The EU started out in life following WW2 as the European Economic Community - essentially a trading block involving six nations on mainland Europe, all of which had been devastated by the war. The idea was principally to counter the sort of nationalistic fervour of the war years - a sort of 'world peace through free trade' notion. At that time, and for many years after, it remained a trading bloc. It has only gradually morphed into something where closer political union has been mooted - I suspect because if you're trying to create an economic commonality, that starts impinging on things like tax policy, company law, industrial subsidies and labour market policies (the bit I knew best when I worked on EU policy years and years ago) etc. If you were trying to harmonise trade, you sort of had to look at all the issues influencing any one country's industrial performance. That gradually started to spread to areas like judicial processes, foreign policy, common currency etc.
The UK has *always* been of the view we joined a trading community, and every single step toward closer union was fought tooth and nail by our government. I can't count the number of labour market committees where I was writing briefing for our negotiators that said essentially "No." Sometimes, on good days, I wrote "Yes, but..."
I don't think the EU as it stands now will ever support free immigration from outside its outer borders. It's about facilitating movement within only. It's not a *noble* institution, you understand. Not altruistic. It's as protectionist in its way as the US is perceived as being. The UK's former dominions (as they are quaintly known), Germany and France's African colonies etc will always be on the outside.
You mention legislation that has to be implemented by each state. You have a true Federalist structure, though, where the centre can mandate a single law. It doesn't quite work that way with the EU. They issue directives that set out a minimum that's to be achieved (on things like working hours, etc) but that's then beset with exceptions and conditions, and then each individual government in the EU produces its own national laws based on the directive, according to its own national tradition.
Directives almost always are agreed at the EU level through qualified majority voting. Hard to explain, but it's a weighted system where each member state gets a certain number of votes depending on a huge number of factors (things like population size). That meant the UK could often be outvoted and have to implement the directives anyway. Huge peeve factor there!
The thing about political union issues though is that these were not done as directives from the EU parliament or the Brussels 'cabinets' that look after various aspects of government (employment, health, justice). They are done at Treaty level and that requires unanimity. That gave the UK far more power. We just said "give us what we want or we won't ratify the treaty so you won't be able to go ahead". So the UK has never had a totally porous border with the rest of the EU - we opted out of the Schengen Agreement that implemented it - and nor did we join the Euro. We're an island off the mainland coast and our mentality, our approach to unification, reflects that. This, I think, mirrors your ACA example better?
It's all horribly complex and Brexit is a huge worry. Yes, the rest of Europe (at government level) is probably quite pleased that the grumpy Brits will no longer be holding them back and they can crack on with ever closer union. But the groundswell of discontent that fuelled Brexit - fear for jobs, feelings of helplessness and disempowerment - are rampant across the member states. It all feels rather hopeless. A grand experiment that may not get the results people hoped for.
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Date: 2016-10-14 05:47 pm (UTC)The UK has *always* been of the view we joined a trading community, and every single step toward closer union was fought tooth and nail by our government. I can't count the number of labour market committees where I was writing briefing for our negotiators that said essentially "No." Sometimes, on good days, I wrote "Yes, but..."
I don't think the EU as it stands now will ever support free immigration from outside its outer borders. It's about facilitating movement within only. It's not a *noble* institution, you understand. Not altruistic. It's as protectionist in its way as the US is perceived as being. The UK's former dominions (as they are quaintly known), Germany and France's African colonies etc will always be on the outside.
You mention legislation that has to be implemented by each state. You have a true Federalist structure, though, where the centre can mandate a single law. It doesn't quite work that way with the EU. They issue directives that set out a minimum that's to be achieved (on things like working hours, etc) but that's then beset with exceptions and conditions, and then each individual government in the EU produces its own national laws based on the directive, according to its own national tradition.
Directives almost always are agreed at the EU level through qualified majority voting. Hard to explain, but it's a weighted system where each member state gets a certain number of votes depending on a huge number of factors (things like population size). That meant the UK could often be outvoted and have to implement the directives anyway. Huge peeve factor there!
The thing about political union issues though is that these were not done as directives from the EU parliament or the Brussels 'cabinets' that look after various aspects of government (employment, health, justice). They are done at Treaty level and that requires unanimity. That gave the UK far more power. We just said "give us what we want or we won't ratify the treaty so you won't be able to go ahead". So the UK has never had a totally porous border with the rest of the EU - we opted out of the Schengen Agreement that implemented it - and nor did we join the Euro. We're an island off the mainland coast and our mentality, our approach to unification, reflects that. This, I think, mirrors your ACA example better?
It's all horribly complex and Brexit is a huge worry. Yes, the rest of Europe (at government level) is probably quite pleased that the grumpy Brits will no longer be holding them back and they can crack on with ever closer union. But the groundswell of discontent that fuelled Brexit - fear for jobs, feelings of helplessness and disempowerment - are rampant across the member states. It all feels rather hopeless. A grand experiment that may not get the results people hoped for.