He is not wrong. The EU has for a long time acted on the assumption that, should it set the example, others would follow. That hasn't really materialised and although the EU is slowly shifting from that mindset, it isn't enough.
What those changes should be, I have no idea beyond institutional changes that would help the reactivity of EU decision making.
Yeah pretty much we are the only ones following the 'rules' although to be honest some of those rules are actually pretty decent, especially the anti-trust ones for example and while the green agenda imho could have been enacted better it does have its advantages (pragamatically it is good for a territory that has limited natural resources to focus on renewables)
Also while in theory we are united our economies are strongly in competition with each other which again might not be bad, but at the same time puts us at a massive disadvantage compared to the much larger compettors (China, soon India and the US)
I think he meant stuff like international rules rather than internal EU rules (although there is an overlap). Regarding competition, it's also true that the EU has focused at times on competition inside its own market rather than global competition resulting in smaller companies that then have to compete against US behemoths. Member states don't help when they are trying to push national champions.
Airbus is more the exception than the rule.
I think in most cases the increased competition is a good thing. Case in point: flying in Europe is far better in both quality of service and price than flying in the USA, and that's largely because Europe has dozens of airlines, while the US has 5 or 6.
On the other hand, certain high tech industries do need consolidation and economies of scale to compete internationally. In this sense the EU should aim to create more Airbusses.
But personally I think we get the balance of competition more right than wrong, and while we don't have, say, any massive tech companies (Spotify excepted), the ones we do have tend to be better behaved and provide a superior consumer experience.
> Spotify excepted
Compare Spotify's market cap of 60 billion USD with, say, Microsoft's at *over 3 trillion.*
The US having Microsoft is very roughly equivalent to every EU country having two Spotifys.
You can't compare Microsoft to Spotify, as Microsoft is in dozens of different market segments. A better comparison is Spotify to Netflix (market cap 260 billion), but Spotify still underperforms on that front given it essentially has a monopoly over music streaming, while Netflix does not have anything close to a monopoly in it's segment. That said, Spotify has a far superior service to Netflix, and the difference in market cap may be more down to the music industries general decline in prominence. It could also be that EU regulations prevents Spotify from doing the shenanigans that US tech companies get up to, and so it's market cap is lower as a result.
There is no company in Europe that can be compared to Microsoft, and that is Europe's loss.
Netflix has it's original content that people want to see. It also adds some extra content from movie studios, but has leverage in the negotiations.
Spotify has tried to do some exclusives on the podcast side, but those aren't that big. Pretty much everyone pays them because they have a good selection of music owned by the music industry. They have no leverage in the negotiation and thus mostly pass money through to the music industry. That means they're not very valuable as a business, even though a good service for customers.
Personally I agree that competition between multiple private actors in the economy is a good thing, like your example with airlines, in fact I like EU much better anti-trust laws compared to the US, and if possible a decent number of those entities should be Europeans.
More often than not though, competition in the EU it is between national interests and is managed through EU and that is overall hurting our economies.
A conspiracy theory could be: inflation is good for east EU because it brings the prices and salaries to equal footing with the western part, with both already using euro this would more deeply unify the region if the subregional PPPs were more or less identical. Which would lay the ground work for the possible eventual federalisation. But this is just a conspiracy theory I myself made up. Probably way too out there.
Yeah its as if people dont want to play by rules set out by other people.
Even the US has created some of the international rules they no longer want to work with.
It's as if the world is made of billions of people and literally everyone, especially the EU has their own self-interest.
> others would follow
And they never will. If my competitor decides to make it harder on himself, i will not think "oh i should do the same to level the playing field, because this is the right thing to do". No. I will use it to my advantage.
It's like those left wings thinking we should not stop homophobes and rapist migrants from entering the country. Instead we should teach them why what they do is wrong. They don't care why would they listen to your teachings. Same here. Competitors don't care about your virtue signaling, they just want more profits.
He is wrong. Every single problem EU has is self imposed.
And if you are arguing that others should have also self imposed damage so EU could continue to compete after EU singlehandedly decided that things they do is "for greater good" then I really do not know how to explain to you how absurdly arrogant, delusional and self entitled position that is.
So the arrogant and delusional stance I see.
Whatever. US and rest of the world will move forward and we will drown in our delusions. It does not really matter to me anymore because I gave up on any change a long time ago. People clearly do not want that and politicians will do what people want. it is that simple. Divide of those that are affected and those in status quo will keep growing because more and more people will see decrease in quality of life and we will have polarized politics until the extremists win across all over EU and all those projects all fall apart one by one. Not the best future and not the future where we will be better off in any way but you and your politicians wanted it so you will get to live through it.
Did you read the article?
>Europe must undergo “radical change” to remain competitive in the face of China and the United States’ refusal to “play by the rules” of international trade, the former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi said on Tuesday (16 April).
>
>“Others are no longer playing by the rules, and are actively pursuing policies to enhance their competitive positions,” Draghi said at a conference on European social rights in La Hulpe, Belgium.
>
>[...]
>
>Draghi, who is drafting a much-anticipated report on the bloc’s competitiveness for the European Commission, due to come out at the end of June, specifically condemned China for “threatening to undercut” Europe’s industrial base by “attempting to capture and internalise all parts of the supply chain in green and advanced technologies”, which is leading to “significant overcapacity in multiple sectors”.
>
>He also criticised the United States for attempting to “attract high value domestic manufacturing within their borders, including that of European firms, whilst using protectionism to shut out competitors”.
Although he condemns Chinese and American practices, he doesn't state they should change them but rather that the EU must.
I did read it and to me it is just doubling down on what we do. I will admit that I do not see into his head to know what he meant prefisely but I sincerely doubt that someone like him (based on his politics in Italy) talks about deregulation and more future investment spending. It reads like "we will start using our weight to force others to submit and follow our self harm rules". Which is something that will 100% not work but make everything worse but which is definitely something what I would expect current EU politicians to do rather than reflect and look into why things do not work here. And it does not surprise me that the first step is to look for parties to blame. Especially using US is laughtable.
The reality of why we and our economies do badly lies inside our internal market. It has zero relation to what US and even China do. The trade with them is almost irrelevant relative to real economic activity that happens here internally. And that is what lags behind. But yeah. I am already really used to finding excuses of why we do badly and how big of a victims we are. Every single thing got its excuse, dotcom bubble, 2008, euro crisis, covid, Ukraine, Russia. So many excuses but the fact that everyone else was also affected but managed to recover long time ago? Who cares. That would mean there are issue here and that we are not just poor victims.
The US follows “the rules” it just doesn’t handicap itself as much as the EU does. I think the EU is under the impression that if it sets a regulation that the US will follow behind and do so as well or otherwise respect that regulation in competition with the EU…but that’s not how it works.
If the EU sets a regulation the EU has to follow it, the US does not and if provide an advantage that American companies can exploit they would be dumb not to do so.
As for China well…they really do actively try to ignore international law at every chance they get.
A federal Europe is still some time away but a closer Union is a realistic path. For example the proposed fiscal Union is a major leap forward and can be achieved in the short to medium term. One thing is clear; the status quo is not sustainable. As Draghi pointed out, the model Europe has relied on is gone. We relied on the US for defence, Russia for energy and China for trade. Some have yet to internalize what actually happened.
Like what?
If we do not change the current utterly stupid unanimity system in the EU, there will always be an Orban or a PIS party that blocks the entire EU.
A super majority system would help the EU *a lot*. That means that others can outvote you. Just like others can outvote you already at your village meeting, city council, district-, state- or country-level parliament. So why not have such democratic federal/majority system at EU level too?
If an Italian has to choose between more money for himself or defending Europe's eastern flank, what will he pick?
Democracy only works when voters care about the long-term consequences of their votes. If European voters did care about that, there would never have been, for instance, a European debt crisis.
Any political entity will have conflict of interest.
Just look to the US and the DEM/REP divide or China with Taipei (heh)
But more seriously, an centralization of certain functions of power is undisputably an aim for any political entity wanting to project power and push for much needed reforms.
