iwillspankyou wrote:I am curious to know what you think is the biggest issues with EU, that are flawed and needs adjustments.
- Biggest issue right now is uncontrolled immigration. I think Germany made a mistake when they allowed a few millions of migrants in Europe from countries that were not even in a warzone. Those who aren't war refugees should be sent back and those who are war refugees should be sent back when the war is over and their country undergoes reconstruction. People from Africa or Asia must understand that they don't have a birth right to live in Europe, just like I don't have a birth right to live in the USA or Japan.
- Second biggest issue in the EU is the euro currency and the debt problems in a few EU countries. Both are complicated issues that can't be solved in one forum post.
- Third biggest issue is a common defence policy that would help the EU become militarily independent from the US.
There are other smaller issues that need to be resolved, but these are the most critical right now.
For example, the EU is not perceived as something that is part of people's everyday life, so that's why many people think the EU is just a bunch of eurocrats in Brussels who are only interested in controlling countries for their own reasons. So maybe the EU needs to do more to be more transparent about what it does and how it benefits people.
Further I would like to know what, in your opinion; are the difficulties that EU faces right now, and in the future - especially when UK leaves?
Well, the EU budget is funded based on a 7-year cycle (the so-called multi-annual financial framework) and once the UK leaves the EU, there will obviously be a financial hole in the EU budget, at least from 2020 forwards, when the current multi-annual budget ends. I'm saying "at least" because, depending on how Brexit negotiations unfold, it's also possible this hole in the budget may appear earlier, if the UK refuses to pay their dues. This could mean either that the EU will have to cut expenses or increase the financial contributions of each remaining EU member to the budget.
Then there will be the issue with the hard border between Ireland and the UK, which would separate Northern Ireland from Ireland. The Northern Ireland conflict that was concluded by the Belfast agreement in 1998 didn't make any provision for such a situation, so a hard border could potentially lead to Irish republicans challenging the status-quo again. They're already undermining the power-sharing arrangement that worked until now between Unionists and Republicans.
The border issue between Ireland and the UK will be very important, because a soft border could create something like a backdoor entrance to the EU, which could potentially be exploited. But then, if it's gonna be a hard border (with strict border checks etc), this is going to rattle Irish people on both sides of the border.
There will also be some security issues, once the UK leaves the EU, since cooperation between the police and the judiciary on both sides could be more difficult to achieve. This depends on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, though, so maybe they will make sure this won't happen.
There are also some opportunities for the EU after the UK leaves, since the UK has always been opposed to more ambitious EU projects, especially common defence ones. So when the UK will be out of the EU, it's possible some of those ideas could be revisited.
What do you think are the right solutions to tackle the problems in the now, and in the future
And why you think the solutions you have, are the best?
One could easily write a few books on this subject, so I'll just jot down a few things that come to mind:
- To fix the euro problem, the EU needs to find a way to reduce economic disparities between the richest and the poorest states that are part of the Eurozone. The next logical step would be to create a common fiscal policy and a EU treasury of some sort, if they really want the currency to have a proper fiscal backing. Right now, the euro looks like unfinished business.
- There's no easy fix for the sovereign debt predicament. If some of the debt were written off, this would translate into losses to pension funds in other countries or in savings made by other people. So the best thing to do first is to stop having imbalanced budgets, imo, basically cutting deficits as close to zero as possible. Countries should aim at having budgetary surplus in the next decades, to be able to gradually reduce the burden of public debt.
- I think the EU needs a new vision, maybe. Right now many people, both critics and fans, seem to think the EU is secretly dreaming of becoming a reincarnation of the Roman empire. But the EU is not even a single state, let alone an empire. It has no imperial ambitions, it was not created to conquer or colonise any territories. First of all, there is no common European ethnic conscience, people don't think of themselves first as being European. So, there's no European body politic and, as a consequence, there can't be a true European politics. Therefore, there won't be a true European president either. We're not going to see people from Italy or France first paying attention to European politics and secondly to their own national politics, as if the latter were just local issues. That's why the EU won't become anything like a single state, as many fearmongers are saying, not in the least because national politicians will never let go of their comfortable national power seats. So the EU project will, for the foreseeable future remain stuck somewhere in the middle, between ambitions and Realpolitik. (Unless we all want to learn the same language and become the New Romans.)
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