I also like not having been at war with France for several decades a lot. Sounds like it could be taken for granted, but many other things that turned out wrong did too.
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I like not being at war with countries outside the EU as well. 
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Of course. But I think one should not underestimate how much the EU contributes to peace within it. Example: After Brexit, I wouldnāt entirely rule out military getting involved in fishery conflicts between France and the UK. Maybe not now, but with suitable idiots waiting to get in power on both sides, who knows?
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Of course. I was joking about our own borders.
And imho the free travelling/ commerce thing is based on a mutual trust of sorts, like not going to war over stuff.
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Quite so, and while something like this is considered āextremeā now in EU (which is NOT one country), it is āmainstreamā between States of the USA (which IS one country):
Recent example (and very 2022):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/texas-gop-platform-secession-theocracy/
Therefore this, and your quote/text from earlier is, unfortunately, accurate.
It is not a matter of our external perception, but their internal facts.
Wars cost too much now. The EU economy is shaking and inflation is soaring even with a proxy war outside EU, can you imagine what economic carnage would be caused if the big economies of Europe actually clashes in a military manner?
The companies and the stock-markets alone would stop that kind of vainglory idea in minutes.
On the primacy of EU laws and regulations over national laws of EU members.
Iām not a legal expert, but from what I understand, to become a member of the EU, a country is required to reform its legislation, so that it doesnāt conflict with EU laws and regulations. If an EU citizen feels that a national law conflicts with an EU law, they can bring their case to the European Court of Justice.
For example, if an EU member country would pass a (national) law that reinstates slavery or the death penalty, I think the European Court of Justice can and would impose sanctions on that country. Those are extreme examples ofcourse, but there are many regulations about rights of EU citizens and obligations for governments, companies and institutions in the EU.
I could post a (very, very) long list of links on details of such matters, but Iāll refrain from doing that.
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Maybe Iām getting off topic but this is news to me so Iād be keen to know the sovereign countries (entities?) that constitute the UK. My understanding is that it is only the UK itself that is sovereign since the others are subject to the will of the UK parliament. But there are also dependencies and protectorates that are sovereign but they are outside the UK, like the channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
Edit: I might comment that the issue of sovereignty of still topical since 2016 of course!
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As far as I understand, the UK consists (at least) of the countries England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Am I wrong in calling those constituents ācountriesā? Or are those examples of not-fully-sovereign countries, but countries nonetheless?
The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of the countries the Netherlands, Aruba, CuraƧao and Sint Maarten. Iām not sure to which level the smaller constituents are fully sovereign though. The Netherlands seems to handle at least foreign policy and defence of all the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
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Weāll just get into linguistics but the so called āhome nationsā are not really ānation statesā if that is a term equivalent to ācountryā in this context. But maybe there are various distinctions that one can draw based on one or more of legal, practical or historical perspectives.
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Some politicians like to accuse the EU for taking sovereignty away from its member states. Bit I feel that a lot of EU law is actually about protecting citizens and workers. Perhaps some of those politicians donāt like being restricted in their means to exploit citizens and workers for their own agendas and play the āsovereigntyā card to (successfully) feed sentiments of dissent in their voters.
While looking into these matters, I found articles that the UK incorporated a lot of EU legislation about human rights and worker rights into UK legislation during the Brexit transition, so it seems that at least some of EU legislation was deemed worth retaining (and Iām glad they did).
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This is very 2022!
Essentially all of EU law was rolled over but government is now getting onto removing itā¦
And donāt forget that human rights law is not EU legislation (or at least some of it). The UK is still a party to the ECHR for nowā¦
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EU has also been criticized because of
- liberalization of strategic sectors such as energy and transport. Liberalization hardly protects workers in these sectors.
- for countries inside the Eurozone: lack of monetary sovereignty. Applying the same monetary policy to Germany and Greece doesnāt make much sense.
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Sorry, the FT is behind a paywall for me.
Ah, yes Sorry, itās a bit blurry. There is the EHCR, the Eurozone, the Schengen zone and other zones which donāt strictly overlap with the EU.
Iām not up to date. Does the UK (still?) adhere to European labour law?
Hmm, itās odd as I donāt subscribe but could see that article via Google but the coppied linked is blockedā¦
How about this article?
The point is that government has published a list of retained EU law and is asking about removing itā¦
But of these only the ECHR is actually separate from the EU. Eurozone and Schengen are still EU instruments but the ECHR is a Council of Europe treaty.
I donāt know about the labour law thing but if itās not EU then probably but in that case I assume the standards enshrined are pretty minimal.
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Here in the Netherlands, our own government was actively pushing for liberalization of many sectors in the 90s (utility companies, public transport companies, health care). Nowadays, most people feel that liberalization wave went too far. But I blame our own government at the time. I think it would have happened with or without the EU.
Yes, it probably was a bad idea for Greece to join the Eurozone. But Greece decided to do it. There was no obligation and several EU countries didnāt join the Eurozone. So should the EU be blamed, or the Greek government at the time?
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Politicians will always find someone or something else to blame for things which are unpopular and will happily take credit for popular things regardless of the sources of either thing.
The classic statement in Brussels about dealing with economic troubles is āpoliticians know what they need to do but they donāt know how to get reelected after theyāve done itā
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Financially and commercially, maybe it was.
It made -and still makes- sense from a geopolitical point of view.
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Thanks, I can read that article (by registering for free). I quickly scanned it. It seems to be about dropping many EU regulations on consumer goods, so those consumer goods would become cheaper to produce and/or to buy in the UK (while possibly of lower quality).
Not sure what you mean exactly by āwhat they need to doā. In France, sectors like energy, transport, post-office, telephone,ā¦ have been liberalized. Did they really āneed to doā that?
Now, the main nationalist party is blaming Europe for destroying public services. That party is getting more and more votes (41.5% at the second round of this yearās presidential election).
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