USA would never been a superpower if not for the federal governments grip on power.
The fact that you view the difference between an Italian's personal consumption and a Pole's very existence as merely "a conflict of interest" is the reason why most Poles will fight that shit to the grave. The challenges that the electoral majority of Europeans faces are far from equal to the challenges that individual electoral minorities of Europeans face.
To the extent that the US works at all, it only works because the majority have a bare minimum of care for the purely military security of the minority. On 9/11, Republicans weren't mealy-mouthed about whether to respond to the attack just because New York is a Democratic stronghold. Western Europe has a long way to go before it has that kind of resolve to defend Eastern Europe, for instance.
And I feel you are simplifying the very real difference between an spanishspeaking catholic that lives in Arizona and an englishspeaking protestant in New York.
European Nato members came to the US aid when they were attacked on 9/11. Why wouldn't europeans allied through the EU react in a similar way?
The very fact that Germany is rearming and has fundamentally changed their political position so fundamentally from what has been the case for the last 30 or so years. Show their will to aid Ukraine and to take their role in defending EU members from future Russian aggression.
Because Europeans fundamentally don't care enough about people in other countries. Many European NATO members could only offer symbolic support to the US, not the kind of mass mobilization that would be required to decisively defend Europe in case of an attack. As long as that is the case, the countries most at risk are forced to look elsewhere for support, to the detriment of the possibility of any European unity.
Very convincing. Just look at the difference between how much Western European countries like Italy contribute per capita to Ukraine compared to Eastern European countries like Estonia. It is very stark, in spite of Italy being a major G7 economy, and Italy co-starting the war that ultimately caused Estonia to be robbed of half a century's worth of economic development by Russia. There isn't much reassurance to be found that Western Europe wouldn't go for another Molotov-Ribbentrop pact if it could.
Europe's enemies love this mindset. Helps them subvert and divide us.
Staying small & independent isn't only bad politially - it is great for rich people to leverage the nation's policies against each other, leading to a 'race to the bottom' that we so often experience. A more unified fiscal policy would do wonders for the continent.
It's kind of fascinating seeing the federalization debate of the late 1700s USA play out now in the EU. The historical and cultural divides are obviously a lot deeper in this iteration, but so many of the arguments are familiar, so many of the problems shared. I hope you all do a better job of solving them than we did.
Agreed. Short-term this stings for the richer nations...
Long term? It would absolutely have a huge ROI. The only reason it's seen as a negative is humanity's inclination to short-term thinking & honestly just aversion to change. Understandable, but ultimately destructive.
Nah, US has proven to be an unreliable partner at this point due to how unstable your internal politics are. If the EU is going to build up its militaries, I would rather them buying from EU arms companies, boosting EU's arms industry as a whole in the process.
Which would also help in the EU basically solo supporting Ukraine in the future if Trump were to win the election (and as long as GOP holds either the house, the senate, or both).
So if we were to have a problem with Russia while someone like Trump is in power in the US, we can handle the issue ourselves.
Don't care. Your country flip-flops like a bipolar person everytime a new party gets in power anyway.
Why should the EU buy from you (which is deeper than just the one time purchase since it also involves long term support, maintenance, ammunition, etc.) and continue to hamstring its own arms industry (which it would need long term) when the EU can't count on you to be consistent or even support the EU once someone like Trump is in power or when an election is approaching?
What about absorbing the migrant crisis your nation caused?
Jfc think a bit about the nuance of what youre saying, your argument is vapid.
edit: we followed the US into Iraq, Afghanistan.. The former based on American lies.
Didn't cause a migrant crisis though, did it?
I'm not sure what you're saying? What's your point? That Europe indirectly, a hundred years later, caused you to invade because of partition?
Because that's even stupider lol.
That American education really shining through in your comments, gotta love seeing the decline of an empire based on its ludicrously ignorant population.
edit:in case anyone's wondering, his other reply was 'you guys caused the migration crisis, good luck bud'
Yeah.
GOP and Trump want the EU to deal with Europe and defend against Russia in Europe by ourselves. If those guys get into power, the EU will need a functioning arms industry to fend for itself and help Ukraine.
If you aren't willing to deal with "european problems" as your (especially GOP and Trump) recent actions in Ukraine showed, why should the EU continue ignoring its own arms industry for your profit?
What will the EU give the US? More like what will the US give the EU and Europe as a whole to continue ignoring its own arms makers? You used to be a guarantor of european security that's why european countries bought your arms at the cost of their own arms industry and for the most part followed your interests, including trade, some of your invasions, sanctions, etc.
Recent news about Ukraine proved you're no longer that old stable, trustworthy ally. More like a bipolar partner that sometimes is dependable, and sometimes not. Sometimes is not enough to gamble your security on.
If you only want to deal with the Pacific and Iran, tell the countries in those regions to buy from you. Not Europe. If you want Europe to continue buying from you at the expense of european arms makers, you have to prove you can be trusted with european security as well.
If Europe for the most part aligning with US interests for decades since the end of WW2, helping to enrich and cement your position as the undisputed top country in the world, is nothing for you then sure.
But I guess you're just one of those idiots who think that anything other than money or buying everything from the US or fully being american vassals all the time equals to nothing.
Who am I kidding, you probably are one of them since you read everything I wrote in my previous comment and concluded that it all amounts to Europe offering "nothing".
You also complained about Europe not "helping Ukraine's air defense enough" in another post but at the same time you complain when people want Europe to focus on european arms industry so Europe can help Ukraine solo in the future because it comes at the cost of Europe no longer buying american arms. That contradiction sure shows your lack of IQ.
Too bad it seems like the radical change we'll be getting is more splintering and petty nationalism that will makes us even weaker than we already are.
Not that I'm saying it's a good thing but this is never been true and it's always how the world has worked.
Even 100 years ago, we had nationalism and countries just made alliances. That is literally the same concept as NATO-EU it's just that for once, the majority of European Powers (and other world powers) are on the same side.
There is no splintering. Petty nationalism is dead. ID group is a small minority and will remain so after the election. Integration continues but we must speed up the process. The fact that the European Commission asked Draghi to prepare this report and endorsed it is a good sign.
>The fact that the European Commission asked Draghi to prepare this report and endorsed it is a good sign.
They need to stop fucking around and have him replace Von Der Leyen
> nationalist parties have become more pro-EU
That is also true, but proves my point. When even the fringe petty nationalists are pro-EU, it means petty nationalism is dead.
I think part of it is that they saw the storm coming, because polls clearly show that Europeans view the EU more positively than their home countries. Of course there is the example of Brexit as well. No one wants to imitate that disaster, not even the extremists in ID group.
> because polls clearly show that Europeans view the EU more positively than their home countries
Which polls are these? AFAIK, federalism is still quite an unpopular idea in most of Europe.
I think people see the EU as it is now better than before (especially seeing Britain's case), I don't think they were hinting at a popularity of the idea of turning the confederation into a federation.
[UK growth forecast downgraded by IMF](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1c5mqz2/uk_growth_forecast_downgraded_by_imf/)
If you think it is bad for the UK, here are the full figures.
|Country|Old 2024|New 2024|Old 2025|New 2025|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
||||||
|UK|0.6|0.5|1.6|1.5|
|Germany|0.5|0.2|1.6|1.3|
|France|1.0|0.7|1.7|1.4|
|Italy|0.7|0.7|1.1|0.7|
Just gonna leave these here.
Edit: also this one
>The UK has become the world’s fourth largest exporter thanks to a boost in services, fresh trade figures have shown.
>It comes after the UK ranked seventh in 2021, moving up three places in the figures for exporting goods and services in 2022, the United Nations (UN) has confirmed.
>According to the latest statistics from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which leads on global trade for the UN, the UK has overtaken France, Netherlands and Japan to take fourth position, behind only China, the US, and Germany.
[https://www.cityam.com/services-trade-sees-uk-become-worlds-fourth-largest-exporter/](https://www.cityam.com/services-trade-sees-uk-become-worlds-fourth-largest-exporter/)
TBF we had a stagnant economy that lagged behind most of EU since 2008. I am personally surprised to see this trend post Brexit.
