@MasakaBuzz
Ok :) I will do it in two hits, your original reply and this later one.
1) The fact there has been peace in Europe since 1945 is nothing to do with the E.U. It’s to do with NATO.
Ok. I disagree with you because I see NATO as relevant at the point hostilities could arise, whereas having a common interest and supranational rules via the EU has meant we haven’t been as likely to split along nationalist lines in the first place. That’s not to say NATO isn’t also a brake, just I think it’s a second and the EU is soothing tensions / providing a safety valve / creating a network of shared interests with our neighbours that mitigates the tendency to aggression against them. I also think given Trump’s animosity to NATO, having other supranational commitments is a good backup. However, I see your reasoning.
2) Common standards are bull excrement. Look at animal welfare and tell me there are common standards. Many of our standards were far higher than the ones that have been imposed upon us. We don’t need some overpaid official from the E.U. to do that. We have our own overpaid politicians for that.
If we gold plate it’s our additional choice not something the EU required us to do (and also belies the claim that we can’t make our own laws!). I will rephrase to say “minimum standards”, ie we are all protected from a race to the bottom. I think that’s something that will become very clear as we find ourselves outside the EU.
3) As for clout - The USA and China are so big, I doubt the EU has any clout regardless.
As of 2017, the top 3 by GDP were US, then EU, then China. EU has significant clout. We can expect both US and EU to decline with respect to China but EU is still one of the huge global players.
4) The Greater Good is having politicians accountable via the ballot box. The EU leaders are not. For those people who mentioned Dominic Cummings. If Boris goes, so does Cummings.
Ok, this one has been done to death so I will just link to full facts. fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-democracy/ I don’t agree with you and I very much doubt most of the people who claim the EU is undemocratic made any effort to find out how it works before accepting that slur.
5) Look at Youth Unemployment across the EU and tell me just how youth unemployment rates of 30+ % in Italy and Greece benefit those youth. How are the people of Greece benefiting from not being able to get medicine, and having their country turned into a gigantic refugee camp benefiting them?
Ok, so you have a few items here.
I agree the Austerity imposed on Greece via the EU has lead to significant problems from the Greeks’ point of view. It is, however, a complex situation and the EU is not the sole cause. The critical event was of course the GFC which destabilised eceonomies everywhere so where we are still feeling the fallout (the UK’s version being Austerity then Brexit, so jury’s still out whether it’s ultimately going to be worse for us). Greece’s pre-existing system especially the tax loopholes and pension commitments is also a contributor, as is the crisis caused by the country’s 2015 referendum.
With hindsight could the EU have done better? Almost certainly, as can be said in many situations not least Brexit itself! Would Greece have done better if it has never joined the EU? I think not, it would have had at least one debt crisis and default by now. The EU is preventing that happening, for better or worse. I certainly expect the EU will continue to learn and improve from the Greek mistakes.
BTW, Greek unemployment is finally starting to fall, let’s hope a corner is being turned.
The medicine issue is fundamentally a symptom of the overall crisis, so I guess maybe you are referring to the EU saying as part of the bailout Greece needs to switch to generics instead of branded pharmaceuticals? If so that seems fair enough to me, it’s no secret that there are huge incentives paid by pharma companies to encourage use of expensive branded medicines over identical generics and apparently there is some sort of cultural snobbery over generics in Greece which inflates their public health costs, so tackling that seems reasonable.
Not enough space to go into the refugee situation as it’s a huge topic in its own right, but if you give a bit more detail about the EU-specific concerns as opposed to the wider political, environmental and geographic drivers I can give it a shot.
A one size all system never works. Individual countries have individual needs. The EU does not accommodate that.
I agree to some extent. The EU is about joining together and having best fit for the many rather than bespoke, so pointing to any one instance will show someone was disadvantaged by the compromise. Over time the expectation is that the compromises even out so it’s more effective and gives a better outcome than the costs and frictions of lots of special cases.
You may not quite see this yet, but there’s another force working very hard to standardise global systems and that is the commercial interests of the multinational companies. They absolutely are lobbying and putting pressure on countries to standardise in ways that benefit those big companies (think Amazon pushing for tax breaks in return for locating large centres). Frankly, I think we’ve got a much better chance of protecting our own interests against Google, Amazon, nestle, Unilever et al in the 21st century as a member of the EU than a small standalone government.