Politics How has the EU changed Europe?

Brooker

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When I first heard about the formation of the EU, I gotta admit, I was skeptical. I couldn't believe that European countries that had fought so much historically, could unite and work together, but it seems to be working. How do you think the formation of the EU has changed things in Europe?
 
Well, it has been over 50 years since the European Coal and Steel Community, the first predecessor of the EU, was founded in 1951. The EEC was founded in 1957, and the Eu in 1992. it's 17 years that the European nationality and parliament exist and that Europeans are free to live and work anywhere inside the EU without visa. Likewise the university exchange programme of the EU Socrates came into being in 1994 (altough preceded by Erasmus since 1987), so it's over a decade that most European uni students have the opportunity to study one or several semesters in another EU country at minimum cost.

All these things have helped the younger generations to feel more European, and understand and appreciate their neighbours better than ever before. This has been further reinforced by the Euro.

I think that in spite of differences in languages and cultures, European people share a lot together. There are common European values, and there certainly is a sense of community created by sharing a common history, continent and similar political and educational systems (now also a common currency). Of course, Sicilians will never be like the Finns or vice versa, but that's what makes Europe interesting. :)
 
Well, I also wrote this page : http://www.eupedia.com/fact_sheet_europe.shtml

You can find out more details about the EU on Wikipedia or even better, the newly redesigned EU's official website (available in the 20 official languages)

I think that this particular page page will answer a lot of questions regarding Europe's common values. Here are some excerpt :

Europa said:
Fundamental rights
...
The European Union's commitment to citizens' rights was confirmed in Nice in December 2000 when the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was solemnly proclaimed. This Charter was drawn up by a Convention composed of members of the national and European parliaments, representatives of the national governments and a member of the Commission. Under six headings - Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens' rights and Justice - its 54 articles spell out the European Union's fundamental values and the civil, political, economic and social rights of the EU citizen.
...
The Charter also promotes equality between men and women and introduces rights such as data protection, a ban on eugenic practices and the reproductive cloning of human beings, the right to environmental protection, the rights of children and elderly people and the right to good administration.
...
Europe means culture and education
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First steps include the EU's educational and training programmes such as Erasmus (which promotes student mobility), Comett (technological education and training) and Lingua, which encourages people to learn foreign languages. More than a million students have been able to study abroad thanks to the Erasmus programme.

The European Union has set itself the target of having 10% of its students spend one year in another European country taking a higher education course. To achieve this, more EU funds will have to be invested in education policy. Further progress in this direction should be possible thanks to the Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and Youth programmes.

The Directive on Television without frontiers gives viewers better access to television programmes produced in Europe: European broadcasters must include a certain percentage of European programmes in their schedules. The Directive introduces stronger measures to protect young viewers and to support programmes by independent producers, and it lays down rules on advertising and teleshopping.
...
A sense of belonging

The idea of a 'citizens' Europe' is very new. Making it a reality will mean, among other things, rallying popular support for symbols that represent shared European identity. Things like the European model of passport (in use since 1985), the European anthem (Beethoven's Ode to Joy) and the European flag (a circle of 12 golden stars on a blue background). EU model driving licences have been issued in all member states since 1996.

Since 1979, the European Parliament has been directly elected by universal suffrage.
...
To help bring the EU closer to its citizens, the treaty on European Union created the post of Ombudsman. The European Parliament elects the Ombudsman and his term of office is the same as Parliament's. His role is to investigate complaints against EU institutions and bodies. Complaints can be brought by any EU citizen and by any person or organisation living or based in an EU member state. The Ombudsman tries to arrange an amicable settlement between the complainant and the institution or body concerned.

Another important link between citizens and the EU institutions is Parliament's well-established practice of accepting petitions from any person residing in an EU member state.
 
Well yeah, look at the Euro for one. Prices have gotten higher in many european countries, but mobility has been eased up. Now travelling from country to country within the EU due to the euro and to these new low rate companies such as ryanair etc, moving around has been much more facilitated. Also, with the joining of the other countries, poland, hungary, slovenia and the baltic ones, the EU is expanding and is slowly building the idea of a european identity, something new. Also now we have EUropean standards on living costs, marketed and fabricated goods, we have a stronger cohesion in areas such as trade and also in more administrative aspects. the European standards thing i would argue is makin europe more alike without really afflicting culture that much.
 
I support what duo said. Let me add that pan-European bus companies like Eurolines or airlines like Easy Jet or Virgin Express. or international bullet-trains like Thalys and Eurostar have also facilitated mobility within the EU, and they were made possible thanks to EU laws and better cooperation between the countries.

I am also of the EU generation. I already had my ECU (European Currency Unit, predecessor of the Euro) collector coins when I was a child, and waited fervently for the coming of the Euro since it was announced in 1992.

You may want to have a look at How the Europeans see themselves - Looking through the mirror with public opinion surveys

There are big differences between countries. Generally speaking people from the Benelux, Germany, France, Spain and Italy feel the most European, while the British, Irish, Nordic and Greek feel the least so (island or peninsula mentality).

In every country there is at least 1% of the people who feel only European (max. is 20% in Luxembourg), 2% (Greece. Portugal) to 11% (Luxembourg) of the people who feel first European, then their country's nationality, 24% (UK) to 56% (Italy) of the people who feel first from their country, then European, and and 23% (Luxembourg) to 67% (UK) of the people who do not feel European, but only from their country.
 
I heard that the richer countries were paying to build infrastructure (like roads) in the poorer countries. That shows a good spirit of cooperation and unity. :cool:
 
Brooker said:
I heard that the richer countries were paying to build infrastructure (like roads) in the poorer countries. That shows a good spirit of cooperation and unity. :cool:

Yes and no. The EU does not work at a national level but a regional one. The poorer regions or even cities get EU subsidies, paid by the richest. But there are poor regions in almost every country. Take some Midlands cities in the UK, most of East Germany, the South of Italy (while the North has some of the highest GDP per capita in Europe), etc.
 