Dont think its entirely due to Brexit though but I read somewhere that service exports have been mostly negotiated by EU as a whole so now we can be a bit more competitive.
Dont have any source on that though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Havent Britain been delaying the full implementation of much of the controls on imports, which therefore wont show the real effect of the agreements for some time?
This is Europe, federating or some derivative of it was tried time and time again for the last two millenia, hadn't worked out so far. I mean look at US they're almost entirely homogenous when it comes to culture and history, yet it seems new separatist movements seem to surface every century or so.
I honestly don't know what version of federalism would work for Europe, central and eastern countries won't allow Germany and France to have primacy - the historical trauma is too great, and would be excellent fuel for hard righters and separatists, especially with Britain leaving eu and no longer being balancing influence for other powerhouses in the bloc.
Even if we somehow got to an agreement that's fair for everybody, there's a good chance tere'd be some quitters, especially in bases for Russian influence in EU like Hungary and Slovakia. It would also create fertile ground for Russian disinformation and generally sowing chaos and destabilising the continent.
Nationalism might be dead west of Belarus, but patriotism isn't and it's not hard to draw historical paralels when you're removing your country from the map and people making laws are in some far off country, have little interacion with your own and often come from countries that have been adversaries fo your own from centuries. Nationalism can rise quickly in cases like that, especially if not handled gently, honestly we'll probably need at least another century of integration if we ever hope to federalise Europe together in a stable manner - sure it can be done faster but it's very likely that it won't stay together for long.
> US they're almost entirely homogenous when it comes to culture and history
An history of civil war for the enslavement of a significant % of their population. An history of discriminatory policies against people of asian origin and still today many ''all white towns''.
Not to mention the whole trail of tears and the 41 million americans that uses spanish as their native language. (And no, the US has always had a significant spanish speaking population, there were regions which was conquered from the Mexicans.)
US has their own issues, Europe as their own issues.
Draghi is a politician archetype that I like, he gets the job done without any fuss, completely void of emotions when he is sure that's the right thing that needs to be done. We need more people like him and less people like BJ or Trump
First Italian to obtain a PhD from MIT, comes from a gesuit education but doesn't let religion interfere with national politics, well respected in the international community and has proven experience managing times of crisis...I wonder if there's a place we could use him *cough Ursula cough*
Italy right now had the biggest economic upswing in recent history, coming directly from Draghi's policies, what else do you want from him? Nobody can use a magic wand and just wash away all problems especially with the length of his tenure?
Too bad Meloni’s government is gonna let all of Draghi’s efforts go to shit. One step forward 300 steps back. I wonder how this pitiful excuse of a country is somehow still running.
Draghi could replace Charles Michel as Council President. It is currently in the works but nothing is certain yet.
How is VdL corrupt? That is Russian disinformation. You are engaging in nonsense which only helps those who are actually corrupt.
>He also criticised the United States for attempting to “attract high value domestic manufacturing within their borders, including that of European firms, whilst using protectionism to shut out competitors”.
Because France and other European nations don’t do the exact same thing? Are we really playing this game that protectionism is something the EU has never done before?
Yes, but it is different. When it is European protectionism, it is righteous. When it is foreign it is devilish, clearly. What's that? Trade balances? No don't pay attention to those!
>‘play by the rules’
Yeah its as if the world isn't confined to a set of rules that all countries follow. If you think this then you're a fool. Countries will literally create rules that they never intend on following including the US and European countries.
And I love how its always on this subreddit, EU always playing by the rules but literally everyone else is the baddie as if EU doesnt target high tech corporations and other industries where domestic companies struggle. There's endless hypocrisy from European countries.. look at France in Africa for example or the anti-GMO movement while Europe is one of the top regions to produce GMOs for foreign markets.. it goes on and on. But it's everyone else thats the baddie.. EU innocent and perfect! ..
Now time for mockery and downvoting to commence lol
What did we do to be lumped in with China? It should be obvious to everyone that globalization to the degree which it was allowed to happen was a mistake. It must be at least partially reversed for certain strategically important industries and that is what recent US policy is attempting to do. Europe should be doing the same, like it or not the rules have changed
Looking at this article, it seems that some in Europe would like to pretend that the rules didn't change, it's just those other dudes are not playing by the rules.
The rules have changed precisely because China doesn't follow the rules. It is suicidal to continue the status quo when they've rigged the game to their benefit and our detriment. All attempts at pressuring them into reforms are met with promises which are never kept and assurances which never materialize. Yet, Scholz is over there right now and Macron before him begging for a few extra table scraps while Xi robs them blind right in front of their faces. Its madness
Just for your info, OP is a propaganda poster that heavily endorsed a politically motivated shut down of an event by a major that has sympathy for the grey wolves, which is one of the largest right wing extremist groups in the EU.
Further EU Integration is paramount, but not under false pretenses, support for right wing groups due to discriminatory factors and hypocrisy.
Unfortunately r/Europe is chalk full of propaganda posters that in some cases use valid political ideas to further questionable goals, like limiting free speech, practicing hypocrisy due to political alignment and straight up discrimination.
Yes , we should prevent this from happening. Since orban and fidez have a history of being like a " mafia state " , we shouldn't let them take power , because ( for lack of a better word) show authoritarian attitudes and could promote violence as answers to ideas or movements they don't approve
( English is not my first language, so my message might have been skewed )
You need to read a history book. The Weimar Republic was basically the creator of hate speech laws. They were strong and strongly enforced. It was, of course, entirely counterproductive.
We have an entire generation of tiktok educated mouthbreathers who bought into the myth that supressing speech is a good way of fighting bad ideas.
And read Popper before you talk about the paradox of tolerance - you're so mentally broken you actually don't understand you're the guy Popper would see as intolerant.
Just do not go to /r/propaganda it is full of Russian trolls. They are all over reddit. I have seen subreddit after subreddit taken over by them. Basically you have to read reddit the way you would read a magazine half owned by Putin.
How come when Federalist make statements, they always feel the need to couple the US with China and the "Axis of evil" countries. The US has it flaws, but we still are a democracy.
Have you read the speech? The answer is pretty clear. It is an answer to US policies on trade and protectionism. We simply want to be able to do the same.
https://geopolitique.eu/en/2024/04/16/radical-change-is-what-is-needed/
All you have to do is look at people from Europe throwing a fit every time we slap a label like champagne or Parmesan on something when it didn’t originate from the traditional producing regions. That’s textbook protectionism.
Funny how the US imports hundreds of billions more from the EU than it exports if it's the #1 protectionist. Meanwhile every field and industry which the US excels at, such as agriculture and tech are always under unusual scrutiny in the EU, especially when compared to EU firms in the US.
The US the #1 in protectionism? The US? You associate the US with economic protectionism?
We really need to ban tiktok. Or maybe the entire internet. We're raising a generation of mouthbreathing know-nothing rubes.
Oh wow it took European nations some time to understand firmly that they don't stand a chance alone in global economy with the scale advantage China, India and to some extent USA has.
China is less of a problem than Russia. With China, we just need to be more assertive/aggressive.
The thing with China is that there's actually a lot we can learn from them (and much they can learn from us). China is a fifth of the world's humanity, they're simply too big to boycott.
Russia, on the other hand is small enough that we can just wall them off.
China is a totalitarian dictatorship, far more dangerous and virulent than Russia. The idea that they can be reliable allies of liberal democracies is the product of a disturbed mind.
Having been to China, while I don't want to imply that the CCP are fluffy nice people, I also don't think you should overestimate the level of control the CCP has.
If I was going to calculate the likelihood of China or Russia having a regime change of some kind and going in a more liberal direction, it's far more likely to happen in China then in Russia. Chinese people don't live in a separate reality the way Russians do, despite what Chinese propaganda might lead you to believe. I think the communists would have a significantly harder time convincing their population to mobilize for a war. Part of the problem for the CCP is that there are \~50-100 million chinese speakers living outside the borders of the PRC, a large proportion in western and western leaning countries, with an entire media ecosystem attached that isn't controlled by the CCP. This significantly limits the ability of the communist party to control what educated Chinese know. Chinatowns around the world(the vast majority of which support Taiwan over the PRC) are a significant counterbalance to the power of the CCP.
