of different languages and traditions just can't work"
Switzerland: "Am I a joke to you?"
Belgium, Finland and Ireland: "We're here, too."
Edit:
> Malta entered the chat
> Cyprus entered the chat
> Luxembourg entered the chat
Belgium is a federation.
@@daemonspudguy with a touch of constitutional monarchy :'D
@@hiroshi248 a constitutional monarchy can be a federation. See also: Canada
Belgium could also be used to argue that such a federation doesn't work. It seems the only thing that unites them is the national football team.
@@daemonspudguy didn't say the opposite
While you make good points in general, the one thing that always gets me is that centralization of powers usually ends up with wide scale centralization of corruption. Speaking as an American, federal powers were originally designated for international trade and national defence. And now look at us.. 😔
Yes, my fear is that Europe would become like the US, literally the worst country in the world.
@@seekingabsolution1907 I mean not worst. But I know what you mean. It's definitely the worst among other developed countries.
True thing to consider but I want to add: major reasons for the U.S.'s current state is the removal of regulatory and supervisory conditons for media decades ago, allowing the rise of disinformation networks like Fox News, a highly flawed and undemocratic electoral system and continuous reduction in funding and increase in religious influence in education. Among others. What is happening now is simply the harvest of seeds (legislation) sowed decades ago and the continued watering of those seeds. And for many years now people could see where this road will ultimately lead.
The EU at this point doesn't have these issues (not in any comparable fashion, anyway) but we also need to stay vigilant because they may creep in. And just as with the US, you only feel the results of those rotten seeds once it's too late and they've become entangled, so tackling topics such as media responsibility, disinformation and the state of education has to be done proactively. Case in point: how to deal with russia's destabilization attempts?
@@Kujo174 Absolutely spot on.
The EU embodies upper middle class Liberal values, which are put on a pedestal over all others. The Erasmus experience makes this blatant. The EU will never tolerate other values, such as Christian, Islamic, Militarist or Communist values. EU values are mostly driven forward by the ECJ and the non-EU ECHR.
This was the idea of crown-price Rudolf except of course he was talking about the United States of Austria-Hungary. He was ahead of his time.
That would have been cool maybe. Other folks from hungary also presented similar ideas but they were all rejected.
India has more linguistic, cultural and economic diversity than entire continental europe yet we exist as one country with far less regional autonomy
For a country/federation to be together you need the leadership i.e. Politicians at top to propagate that idea plus some good marketing via media
India is United by Extreme Economic Intrests and Global Ambitions.
@@cakeisyummy5755 and europe is affected by the same economical and geopolitical challenges. The EF is as necessary in the eu today as it is for india
@Snorri Modern Indian state has managed to keep a region which will most likely classify as a continent in terms of human diversity together with next to nil regional conflict
India has more regional diversity compared to Europe but while India is a country Europe is divided on linguistic lines
@@snuurferalangur4357 it's not European magic that had resulted in India staying together its the success of Indian leadership and people.. Other European colonies where they forced diverse people to stay together have all failed in middle east and Africa
European themselves can't stay along if they are slightly diverse... Yugoslavia is a good example... Croats, Bosnians and Serbs have less diversity than an average colony in India yet they started killing each other as soon commie block collapsed
2 world wars and several conflict later Europeans now preaching how well they work together is a joke
@@snuurferalangur4357 even after that partition India remains a massive country and didn't get disintegrated further
Since 1947 no civil wars and almost all major secessionist movements put down peacefully, India is a successful federation of diverse nation states
There are states in India with size and population greater than European countries and speak languages which don't even sound alike
As a Swede, I couldn't help but notice that the three EU countries most opposed to further integration on the bottom-right graph @ 15:57 were also the three EU countries that sport Nordic crosses. Furthermore, Norway and Iceland aren't even in the EU. EU membership has been neat in a lot of ways but all attempts to increase integration have only forced us to lower our standards (labour rights etc) and there is a genuine feeling of separation from continental Europe. I think most Nordic countries and thereby most Scandinavian ones would probably want to remain where they are, on the periphery.
That seems weird. The EU usually sets minimum standards, member states are free to go over these if they want.