The poor areas in America get the most money in federal aid and then talk about how they want to government out of their business and taxes are too high. :eek:kashii:
 
well in general you can say is that the EU basically gives all the small countries (since europe is a bunch of little countries compared to America) the advantage that all the US States get. trading inside the EU is easier (open borders, less tax, etc.).

solidarity. I like beeing a european instead of a german. why? because i believe we are between russia and china and the us and if we wanna make a stand we need to stick together. and if you see the german-french friendship you can also see that former enemies can hug and make trade not war :)) :lol:


the only bad thing is that the EURO made everything more expensive and that the open borders make drug trading more easy but that's still not a big issue because they catch most of the drugs when they come INTO the EU. (theres not much drug production (except pot) in europe.)

hm


right now berlusconi is presiding over the eu which many people dont appreciate because he's a crook but of course he's just in the formal position of president and not really leading it
 
Shas said:
the only bad thing is that the EURO made everything more expensive
Not really, that's more an urban myth than anything else. What has become more expensive are services (restaurants, etc.), but eg. food is partially even cheaper now.

right now berlusconi is presiding over the eu which many people dont appreciate because he's a crook but of course he's just in the formal position of president and not really leading it
You're quite behind the facts (more than a year). Since January Luxembourg has the EU presidency.

BTW, have you made some special friends in here or why is your rep red?
 
bossel said:
Not really, that's more an urban myth than anything else. What has become more expensive are services (restaurants, etc.), but eg. food is partially even cheaper now.


You're quite behind the facts (more than a year). Since January Luxembourg has the EU presidency.

BTW, have you made some special friends in here or why is your rep red?

well i dont know usually i feel like paying 40 % more on normal things like a coke or so :)

i left germany for a year in the usa and when i left berlusconi was the big boss :))

about my rep: i posted in the "what do you know about denmark" thread, that danish girls like beer (a one liner) and somebody deemed it worth -9 points without saying anything at all (i dont even know who did it)
 
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Shas said:
well i dont know usually i feel like paying 40 % more on normal things like a coke or so :)

i left germany for a year in the usa and when i left berlusconi was the big boss :))

about my rep: i posted in the "what do you know about denmark" thread, that danish girls like beer (a one liner) and somebody deemed it worth -9 points without saying anything at all (i dont even know who did it)

ajjjjjjaaa, my friend is ok, it happened to me as well, i said jokingly that in this pic the fat geisha was ugly and bam i was redflaged, so dont worry about it to much :wave:

@ topic, well you could say that the richer countries are kind of helping the poorer ones along, but they also are makin profits by having now access into their markets with goods that these poor countries can't produce. So it goes both ways, i'm sure the big nations wouldn't have let the others join just out of good will and sentimentalism. But ummm I agree with you that europe needs to be united in order to make itself heard in the world. Furthermore, i think what really unites europe is that most nations in the continent have fought each other so much over land and what not, so all through fighting a special bond has been established. Furthermore, there have been so many wars, nation making, border changes, etc etc, that the gene transfusions in Europe have been many and I think can't be tracked any longer, so in actuality there is probably nothing like a pure european country, each of them has been genetically and culturally penetrated by other european nations, therefore, it makes only sense that europe be united.
 
Duo said:
Furthermore, there have been so many wars, nation making, border changes, etc etc, that the gene transfusions in Europe have been many and I think can't be tracked any longer, so in actuality there is probably nothing like a pure european country, each of them has been genetically and culturally penetrated by other european nations, therefore, it makes only sense that europe be united.

I think that Scandinavia remains quite pure genetically. The rest of Western Europe certainly has a mix of Celtic, Roman and Germanic blood (even Greek, Phoenician and Arabic in Spain or Southern Italy).
 
Maciamo said:
I think that Scandinavia remains quite pure genetically. The rest of Western Europe certainly has a mix of Celtic, Roman and Germanic blood (even Greek, Phoenician and Arabic in Spain or Southern Italy).

Well true they are a bit more sheltered but if you look at most of the countries there now u will see the great number of immigrants that have flocked there.
 
Well, in the UK it's a bit of a waste. We should move the the euro, it would make life a lot easier in the long run... Bloody politicians (though I say this not knowing much about politics, so it's not fully justified)!

I figure if we've joined a bit we might as well do it right, ne?
 
for sure the Euro did...

especialy the prices... Prices are the same just they changed the sign behind it..

beer price changed from 1 euro to 2-4 euro in just 2 years time... what the F*7k ....
some thing made it easyer, like traveling, you dont need to go to the exchange office anymore, and you dont need to get visa's , also you are able to live in another country much more easy.... i geuss it got his good things and bad things... euro sucks, travel go up
 
I personally think the formation of the EU is a good thing. It's nice to see that countries that have historically not gotten along very well can come together, put their differences aside, and learn to cooperate. I also think America needs a strong rival. I don't trust American politicians to have restraint. If there's no one around to kind of keep them in check, who knows what they'll do. I don't think America is evil, but it's easy for anyone to get drunk on their own power if there's no balance. Having another super power around keeps things a little more moderate. However, I hope Europe growing in power, wouldn't create too many tensions between America and Europe. America gets uneasy when another country starts to grow in power (U.S.S.R., China, even Japan in the 80's) but maybe we need that.

Here's a question... Do you think the E.U. was created in order to balance out the power of the U.S.? Or are the reasons seperate from that? Be honest.
 
seperate reason.... us is an important country in the world but i dont believe that important hehe
 

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