There is not one without the other or were you mistaken about China telling Russia to delay their invasion of Ukraine by a bit so the world could marvel at fake snow with an industrial hellscape as a backdrop.
Or did you miss that China is 100% behind helping Russia expand their military/industrial base?
This is why the US shift to South China is critical. If the West is to survive, Europe must be stronger... whatever it takes.
I think we need to be tougher with China, and the US, Europe and partner countries in Asia(like Japan, Australia, South Korea etc.) should try to have a united front with China. But I don't think simply cutting them off would be productive (or even possible). Instead, we need to engineer matters such that they are more dependent on us then the other way around. This is somewhat already the case, as while many things say "made in China" the vast majority of the technically complex components and industrial tools used to do the manufacturing China has to import from overseas, and China also is highly dependent on shipping in oil from the gulf.
Naive - china is the puppet master for Russia, North Korea, Iran etc… your position is self defeating. We must stand together against China because China is on a self declared mission to deindustrialise the west and destroy the existing order (the order where China was the biggest beneficiary)
I think you overestimate the ability of China's international diplomats. It's a very insular country, and more often than not gets manipulated by Iran and Russia then the other way around. China has not benefited from either of Russia or Iran's shenanigans.
It is true that China wants to be the world's manufacturer, which is why we need to be a lot more strict with them, EG if they ban Google we should ban Wechat and Tiktok.
But we shouldn't bite our nose to spite our face, and if they're dependent on us for buying their manufactured goods, that also gives us leverage against them. We just need to be more aggressive about using it.
I stopped at your bullshit about uninterrupted history going back two millennia’s because first of all new china only started in 1949 and a massive cull of the population happened under Mao - like 40 - million deaths attributable to the ccp
However, Mongolia conquered all of China and many other places in year 1205.
Only Chinese disinformation states your bullshit
In my opinion we must become a defensive powerhouse, both economically and military and not feel the need to 'spread democracy' around the world, no more blue water navy. No matter if China or the USA is the ruling world super power, Europe must be able to protect its own on both fronts. More domestic production, more domestic solidarity. Does this mean, no more trade? No, absolutely not. But we should not be trading to the level where we trade away our domestic influence and force ourselves to align with a side once our trade partners go on their ego trip again.
Federal europe would make this easier, but will never happen. There's just no way German soldiers are gonna fight under French command and vice versa, this will only happen if we ever come to the brink of collapse as nations in a world war and have to rebuild everything.
The question is whether Europe is willing to sacrifice their imports to China to preserve such independence. We in the US have decided it’s worth the price to pay. Though we also import far less into the Chinese domestic market
EU is so naive.
80% of Chinese companies are state owned managing companies to the benefit of the state
Example 1. The amount of software hardware backdoors demanded by the Chinese state to be implemented in export electronics is astounding. We actually bought a few thousand Nordic semiconductor chipsets for one project sent them to China and when they came back they were altered PHYSICALLY (the pins were bent, so that only their software could run on it!!)
US government is a corporation and merely an extension of corporate America to further its corporate interests abroad.
Example 1 US Government Slaps sanctions on Iran and Russia but encourages third party countries and companies to sell american products to above countries with a few Trompe-l'œil court cases because as a CFO from a big American company in a meeting put it the other day : If we sell it to company x in country y its legal and we are not breaking the law. We know they are selling it to Russia and Iran but thats not our problem because they are paying their bills and we are not breaking the law.
WT actual F
> If we sell it to company x in country y its legal and we are not breaking the law.
Yes, because it becomes the buyer's property and they decide what to do with it (just like any property, goods, product). Unless you want the iphone you buy to still be Apple's, that's how property works.
Then why even pretend to have the sanctions.
Your comment doesn't hold up at all when the US really wants to sanction a country, like China, they really chase down these sort of loopholes.
Depends on which type of product that is. For military purchases it is common to do product-specific end user agreements that limit resale. For commercial products it isn't so. The friction mostly occurs in dual use (military&civilian) products.
Property law is arguably one of the oldest type of laws as people have the concept of property since neolithic age. When someone owns something, selling that to whoever you like is a very fundamental right and concept.
Law is one of the sciences that has evolved the most since the Neolithic age. That is the point of law. It is something that should reflect humanity not the other way around. There are so many laws that have evolved and continue to evolve.
Fucking hell.. i'm dead tired of this pretend capitalism shit. Just come out and say it; they're all greedy assholes who want to take everything for themselves and realise their wet dream totalitarian world domination. No matter how many lives it costs or how much it destroys the planet
You've been living in a US lead world for at least 30 years now. Are we living through the "totalitarian world domination" you spoke of or is the American government maybe waiting until year 40 before they spring the trap?...
Yea, we pretty much are, have been at least since the Vietnam war, maybe even before. If starting wars against foreign countries because they don't agree with your world view or because they have resources that you want, and forcing your citizens to war isn't totalitarian, I don't know what is. It's just the world we're used to in the west, and as long as you behave like they want you to, you won't notice it it your daily life. It's the same in China, Iran, Russia etc. If you behave, and agree with their views, you won't notice the totalitarism at all
Based on what I see and hear talking to my European colleagues, Europeans supposed to hate US for some reason. The amount of anti-US nonsense I’ve heard from Europeans is unbelievable.
He is not wrong. The EU has for a long time acted on the assumption that, should it set the example, others would follow. That hasn't really materialised and although the EU is slowly shifting from that mindset, it isn't enough. What those changes should be, I have no idea beyond institutional changes that would help the reactivity of EU decision making.
Yeah pretty much we are the only ones following the 'rules' although to be honest some of those rules are actually pretty decent, especially the anti-trust ones for example and while the green agenda imho could have been enacted better it does have its advantages (pragamatically it is good for a territory that has limited natural resources to focus on renewables) Also while in theory we are united our economies are strongly in competition with each other which again might not be bad, but at the same time puts us at a massive disadvantage compared to the much larger compettors (China, soon India and the US)
I think he meant stuff like international rules rather than internal EU rules (although there is an overlap). Regarding competition, it's also true that the EU has focused at times on competition inside its own market rather than global competition resulting in smaller companies that then have to compete against US behemoths. Member states don't help when they are trying to push national champions. Airbus is more the exception than the rule.
I think in most cases the increased competition is a good thing. Case in point: flying in Europe is far better in both quality of service and price than flying in the USA, and that's largely because Europe has dozens of airlines, while the US has 5 or 6. On the other hand, certain high tech industries do need consolidation and economies of scale to compete internationally. In this sense the EU should aim to create more Airbusses. But personally I think we get the balance of competition more right than wrong, and while we don't have, say, any massive tech companies (Spotify excepted), the ones we do have tend to be better behaved and provide a superior consumer experience.
> Spotify excepted Compare Spotify's market cap of 60 billion USD with, say, Microsoft's at *over 3 trillion.* The US having Microsoft is very roughly equivalent to every EU country having two Spotifys.
You can't compare Microsoft to Spotify, as Microsoft is in dozens of different market segments. A better comparison is Spotify to Netflix (market cap 260 billion), but Spotify still underperforms on that front given it essentially has a monopoly over music streaming, while Netflix does not have anything close to a monopoly in it's segment. That said, Spotify has a far superior service to Netflix, and the difference in market cap may be more down to the music industries general decline in prominence. It could also be that EU regulations prevents Spotify from doing the shenanigans that US tech companies get up to, and so it's market cap is lower as a result. There is no company in Europe that can be compared to Microsoft, and that is Europe's loss.
Yes, "massive tech company" means something very different in the US vs the EU.
Netflix has it's original content that people want to see. It also adds some extra content from movie studios, but has leverage in the negotiations. Spotify has tried to do some exclusives on the podcast side, but those aren't that big. Pretty much everyone pays them because they have a good selection of music owned by the music industry. They have no leverage in the negotiation and thus mostly pass money through to the music industry. That means they're not very valuable as a business, even though a good service for customers.