@@Giruno56 Scandinavian countries are soft euros sceptic countries. Norway and Iceland are not EU members. Denmark has 3 functioning opt outs and has refused to abolish them through referendums several times. Sweden does not use the Euro and has strong anti eu parties on both the left and the right.
EU is garbage
-A Swede
@@isakjohansson7134 it is.
A portuguese.
@@victorm6430 They are just lunatics.d No tax heavens? For poor countries low tax rate and low bureaucracy is the way to improve their situation so they wanna keep poor poor? And tes more central power means more bureaucracy which is the most terrible thing. And united army, is this a joke? People often serve in the army because it's the army of their country, if it was the same for all the countries people wouldn't feel like their defending their home anymore but something they don't really understand and agree with. All of this sound like you can solve all the problems by passing new laws f.e. passing a law that says nobody is poor anymore xd. I am from Poland and i am strongly against this whole idea.
Calling Polish government alt-right is a huge simplification. While culturally right, economically it invests into a lot of pointless welfare that's supposed to help the poor but only facilities the spread of pathological behavior. It's populist, not alt-right.
Thats the problem of analyzing political scenarios from an outside perspective. Federalizing europe would have much wider implications than adam suggests, for example the fact that he didn't consider russia or china trying to stop the whole process financing separatists.
He is a heavy leftist, from his viewpoint Poland is alt-right. “Alternative” Right Wing Governments doesn’t exist in Europe. They’re just conservatives like from the 80s-2000s. They’re anti EU cause the EU is indeed taking away national sovereignty and replacing it with a centralized bureaucracy. Some countries were forced to take immigrants even the population voted against it. Due to the large cultural differences the EU would have to rule antidemocratic in some of its right wing regions.
I don't know that much about Polish politics but it seems to me that those "far right" politicians are in fact ex-communist populists playing on the Catholic string with a hint of nationalism.
@@jirislavicek9954 yep
@@jirislavicek9954 you know nothing about Polish politics indeed
"Poland is the european taliban"
I have never heard a truer sentence
Only difference being "Alleluja kurwa !" instead of "Allahu akbar"
Respect to Poland
As a German I recently had a shower thought going: If Poland in their descent to crazy-town one day goes full loony and starts a war it can't win... do we get Silesia back?
Of course just kidding. Since there are too few Germans living there anymore it would make no sense, but I did wonder what the consequences for Poland are at the most extreme...
@@dschehutinefer5627 Careful what you wish. Some of us here in Silesia are considering starting a war with Germany then quickly surrendering... and then Y'all have to deal with governing this shit show. Viel gluck !
@@mikek9297 In return Poland can have Saxonia! Deal?
"When the next Capitol riot actually succeeds , the Free world needs to led by someone else"
Holy fucking shit, you killed it!
It should not be called riot because that is not accurate description of what happened.
@@normaaliihminen722 Should I call it "coup d'etat" then?
@@riverman6462 Thats (literally as well as figuretively) opposite of what I aimed for.
@@normaaliihminen722 Are you sure? Because the way I see it, it was definitely an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government m
@@riverman6462 Then definition of "coup d'etat" has suffered great amount of inflation if we consider that one as a attempt to overthrow goverment.
Seriously How can you take that guy with Bull horns hat and with face paint to be to be sophisticated enough to make the effort? Give me a break.
I personally prefer sticking to the principle of subsidiarity. A bureaucrat in Brussels won't necessarily know what's best for a farmer in Romania.
Oh, absolutely. That doesn't rule out a federal level though. There are a lot of things where one federal institution is much more suited and efficient than myriads of local institutions. Of course the opposite is also true.
A bureaucrat in DC won't necessarily know what's best for a rancher in Wyoming, but the US is a country nonetheless
@@SomePotato exactly the main point I disagree on is finances as individual states within nations should have the right to tax and promote industry not the EU. Westminster has no care for northern England, I find it hard to see brussels caring more. but that is fine they don't need to, we need more local government.
