Since it's inception, how is it increased or lessen the quality of your life? What benefits/pitfalls have you gained by the consolidation? An interested American,
bah Nothing much to report, maybe the false sense of security.Yup, thats it.OH YEAH we are getting "ticketed" for our citizens for "having too much sugar" well americans have got enough too but you got the nukes right (that was the stupidest thing i have said in a month).Oh ofcourse the prices have lifted up for almost everything and the paychecks are...same....yeehhaaa.
Wow, what a disjointed series of comments. I think you need to lay off that sugar and any other drugs you're on Kamikaze. And are you writing a paper Pope?
Man what an insanely difficult question to ask a person. EU benifits: A more secure and safer Europe Open international borders, good for trade and tourism. Also international coinage Open borders and international coinage equal increased trade Euro that seems to be catching up to the overly weak dollar EU disadvantages: No democratic system to speak of, add to that the disinterest of all the voters and you've got a democratic system worse than the EUs Undemocratic system means lack of checks and balances, which means nobody can do much about the laws forced onto smaller and even bigger countries from above Bad lawgiving from above means we have many long-term problems, amongst which the over-funded agriculture and EU expansion problems I can expand on any of these, but only at request, don't feel like talking to myself
9 months after the inception. Some prices , like for many food products have gone up, but on the other hand, we're finally going to see some competition in areas like telecommunications. So it's a decent trade-off. And, we can import some industrial goods with no tariffs and relatively low prices. Unemployment had been a problem even before that, and is at a high... Other than that, we're seeing some innovations in the financial sector and such, but those would have come about anyway. I think the automobile industry is being hit the hardest - we've sucked up all the junk from Western European streets... Sales of new cars have dropped twofold and are still falling (except for Ford) but those are foreign products anyway, so screw them.
Building a wall around the EU to keep towelheads and blacks out, too. Up to you whether you see that as an advantage or a disadvantage. And, well, I was 9 years old when Sweden was EU-ized, so I don't really know how life was before that. Now that I think of it, I don't really know how life is now, either.
Disadvantages of the EU: Corruption on a big scale. Also it seems to me that the EU-parlaiment has become a dump for people for which there is no need in their own country. EU acts to slow and why the hell can`t EU employes pay taxes? The money could go directly back to the EU.
It must be pretty convenient to not have to do a currency conversion or go through customs when you travel from country to country though.
EU advantages: The Euro. It rocks. No customs when travelling. International banking has become a bit easier, and definitely cheaper (well, using ATM machines has become cheaper, anyway). Disadvantages: The fact that there have been a lot of laws to do things the same all over Europe, and I don't always agree with those laws. The level of democracy is really low. Voting can be confusing because of the general parties your national parties end up in. Germany and France being able to ignore certain rules and regulations. But overall I'm quite happy with it. I don't have much to compare with, though, for me there is really no 'before the EU', not within my memory anyway.
Well, it would be pretty convenient if our government had decided to switch..... I think England should either be fully European and go for the lot with the EU etc or be completely anti-Europe and distance ourselves from our neighbouring countries.
Certainly not many serious changes, except for the Euro of course. Only other benefit I can think of is that all our (Greece's) neighbouring countries that want to join the EU are forced to work on solving all the points of debate we've had over the years to get our support (see: the name of FYROM, Turkey's constant violations of Greek air space and so on...)
Can't say what it was before we became part of the EU (which was for West Germany... when? 1960s or so?), but I know what it was before the Euro. Mostly the same. Just that we didn't know of the fuck-ups our governments had done in the past back then and didn't suffer from the long-term effects. As for the EU. It's a great concept, but the execution is lacking a lot. I can see "Software" Patents (which are not really about software but more about ownership of abstract ideas) being legalized within the next decade (at the current pace) and Microsoft being judged not guilty in a revision of the fairness case. The Euro is a great thing, sadly our economy -- that is, the part of our economy that hasn't been bought up by American investors or outsourced to Asia -- is doing business in USD and thus SUFFERING from the cheap Dollar (irony, I say). And the corporations that don't suffer lay off people nevertheless to increase their interest. University charges have been legalised in Germany, which means that Conservative-reigned states will charge you up to EUR 1k per year if you want to get a real chance for a job other than most traditional trades and most companies would rather hire you as a trainee for nearly no wage at all than give you a payed occupation, but hand out tasks indescriminately. We're having a lot of border troubles with Poland now, living costs have risen dramatically (although most luxuries are a bit cheaper) and our minister of finance knows less about economy than me (and I didn't even pay much attention in sociology class). Overall, not worse than in the US and our propaganda is anti-government, which means we're doing fine (if the news would suddenly be all pro-government, I'd be very worried).
Because it isn`t . More on the EU here, more on why the common market is just a small part of the EU, while beeing historically important.