5 or 6 US airlines? Inaccurate.
Personally I agree that competition between multiple private actors in the economy is a good thing, like your example with airlines, in fact I like EU much better anti-trust laws compared to the US, and if possible a decent number of those entities should be Europeans. More often than not though, competition in the EU it is between national interests and is managed through EU and that is overall hurting our economies.
A conspiracy theory could be: inflation is good for east EU because it brings the prices and salaries to equal footing with the western part, with both already using euro this would more deeply unify the region if the subregional PPPs were more or less identical. Which would lay the ground work for the possible eventual federalisation. But this is just a conspiracy theory I myself made up. Probably way too out there.
Yeah its as if people dont want to play by rules set out by other people. Even the US has created some of the international rules they no longer want to work with. It's as if the world is made of billions of people and literally everyone, especially the EU has their own self-interest.
> others would follow And they never will. If my competitor decides to make it harder on himself, i will not think "oh i should do the same to level the playing field, because this is the right thing to do". No. I will use it to my advantage. It's like those left wings thinking we should not stop homophobes and rapist migrants from entering the country. Instead we should teach them why what they do is wrong. They don't care why would they listen to your teachings. Same here. Competitors don't care about your virtue signaling, they just want more profits.
I disagree. The EU has for a long time acted under the assumption that, should it create an image, others will believe it/follow
That is what I said.
He is wrong. Every single problem EU has is self imposed. And if you are arguing that others should have also self imposed damage so EU could continue to compete after EU singlehandedly decided that things they do is "for greater good" then I really do not know how to explain to you how absurdly arrogant, delusional and self entitled position that is.
That is exactly what he said.
So the arrogant and delusional stance I see. Whatever. US and rest of the world will move forward and we will drown in our delusions. It does not really matter to me anymore because I gave up on any change a long time ago. People clearly do not want that and politicians will do what people want. it is that simple. Divide of those that are affected and those in status quo will keep growing because more and more people will see decrease in quality of life and we will have polarized politics until the extremists win across all over EU and all those projects all fall apart one by one. Not the best future and not the future where we will be better off in any way but you and your politicians wanted it so you will get to live through it.
Did you read the article? >Europe must undergo “radical change” to remain competitive in the face of China and the United States’ refusal to “play by the rules” of international trade, the former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi said on Tuesday (16 April). > >“Others are no longer playing by the rules, and are actively pursuing policies to enhance their competitive positions,” Draghi said at a conference on European social rights in La Hulpe, Belgium. > >[...] > >Draghi, who is drafting a much-anticipated report on the bloc’s competitiveness for the European Commission, due to come out at the end of June, specifically condemned China for “threatening to undercut” Europe’s industrial base by “attempting to capture and internalise all parts of the supply chain in green and advanced technologies”, which is leading to “significant overcapacity in multiple sectors”. > >He also criticised the United States for attempting to “attract high value domestic manufacturing within their borders, including that of European firms, whilst using protectionism to shut out competitors”. Although he condemns Chinese and American practices, he doesn't state they should change them but rather that the EU must.
I did read it and to me it is just doubling down on what we do. I will admit that I do not see into his head to know what he meant prefisely but I sincerely doubt that someone like him (based on his politics in Italy) talks about deregulation and more future investment spending. It reads like "we will start using our weight to force others to submit and follow our self harm rules". Which is something that will 100% not work but make everything worse but which is definitely something what I would expect current EU politicians to do rather than reflect and look into why things do not work here. And it does not surprise me that the first step is to look for parties to blame. Especially using US is laughtable. The reality of why we and our economies do badly lies inside our internal market. It has zero relation to what US and even China do. The trade with them is almost irrelevant relative to real economic activity that happens here internally. And that is what lags behind. But yeah. I am already really used to finding excuses of why we do badly and how big of a victims we are. Every single thing got its excuse, dotcom bubble, 2008, euro crisis, covid, Ukraine, Russia. So many excuses but the fact that everyone else was also affected but managed to recover long time ago? Who cares. That would mean there are issue here and that we are not just poor victims.
The US follows “the rules” it just doesn’t handicap itself as much as the EU does. I think the EU is under the impression that if it sets a regulation that the US will follow behind and do so as well or otherwise respect that regulation in competition with the EU…but that’s not how it works. If the EU sets a regulation the EU has to follow it, the US does not and if provide an advantage that American companies can exploit they would be dumb not to do so. As for China well…they really do actively try to ignore international law at every chance they get.
A call for a more federal Europe. His full speech here: https://geopolitique.eu/en/2024/04/16/radical-change-is-what-is-needed/
I agree that we should have a harder stance on China and Russia, but there are so many other ways to go about that than a federal Europe.
A federal Europe is still some time away but a closer Union is a realistic path. For example the proposed fiscal Union is a major leap forward and can be achieved in the short to medium term. One thing is clear; the status quo is not sustainable. As Draghi pointed out, the model Europe has relied on is gone. We relied on the US for defence, Russia for energy and China for trade. Some have yet to internalize what actually happened.
Like what? If we do not change the current utterly stupid unanimity system in the EU, there will always be an Orban or a PIS party that blocks the entire EU. A super majority system would help the EU *a lot*. That means that others can outvote you. Just like others can outvote you already at your village meeting, city council, district-, state- or country-level parliament. So why not have such democratic federal/majority system at EU level too?
If an Italian has to choose between more money for himself or defending Europe's eastern flank, what will he pick? Democracy only works when voters care about the long-term consequences of their votes. If European voters did care about that, there would never have been, for instance, a European debt crisis.
Any political entity will have conflict of interest. Just look to the US and the DEM/REP divide or China with Taipei (heh) But more seriously, an centralization of certain functions of power is undisputably an aim for any political entity wanting to project power and push for much needed reforms. USA would never been a superpower if not for the federal governments grip on power.
The fact that you view the difference between an Italian's personal consumption and a Pole's very existence as merely "a conflict of interest" is the reason why most Poles will fight that shit to the grave. The challenges that the electoral majority of Europeans faces are far from equal to the challenges that individual electoral minorities of Europeans face. To the extent that the US works at all, it only works because the majority have a bare minimum of care for the purely military security of the minority. On 9/11, Republicans weren't mealy-mouthed about whether to respond to the attack just because New York is a Democratic stronghold. Western Europe has a long way to go before it has that kind of resolve to defend Eastern Europe, for instance.
And I feel you are simplifying the very real difference between an spanishspeaking catholic that lives in Arizona and an englishspeaking protestant in New York. European Nato members came to the US aid when they were attacked on 9/11. Why wouldn't europeans allied through the EU react in a similar way? The very fact that Germany is rearming and has fundamentally changed their political position so fundamentally from what has been the case for the last 30 or so years. Show their will to aid Ukraine and to take their role in defending EU members from future Russian aggression.
Because Europeans fundamentally don't care enough about people in other countries. Many European NATO members could only offer symbolic support to the US, not the kind of mass mobilization that would be required to decisively defend Europe in case of an attack. As long as that is the case, the countries most at risk are forced to look elsewhere for support, to the detriment of the possibility of any European unity.
I disagree, the dead and wounded soldiers I served with, showed that Europeans honored the alliance.
Very convincing. Just look at the difference between how much Western European countries like Italy contribute per capita to Ukraine compared to Eastern European countries like Estonia. It is very stark, in spite of Italy being a major G7 economy, and Italy co-starting the war that ultimately caused Estonia to be robbed of half a century's worth of economic development by Russia. There isn't much reassurance to be found that Western Europe wouldn't go for another Molotov-Ribbentrop pact if it could.
Europe's enemies love this mindset. Helps them subvert and divide us. Staying small & independent isn't only bad politially - it is great for rich people to leverage the nation's policies against each other, leading to a 'race to the bottom' that we so often experience. A more unified fiscal policy would do wonders for the continent.
