5 ms·

> Nah, they'll want the budget contributions back. Also: "The German car industry will demand it", "The EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU", etc. Al

> Nah, they'll want the budget contributions back. Also: "The German car industry will demand it", "The EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU", etc. All of this has been falsified in the last four years. The integrity of the single market and of the European project is turning out to be much more valuable to EU member states than the highly rebated UK contributions.

te_chris 6y ago
As I said, I'm on the side against brexit, but what you're saying is not true. The EU is struggling massively with this current budget round and the loss of the UK contribution seems to legitimately be causing problems. The shit about BMW's and Prosecco was just nationalist bollocks, but that doesn't mean that the loss of the UK budget contribution isn't real. Likely end outcome is EU budget struggles a bit for a few years, then UK rejoins as an associate or whatever new category they come up with.
- trekrich 6y ago
  The EU project needs to come to an end, and the sooner the better. Its an outdated dictatorship that needs to go.
  - normalnorm 6y ago
    The European Council is made of the democratically elected Heads of State of each Member State. The European Council nominates the president of the European Comission, which again has one member per Member State. The European Parliament, which is composed of MEPs directly elected by the citizens of each member state, must ratify all nominations. The directly elected European Parliament has veto power on European Comission decisions, and so has every Member State. A state can only join the EU by virtue of a democratic decision according to the constitution of the Member State itself, and there are strong requirements on prospective Member States to be themselves proper democracies with separation of powers in order to be allowed to join. Granted, these requirements have been slightly overlooked when it came to the UK: the House of Lords is undemocratic, one could say outdated, and would almost certainly not be tolerated in any other candidate state. So, the EU might be complex, but in what sense exactly is it undemocratic?
    - trekrich 6y ago
      how does the normal citizen vote for the president of the European Commission? How do we vote them out if we dont like their governance anymore?
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > how does the normal citizen vote for the president of the European Commission? How do we vote them out if we dont like their governance anymore? As is the case with the chief executive in most parliamentary systems, by voting for an MP (in the case, MEP) of the party which backs their preferred (or opposes their opposed) candidate for leader.
        trekrich 6y ago
        ok so we have an MEP in parliament. But MEPs, can't initiate legislation, only approve it. The EU parliament is arguably the only parliament in the world where members of parliament are not allowed to make laws or initiate legislation. The institution that actually makes the laws in the EU is not the democratically elected members of parliament, but the unelected European Commissioners. This is the issue with the EU. Its a special club at the top, and the people who we can vote for don't really have any say in any of it. That alone is the best reason for it to go!
        lhopki01 6y ago
        You've just shifted the goalpost here. You asked how to control who's the head of the Comission not how to initiate legislation. But since you asked look at how little power a British MP has to get a private member's bill through to a vote. In actual fact the only private member's bills that get a vote let alone pass are those with government support.
      - throwaway122kk 6y ago
        How does one vote for the Queen or Lords?
- normalnorm 6y ago
  Sorry, I didn't mean to sound aggressive against you, even if you were of a different opinion. I am a bit tired of all the disinformation on this topic, I highly value the European project -- it is not perfect but my life would be so much poorer without it -- so I can get a bit emotional. I have also been an anglophile since I can remember, so I am quite disappointed with the UK. I think I'm not alone in this. Regarding the budget round: my impression is that the struggle comes from the situation caused by covid more than anything else. Brexit became a niche interest in the EU, most people are not paying attention or really care about it anymore. Notice that the contribution of the UK after rebates amounted to 9 billion euros, in comparison to a yearly EU budget of about 165 billion euros, which is in itself 1% of the EU's GDP. While I am sure that the EU misses that contribution, I find it hard to believe that it is a huge problem.
- throwaway122kk 6y ago
  Loss of UK means 10 euro a year less per every person left in eu27. You wildly overstating UKs contribution. It's peanuts compared to what Covid has caused

te_chris 6y ago

As I said, I'm on the side against brexit, but what you're saying is not true. The EU is struggling massively with this current budget round and the loss of the UK contribution seems to legitimately be causing problems. The shit about BMW's and Prosecco was just nationalist bollocks, but that doesn't mean that the loss of the UK budget contribution isn't real. Likely end outcome is EU budget struggles a bit for a few years, then UK rejoins as an associate or whatever new category they come up with.

trekrich 6y ago
The EU project needs to come to an end, and the sooner the better. Its an outdated dictatorship that needs to go.
- normalnorm 6y ago
  The European Council is made of the democratically elected Heads of State of each Member State. The European Council nominates the president of the European Comission, which again has one member per Member State. The European Parliament, which is composed of MEPs directly elected by the citizens of each member state, must ratify all nominations. The directly elected European Parliament has veto power on European Comission decisions, and so has every Member State. A state can only join the EU by virtue of a democratic decision according to the constitution of the Member State itself, and there are strong requirements on prospective Member States to be themselves proper democracies with separation of powers in order to be allowed to join. Granted, these requirements have been slightly overlooked when it came to the UK: the House of Lords is undemocratic, one could say outdated, and would almost certainly not be tolerated in any other candidate state. So, the EU might be complex, but in what sense exactly is it undemocratic?
  - trekrich 6y ago
    how does the normal citizen vote for the president of the European Commission? How do we vote them out if we dont like their governance anymore?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > how does the normal citizen vote for the president of the European Commission? How do we vote them out if we dont like their governance anymore? As is the case with the chief executive in most parliamentary systems, by voting for an MP (in the case, MEP) of the party which backs their preferred (or opposes their opposed) candidate for leader.
      - trekrich 6y ago
        ok so we have an MEP in parliament. But MEPs, can't initiate legislation, only approve it. The EU parliament is arguably the only parliament in the world where members of parliament are not allowed to make laws or initiate legislation. The institution that actually makes the laws in the EU is not the democratically elected members of parliament, but the unelected European Commissioners. This is the issue with the EU. Its a special club at the top, and the people who we can vote for don't really have any say in any of it. That alone is the best reason for it to go!
        lhopki01 6y ago
        You've just shifted the goalpost here. You asked how to control who's the head of the Comission not how to initiate legislation. But since you asked look at how little power a British MP has to get a private member's bill through to a vote. In actual fact the only private member's bills that get a vote let alone pass are those with government support.
    - throwaway122kk 6y ago
      How does one vote for the Queen or Lords?
normalnorm 6y ago
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound aggressive against you, even if you were of a different opinion. I am a bit tired of all the disinformation on this topic, I highly value the European project -- it is not perfect but my life would be so much poorer without it -- so I can get a bit emotional. I have also been an anglophile since I can remember, so I am quite disappointed with the UK. I think I'm not alone in this. Regarding the budget round: my impression is that the struggle comes from the situation caused by covid more than anything else. Brexit became a niche interest in the EU, most people are not paying attention or really care about it anymore. Notice that the contribution of the UK after rebates amounted to 9 billion euros, in comparison to a yearly EU budget of about 165 billion euros, which is in itself 1% of the EU's GDP. While I am sure that the EU misses that contribution, I find it hard to believe that it is a huge problem.
throwaway122kk 6y ago
Loss of UK means 10 euro a year less per every person left in eu27. You wildly overstating UKs contribution. It's peanuts compared to what Covid has caused