@@fabriciofazano Yes and it's those people that feel the most disenfranchised from the federal government
@@fabriciofazano the problem is not that they don't know, but that they don't care. Opposite interests are a thing, and the "common good" an utopia. So the question is: "will the bureaucrat in Bruxelles prioritize the interests of 10000 rumenian/italian french workers or the interest of 10 big lobbysts?". Current EU history gives the answer: "he will do the interest of the lobbyst"
Argument that fixes all the cultural differences (from east to west from south to north): "I'm an hungarian guy who went to Germany and everything was fine" just LOL
To me it showcased that point pretty well. Small communities in rural areas would not be affected by cultural differences between nations, because those communities are too small to matter in the grand scheme. No culture would be lost by federalizing. It would only lead to even better sharing and enriching those cultures with different ones. Spaniards people would still keep their siestas and Slovaks would still drink always. Those are imbedded to us during our early development which is done by our parents. Culture wouldn’t disappear, it would only change to better fit this federal europe. Which if you want higher standards of living for everybody is only a good thing.
I like your videos and I agree with a lot of the critics you make to modern world. But you can’t simply liquidate centuries of cultural differences with that simple example. In the first place, Europe isn’t only made of middle class university students; there is a majority of the population for which these differences still count. In second place, maybe we should consider why, with a cultural background so vast and diverse we can simply say that Europe’s cultural differences are “outdated”; maybe because we have no interest whatsoever not only for our national cultural tradition, but even for our European tradition, as modern Europe is basically Europe trying since past ww2 to be like the USA. I am too in favour of a federalised Europe; but if this project must become reality, it must do so in respect with national and continental tradition, because a nation without identity is nothing. And you can’t simply put these question away because you met some foreign people and you became friends
Why a federal Europe?
Why not a *CONfederal* Europe?
Switzerland seems to handle it pretty well.
And that would ensure that people with different living conditions would still have power to influence their *own* lives.
No amount of influence over other Europeans would ever make up for a loss of influence over ourselves.
I don't oppose tighter European cooperation.
My issue is where the power comes from.
A European army that's shared between nations and where *all* the nations have the power to veto its use or even pull out of its membership is a far cry from one ruled by a organization ruling over all of Europe giving locals no real way of fighting for freedom in the case of a conflict as one example.
And rules and laws that makes sense in urban areas on the plains of Europe makes less or even no sense at all in more rural areas.
There's 10 million people living in the Ruhr valley, it makes sense to have a railway there, the villages and cities there can easily finance it even privately.
In a country like Norway or Switzerland that's mostly mountains, it makes less sense.
And in the case of Norway the country as a *whole* has a population of about half of the Ruhr valley alone spread out over a area that's long enough that if you where to cut out Norway from a map and turn it around it would reach to about Rome in Italy.
All in one country.
And one representative in the Norwegian parliament this year was elected in with just 4908 voters in a 5 seat constituency, and she was voted in to ensure that the local population would keep emergency services and a maternity ward that didn't require driving over a mountain pass that's often impossible to drive across in winter.
Contrast that to the average number of voters pr seat in Norway of about 17 200 voters pr seat here.
In a larger nation like Germany such a view simply wouldn't be represented.
Even within that constituency there was two political partiers bigger then hers, so she wouldn't be represented in the first past the post seats in Germany.
And for the proportional seats in Germany, they're at a national level and requires 5% of the voters, while she only got 0,2% of the voters in Norway.
So people potentially not being able to get emergency treatment due to plans to close down a hospital on one side of a mountain in order to make things more efficient with a hospital on the *other* side would have been ignored till after it was already a reality and people started actually dying, and it became news worthy...
Similar issues would crop up all over the place.
Urban areas are already naturally overrepresented due to their population.
You don't really *need* 10 people who are all socialists from a city to represent the socialist view.
Or 7 capitalists or whatever.
That city or that urban area is still well represented.
And just picking the largest party from a lot of rural areas isn't doing any good either.
Norway has created a solution where we have proportionality at every level yet we can still get people like that woman with 0,2% of the votes into our parliament as well as a really close approximiation of the proportionality of political parties popularity within our parliament.
That works for a small nation like Norway.
But ut would be unfair for less then 5000 people in Northern Norway to decide how people in the Ruhr valley or some other high population density area should live.
Just like the opposite is true.
It’s just for fun. Something that will never happen. Well, not without mass genocide anyway, because many will fight against it.
@Leads I'm *against* federalism and argue for confederalism, as I think that it's important that the power originates from the bottom up rather than the other way around.
But no, I don't think we can solve all the challenges that we face as individual countries.
We need to coordinate our efforts more.
@Leads Look up the definition of a federation and of a confederation.