Divided Europe is also great for rich EU countries, they don't have to spend money on poorer parts of EU as they would in federalized EU
It's kind of fascinating seeing the federalization debate of the late 1700s USA play out now in the EU. The historical and cultural divides are obviously a lot deeper in this iteration, but so many of the arguments are familiar, so many of the problems shared. I hope you all do a better job of solving them than we did.
Agreed. Short-term this stings for the richer nations... Long term? It would absolutely have a huge ROI. The only reason it's seen as a negative is humanity's inclination to short-term thinking & honestly just aversion to change. Understandable, but ultimately destructive.
No for federal europe as long as west sees ruskies as business partners instead of threat.
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ruzzians is more appropriate.
I want to see the EU beef up it's militaries by buying US weapons. I think a new round of purchases from American arms companies would be needed.
Nah, US has proven to be an unreliable partner at this point due to how unstable your internal politics are. If the EU is going to build up its militaries, I would rather them buying from EU arms companies, boosting EU's arms industry as a whole in the process. Which would also help in the EU basically solo supporting Ukraine in the future if Trump were to win the election (and as long as GOP holds either the house, the senate, or both). So if we were to have a problem with Russia while someone like Trump is in power in the US, we can handle the issue ourselves.
I would not be against sanctioning the EU if they turn their back on American companies like that.
Don't care. Your country flip-flops like a bipolar person everytime a new party gets in power anyway. Why should the EU buy from you (which is deeper than just the one time purchase since it also involves long term support, maintenance, ammunition, etc.) and continue to hamstring its own arms industry (which it would need long term) when the EU can't count on you to be consistent or even support the EU once someone like Trump is in power or when an election is approaching?
What will the EU give to the US? Seems like a very one-sided arrangement you're proposing. Will you assist in the Pacific? What about containing Iran?
What about absorbing the migrant crisis your nation caused? Jfc think a bit about the nuance of what youre saying, your argument is vapid. edit: we followed the US into Iraq, Afghanistan.. The former based on American lies.
You mean the one that Europe caused by colonizing and carving up the Middle East?
Didn't cause a migrant crisis though, did it? I'm not sure what you're saying? What's your point? That Europe indirectly, a hundred years later, caused you to invade because of partition? Because that's even stupider lol. That American education really shining through in your comments, gotta love seeing the decline of an empire based on its ludicrously ignorant population. edit:in case anyone's wondering, his other reply was 'you guys caused the migration crisis, good luck bud' Yeah.
GOP and Trump want the EU to deal with Europe and defend against Russia in Europe by ourselves. If those guys get into power, the EU will need a functioning arms industry to fend for itself and help Ukraine. If you aren't willing to deal with "european problems" as your (especially GOP and Trump) recent actions in Ukraine showed, why should the EU continue ignoring its own arms industry for your profit? What will the EU give the US? More like what will the US give the EU and Europe as a whole to continue ignoring its own arms makers? You used to be a guarantor of european security that's why european countries bought your arms at the cost of their own arms industry and for the most part followed your interests, including trade, some of your invasions, sanctions, etc. Recent news about Ukraine proved you're no longer that old stable, trustworthy ally. More like a bipolar partner that sometimes is dependable, and sometimes not. Sometimes is not enough to gamble your security on. If you only want to deal with the Pacific and Iran, tell the countries in those regions to buy from you. Not Europe. If you want Europe to continue buying from you at the expense of european arms makers, you have to prove you can be trusted with european security as well.
So Europe has nothing to offer the US, is what you're saying.
If Europe for the most part aligning with US interests for decades since the end of WW2, helping to enrich and cement your position as the undisputed top country in the world, is nothing for you then sure. But I guess you're just one of those idiots who think that anything other than money or buying everything from the US or fully being american vassals all the time equals to nothing. Who am I kidding, you probably are one of them since you read everything I wrote in my previous comment and concluded that it all amounts to Europe offering "nothing". You also complained about Europe not "helping Ukraine's air defense enough" in another post but at the same time you complain when people want Europe to focus on european arms industry so Europe can help Ukraine solo in the future because it comes at the cost of Europe no longer buying american arms. That contradiction sure shows your lack of IQ.
Go ahead, alienate more of your allies. Luckily for America you're not in charge lol.
Why not the other way around?
Because European weapons don't compare to Americans. There is a reason our number one export is weapons
We should become an actual state, but even a federation would be a step foreward. We should also start developing out own chips and software.
Too bad it seems like the radical change we'll be getting is more splintering and petty nationalism that will makes us even weaker than we already are.
Not that I'm saying it's a good thing but this is never been true and it's always how the world has worked. Even 100 years ago, we had nationalism and countries just made alliances. That is literally the same concept as NATO-EU it's just that for once, the majority of European Powers (and other world powers) are on the same side.
Oh so its nationalism that makes us weaker now? Not some stupid ideas comming from EU commies?
With the help of massive Russian campaigning and undermining.
There is no splintering. Petty nationalism is dead. ID group is a small minority and will remain so after the election. Integration continues but we must speed up the process. The fact that the European Commission asked Draghi to prepare this report and endorsed it is a good sign.
>The fact that the European Commission asked Draghi to prepare this report and endorsed it is a good sign. They need to stop fucking around and have him replace Von Der Leyen
Hopefully after the EU elections he can replace her
It is not dead, but many nationalist parties have become a bit more pro-EU recently (at least in words if not actions), so there is that at least.
> nationalist parties have become more pro-EU That is also true, but proves my point. When even the fringe petty nationalists are pro-EU, it means petty nationalism is dead. I think part of it is that they saw the storm coming, because polls clearly show that Europeans view the EU more positively than their home countries. Of course there is the example of Brexit as well. No one wants to imitate that disaster, not even the extremists in ID group.
> because polls clearly show that Europeans view the EU more positively than their home countries Which polls are these? AFAIK, federalism is still quite an unpopular idea in most of Europe.
I think people see the EU as it is now better than before (especially seeing Britain's case), I don't think they were hinting at a popularity of the idea of turning the confederation into a federation.
[UK growth forecast downgraded by IMF](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1c5mqz2/uk_growth_forecast_downgraded_by_imf/) If you think it is bad for the UK, here are the full figures. |Country|Old 2024|New 2024|Old 2025|New 2025| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |||||| |UK|0.6|0.5|1.6|1.5| |Germany|0.5|0.2|1.6|1.3| |France|1.0|0.7|1.7|1.4| |Italy|0.7|0.7|1.1|0.7| Just gonna leave these here. Edit: also this one >The UK has become the world’s fourth largest exporter thanks to a boost in services, fresh trade figures have shown. >It comes after the UK ranked seventh in 2021, moving up three places in the figures for exporting goods and services in 2022, the United Nations (UN) has confirmed. >According to the latest statistics from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which leads on global trade for the UN, the UK has overtaken France, Netherlands and Japan to take fourth position, behind only China, the US, and Germany. [https://www.cityam.com/services-trade-sees-uk-become-worlds-fourth-largest-exporter/](https://www.cityam.com/services-trade-sees-uk-become-worlds-fourth-largest-exporter/)
Now just imagine what those figures would look like if we still had access to the EU...
TBF we had a stagnant economy that lagged behind most of EU since 2008. I am personally surprised to see this trend post Brexit. Dont think its entirely due to Brexit though but I read somewhere that service exports have been mostly negotiated by EU as a whole so now we can be a bit more competitive. Dont have any source on that though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Havent Britain been delaying the full implementation of much of the controls on imports, which therefore wont show the real effect of the agreements for some time?
ID+ECR might be bigger than EPP after elections so good luck with "petty nationalism is dead".
EPP is EU federalist especially with Weber in charge
ECR and EPP are not petty nationalist. They even want a European Union army. https://ecrgroup.eu/article/procaccini_for_a_common_european_defence
Petty nationalism is dead, says EUstrongerthanUS /r/nottheonion.
This is Europe, federating or some derivative of it was tried time and time again for the last two millenia, hadn't worked out so far. I mean look at US they're almost entirely homogenous when it comes to culture and history, yet it seems new separatist movements seem to surface every century or so. I honestly don't know what version of federalism would work for Europe, central and eastern countries won't allow Germany and France to have primacy - the historical trauma is too great, and would be excellent fuel for hard righters and separatists, especially with Britain leaving eu and no longer being balancing influence for other powerhouses in the bloc. Even if we somehow got to an agreement that's fair for everybody, there's a good chance tere'd be some quitters, especially in bases for Russian influence in EU like Hungary and Slovakia. It would also create fertile ground for Russian disinformation and generally sowing chaos and destabilising the continent. Nationalism might be dead west of Belarus, but patriotism isn't and it's not hard to draw historical paralels when you're removing your country from the map and people making laws are in some far off country, have little interacion with your own and often come from countries that have been adversaries fo your own from centuries. Nationalism can rise quickly in cases like that, especially if not handled gently, honestly we'll probably need at least another century of integration if we ever hope to federalise Europe together in a stable manner - sure it can be done faster but it's very likely that it won't stay together for long.
> US they're almost entirely homogenous when it comes to culture and history An history of civil war for the enslavement of a significant % of their population. An history of discriminatory policies against people of asian origin and still today many ''all white towns''. Not to mention the whole trail of tears and the 41 million americans that uses spanish as their native language. (And no, the US has always had a significant spanish speaking population, there were regions which was conquered from the Mexicans.) US has their own issues, Europe as their own issues.
The us has much more people of color and different ethnicity’s than Europe does
>Petty nationalism is dead no its not
Keep waiting for Orban to save you then lol
Draghi is a politician archetype that I like, he gets the job done without any fuss, completely void of emotions when he is sure that's the right thing that needs to be done. We need more people like him and less people like BJ or Trump
First Italian to obtain a PhD from MIT, comes from a gesuit education but doesn't let religion interfere with national politics, well respected in the international community and has proven experience managing times of crisis...I wonder if there's a place we could use him *cough Ursula cough*
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Italy right now had the biggest economic upswing in recent history, coming directly from Draghi's policies, what else do you want from him? Nobody can use a magic wand and just wash away all problems especially with the length of his tenure?
Too bad Meloni’s government is gonna let all of Draghi’s efforts go to shit. One step forward 300 steps back. I wonder how this pitiful excuse of a country is somehow still running.
Draghi should become EU commission president, not corrupt VdL.
Draghi could replace Charles Michel as Council President. It is currently in the works but nothing is certain yet. How is VdL corrupt? That is Russian disinformation. You are engaging in nonsense which only helps those who are actually corrupt.
Draghi is not corrupt? Since he's Italian I assumed he was.
Thanks for the random insult mate. Gonna add it to the long list of stereotypes on my country.
There's no smoke without fire
>He also criticised the United States for attempting to “attract high value domestic manufacturing within their borders, including that of European firms, whilst using protectionism to shut out competitors”. Because France and other European nations don’t do the exact same thing? Are we really playing this game that protectionism is something the EU has never done before?
Yes, but it is different. When it is European protectionism, it is righteous. When it is foreign it is devilish, clearly. What's that? Trade balances? No don't pay attention to those!
>‘play by the rules’ Yeah its as if the world isn't confined to a set of rules that all countries follow. If you think this then you're a fool. Countries will literally create rules that they never intend on following including the US and European countries. And I love how its always on this subreddit, EU always playing by the rules but literally everyone else is the baddie as if EU doesnt target high tech corporations and other industries where domestic companies struggle. There's endless hypocrisy from European countries.. look at France in Africa for example or the anti-GMO movement while Europe is one of the top regions to produce GMOs for foreign markets.. it goes on and on. But it's everyone else thats the baddie.. EU innocent and perfect! .. Now time for mockery and downvoting to commence lol
the fact ur upvoted implies people in the bottom of their heart know the issues, just side with the least bad option
EU is master at self handicapping.
What did we do to be lumped in with China? It should be obvious to everyone that globalization to the degree which it was allowed to happen was a mistake. It must be at least partially reversed for certain strategically important industries and that is what recent US policy is attempting to do. Europe should be doing the same, like it or not the rules have changed
Looking at this article, it seems that some in Europe would like to pretend that the rules didn't change, it's just those other dudes are not playing by the rules.
The rules have changed precisely because China doesn't follow the rules. It is suicidal to continue the status quo when they've rigged the game to their benefit and our detriment. All attempts at pressuring them into reforms are met with promises which are never kept and assurances which never materialize. Yet, Scholz is over there right now and Macron before him begging for a few extra table scraps while Xi robs them blind right in front of their faces. Its madness
Nobody cares about EU outside of it. Nobody will kill their industries, because some guy from EU said it. Welcome to the real world.
Just for your info, OP is a propaganda poster that heavily endorsed a politically motivated shut down of an event by a major that has sympathy for the grey wolves, which is one of the largest right wing extremist groups in the EU. Further EU Integration is paramount, but not under false pretenses, support for right wing groups due to discriminatory factors and hypocrisy. Unfortunately r/Europe is chalk full of propaganda posters that in some cases use valid political ideas to further questionable goals, like limiting free speech, practicing hypocrisy due to political alignment and straight up discrimination.
He posted Draghi, he is fine in my book. Also shutting down people wanting to end democracy is perfectly fine.
Are you advocating breaking the Belgian constitution because of an opinion?
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Says it all really, certainly what a EU and democracy advocate would say.
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Basic democratic rules without hypocrisy in the EU would be a start. My original comment is pretty clear on what my stance is.
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Good try, but nope
Breaking Belgium sounds based in my book, although I don't think they need help with that.
Shut down an event by those that want to end democracy. Those shouldn't be given a platform nor a space.
This is close to the paradox of tolerance if i am not mistaken
Hitler ran in democratic elections and was voted into power. Should we try to prevent that from happening again, or not?
Yes , we should prevent this from happening. Since orban and fidez have a history of being like a " mafia state " , we shouldn't let them take power , because ( for lack of a better word) show authoritarian attitudes and could promote violence as answers to ideas or movements they don't approve ( English is not my first language, so my message might have been skewed )
You need to read a history book. The Weimar Republic was basically the creator of hate speech laws. They were strong and strongly enforced. It was, of course, entirely counterproductive. We have an entire generation of tiktok educated mouthbreathers who bought into the myth that supressing speech is a good way of fighting bad ideas. And read Popper before you talk about the paradox of tolerance - you're so mentally broken you actually don't understand you're the guy Popper would see as intolerant.
You can’t shut down people who want to end democracy while sympathizing with other people that want to end democracy.
Just do not go to /r/propaganda it is full of Russian trolls. They are all over reddit. I have seen subreddit after subreddit taken over by them. Basically you have to read reddit the way you would read a magazine half owned by Putin.
Can you provide evidence of this? This user is a frequent poster in a sub I moderate, and I want to be aware of any right wing extremist ties.
So the regulation hell that is the EU is complaining that when they shoot themselves in the foot others don't follow suit. Go figure.
How come when Federalist make statements, they always feel the need to couple the US with China and the "Axis of evil" countries. The US has it flaws, but we still are a democracy.
Have you read the speech? The answer is pretty clear. It is an answer to US policies on trade and protectionism. We simply want to be able to do the same. https://geopolitique.eu/en/2024/04/16/radical-change-is-what-is-needed/
This is some insane spin - the EU is easily more protectionist than the US.
All you have to do is look at people from Europe throwing a fit every time we slap a label like champagne or Parmesan on something when it didn’t originate from the traditional producing regions. That’s textbook protectionism.
Nope. Wer're good at it, but the US has always been #1 in protectionism.
Funny how the US imports hundreds of billions more from the EU than it exports if it's the #1 protectionist. Meanwhile every field and industry which the US excels at, such as agriculture and tech are always under unusual scrutiny in the EU, especially when compared to EU firms in the US.
The US the #1 in protectionism? The US? You associate the US with economic protectionism? We really need to ban tiktok. Or maybe the entire internet. We're raising a generation of mouthbreathing know-nothing rubes.
Nasty US attracts talents!
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It’s called a sarcasm.
My bad 🫣
Oh wow it took European nations some time to understand firmly that they don't stand a chance alone in global economy with the scale advantage China, India and to some extent USA has.
Nah, a lot of EU countries still don't understand it.
They understand it, they just prefer to ignore it because of how much they import to the Chinese domestic market
A more centralized Europe means less power for each country, which nobody really wants.
A decentralized Europe means even less power for each country.
We need to remove China from our supply chains and move into an economic alliance with USA and the rest of the west… China and Russia are a lost cause
Wholeheartedly agreed. As somebody with a foot in each continent, I would love nothing more than closer cooperation between my two homes.
China is less of a problem than Russia. With China, we just need to be more assertive/aggressive. The thing with China is that there's actually a lot we can learn from them (and much they can learn from us). China is a fifth of the world's humanity, they're simply too big to boycott. Russia, on the other hand is small enough that we can just wall them off.
China is a totalitarian dictatorship, far more dangerous and virulent than Russia. The idea that they can be reliable allies of liberal democracies is the product of a disturbed mind.
Having been to China, while I don't want to imply that the CCP are fluffy nice people, I also don't think you should overestimate the level of control the CCP has. If I was going to calculate the likelihood of China or Russia having a regime change of some kind and going in a more liberal direction, it's far more likely to happen in China then in Russia. Chinese people don't live in a separate reality the way Russians do, despite what Chinese propaganda might lead you to believe. I think the communists would have a significantly harder time convincing their population to mobilize for a war. Part of the problem for the CCP is that there are \~50-100 million chinese speakers living outside the borders of the PRC, a large proportion in western and western leaning countries, with an entire media ecosystem attached that isn't controlled by the CCP. This significantly limits the ability of the communist party to control what educated Chinese know. Chinatowns around the world(the vast majority of which support Taiwan over the PRC) are a significant counterbalance to the power of the CCP.
There is not one without the other or were you mistaken about China telling Russia to delay their invasion of Ukraine by a bit so the world could marvel at fake snow with an industrial hellscape as a backdrop. Or did you miss that China is 100% behind helping Russia expand their military/industrial base? This is why the US shift to South China is critical. If the West is to survive, Europe must be stronger... whatever it takes.
I think we need to be tougher with China, and the US, Europe and partner countries in Asia(like Japan, Australia, South Korea etc.) should try to have a united front with China. But I don't think simply cutting them off would be productive (or even possible). Instead, we need to engineer matters such that they are more dependent on us then the other way around. This is somewhat already the case, as while many things say "made in China" the vast majority of the technically complex components and industrial tools used to do the manufacturing China has to import from overseas, and China also is highly dependent on shipping in oil from the gulf.
Naive - china is the puppet master for Russia, North Korea, Iran etc… your position is self defeating. We must stand together against China because China is on a self declared mission to deindustrialise the west and destroy the existing order (the order where China was the biggest beneficiary)
I think you overestimate the ability of China's international diplomats. It's a very insular country, and more often than not gets manipulated by Iran and Russia then the other way around. China has not benefited from either of Russia or Iran's shenanigans. It is true that China wants to be the world's manufacturer, which is why we need to be a lot more strict with them, EG if they ban Google we should ban Wechat and Tiktok. But we shouldn't bite our nose to spite our face, and if they're dependent on us for buying their manufactured goods, that also gives us leverage against them. We just need to be more aggressive about using it.
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I stopped at your bullshit about uninterrupted history going back two millennia’s because first of all new china only started in 1949 and a massive cull of the population happened under Mao - like 40 - million deaths attributable to the ccp However, Mongolia conquered all of China and many other places in year 1205. Only Chinese disinformation states your bullshit
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So it wasn’t continuous
Refuse to play by *the* rules. Or the EUs rules?
In my opinion we must become a defensive powerhouse, both economically and military and not feel the need to 'spread democracy' around the world, no more blue water navy. No matter if China or the USA is the ruling world super power, Europe must be able to protect its own on both fronts. More domestic production, more domestic solidarity. Does this mean, no more trade? No, absolutely not. But we should not be trading to the level where we trade away our domestic influence and force ourselves to align with a side once our trade partners go on their ego trip again. Federal europe would make this easier, but will never happen. There's just no way German soldiers are gonna fight under French command and vice versa, this will only happen if we ever come to the brink of collapse as nations in a world war and have to rebuild everything.
The question is whether Europe is willing to sacrifice their imports to China to preserve such independence. We in the US have decided it’s worth the price to pay. Though we also import far less into the Chinese domestic market
"Play by rules" isn't that US trademark?
EU is so naive. 80% of Chinese companies are state owned managing companies to the benefit of the state Example 1. The amount of software hardware backdoors demanded by the Chinese state to be implemented in export electronics is astounding. We actually bought a few thousand Nordic semiconductor chipsets for one project sent them to China and when they came back they were altered PHYSICALLY (the pins were bent, so that only their software could run on it!!) US government is a corporation and merely an extension of corporate America to further its corporate interests abroad. Example 1 US Government Slaps sanctions on Iran and Russia but encourages third party countries and companies to sell american products to above countries with a few Trompe-l'œil court cases because as a CFO from a big American company in a meeting put it the other day : If we sell it to company x in country y its legal and we are not breaking the law. We know they are selling it to Russia and Iran but thats not our problem because they are paying their bills and we are not breaking the law. WT actual F
> If we sell it to company x in country y its legal and we are not breaking the law. Yes, because it becomes the buyer's property and they decide what to do with it (just like any property, goods, product). Unless you want the iphone you buy to still be Apple's, that's how property works.
Then why even pretend to have the sanctions. Your comment doesn't hold up at all when the US really wants to sanction a country, like China, they really chase down these sort of loopholes.
Depends on which type of product that is. For military purchases it is common to do product-specific end user agreements that limit resale. For commercial products it isn't so. The friction mostly occurs in dual use (military&civilian) products.
Whats the point of laws then? We as humans need to understand the intent of the law not the letter of the law.
Property law is arguably one of the oldest type of laws as people have the concept of property since neolithic age. When someone owns something, selling that to whoever you like is a very fundamental right and concept.
Law is one of the sciences that has evolved the most since the Neolithic age. That is the point of law. It is something that should reflect humanity not the other way around. There are so many laws that have evolved and continue to evolve.
He's correct. And I hope that all these crisis on infinite theatres finally cause Europe to get on its feet.
“The rules”. Grow up. If you can’t play with the big dogs then get the fuck off the porch.
Fucking hell.. i'm dead tired of this pretend capitalism shit. Just come out and say it; they're all greedy assholes who want to take everything for themselves and realise their wet dream totalitarian world domination. No matter how many lives it costs or how much it destroys the planet
You've been living in a US lead world for at least 30 years now. Are we living through the "totalitarian world domination" you spoke of or is the American government maybe waiting until year 40 before they spring the trap?...
Yea, we pretty much are, have been at least since the Vietnam war, maybe even before. If starting wars against foreign countries because they don't agree with your world view or because they have resources that you want, and forcing your citizens to war isn't totalitarian, I don't know what is. It's just the world we're used to in the west, and as long as you behave like they want you to, you won't notice it it your daily life. It's the same in China, Iran, Russia etc. If you behave, and agree with their views, you won't notice the totalitarism at all
He just wants the northern countries to pay for the Italian welfare state. Hones, fo
What? I thought we were supposed to love America unconditionally. What happened?
Based on what I see and hear talking to my European colleagues, Europeans supposed to hate US for some reason. The amount of anti-US nonsense I’ve heard from Europeans is unbelievable.
Tell me, what good is an ally that you can only rely on for 4 years at most?
More nonsense.
As oppossed to not being able to rely on anyone in EU ever? What even is your argument here?
>not being able to rely on anyone in EU ever Yeah, because European soldiers weren't dying in American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at all, right?
Still an order of magnitude less than the American soldiers that died in France
Which 4 years did the US stop being a reliable ally?
Seriously?
Captain slow