Euro and European union, how has it affected your life ?

[Tornado69]

Just wondering what some of you Europeans think of the Euro/European Union. How has it affected you ? Has their been laws written which override your own countrys criminal laws ? Do you like/dislike Euro ? Is it easy to travel through other states ? Have wages been affected at all ? Anything else? Your opinions ?

[suzzer99]

I hope this thread goes somewhere. I've been wondering the same thing for a while. From the outside it seems like an incredibly positive thing for the region, mainly the poorer parts I guess.

[Tornado69]

Since Canada put police officers in the anti North American Union protest to throw rocks and to pretty much get it broken up this whole issue has been on my mind constantly over the last week. Being forced to maybe move from my own country is something I might have to seriously think about in the next 5 years so I'm curious as well.

[Edukashun]

I'm British, I think as a whole we are a proud nation and our history has been full of conflict with our European neighbours.
That pride resulted in many wars and one of the plus sides of the EU is the fact that I can't ever see (at least for the forseeable future) any European Wars (England v France for example). This obviously is a good thing.
However the erosion of sovereignty is quite disturbing. Last year there was talk of implementing a EU constitution to cement the union.
The details were put to a referendum in France and got a firm "Non", this put the brakes on things for a while but now there is talk of implementing these changes through the backdoor with no vote for the people, very democratic..

The EU is quite funny when you think of it, the way it's run is so un-democratic if it tried to join itself as a member state it would be denied entry! And don't even get me started on the waste and inefficenty.

As for the Euro I can't see us taking it up anytime soon so it's firmly £££s for us for the next 5 years at least.

[Edukashun]

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I hope this thread goes somewhere. I've been wondering the same thing for a while. From the outside it seems like an incredibly positive thing for the region, mainly the poorer parts I guess.

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I agree with you regarding the poorer regions and each individual state would definitely benefit from further, maybe even total intergration.
It may be the only way for the superpowers from the Old World to keep their status as China and India rise to supremacy but in it's current form the EU is just a bureaucratic mess that seems to exist only to employ lawyers and politicians, not to benefit the people it's susposed to serve (not much different than normal goverment really).

[Genz]

The European Constitution was meant to increase efficiency, strengthen the position of the European Parliament and the democratic aspects of the Union in general. So people who refused to vote for the Constitution because they say that the European Union is bureaucratic and inefficient and undemocratic actually shot themselves in the foot. And the French "Non" was more based on dumb nationalistic sentiments and not the actual wish to get a better legal foundation for the Union.
The problem is, that the Union has grown a lot. Other than the usual prejudices towards eastern Europe's countries, it's very difficult to manage all the conflicting interests, esp. since a lot of those newer states announced publicly that the only reason for them to join is the financial support. So there is a widespread Take-All-Give-Nothing-Attitude that frustrates a lot of people, esp. in the countries that are net funders of the Union. These economical potent countries obviously want to keep their privileges, which I can easily understand. But sometimes they do it in weird, counter-productive ways, esp. when they act on principles, like "The Germans want to take all the power" or crap like that, without realizing that they benefit greatly from the restructuring and reforming themselves.

But politically, it's great, obv. It is easier indeed to travel around and the Euro makes it even easier. The introduction of the euro was used for stealthy price increases in a lot of industries, esp. gastronomy and they are now complaining about the hardships they have to suffer. But that are all housemade problems. I actually don't understand how a state that is part of the European Union can NOT try to introduce the Euro as fast as possible. Economically it seems to be soooo stupid, esp. since the Euro has been very stable and strong since it's actual introduction (it was a "virtual" currency on the stock markets etc. a few years before the coins and bills were actually issued. And it was pretty weak during that time). And I'm not much into the patriotic stuff like "we want to keep our currency under all circumstances. It has been there for ages!" anyway. It just seems so anachronistic.

[Genz]

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I agree with you regarding the poorer regions and each individual state would definitely benefit from further, maybe even total intergration.
It may be the only way for the superpowers from the Old World to keep their status as China and India rise to supremacy but in it's current form the EU is just a bureaucratic mess that seems to exist only to employ lawyers and politicians, not to benefit the people it's susposed to serve (not much different than normal goverment really).

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I disagree in parts. While the critic about the administration of the Union is certainly right, I actually do think that all partners to the Union greatly benefit from Europe-wide regulation already. Think about things like Customer Protection, Industry Standards, Patent Rights, Product Safety, Financial Freedom, Freedom to chose your workplace etc.
E.g., for me it's now extremely easy to order merchandise via the internet from the UK, Austria, the Netherlends or whereever and I KNOW that I will have certain rights if the stuff isn't good, no matter how they are implemented in the country I ordered from. There is stuff in your everyday life that accomodates you that is based on European regulation, that you don't even realize.

[Nonfiction]

As a guy who is extremely interested in geopolitics and foreign relations etc, I am always curious as to which way the UK will go, EU or stay with the Anglo alliance. Geographically they obviously should be part of the EU, but historically (for the last ~100 years), politically, culturally, and obviously linguistically, they are part of the Anglo Alliance. UK fully becoming part of the EU (currency, foreign policy, etc) would likely mean the end of the special relationship, and would probably send Canada and Oceania further from the UK and towards the US than they already are.

Personally I see it more likely that UK gets even closer with the US then with the EU. Both countries are moving towards fascism, whereas mainland Europe is already very socialist. US will continue to have an aggressive foreign policy in the future, and the UK (like other individual European countries) likes to pretend it still matters on the world stage, so it will likely also maintain a similar foreign policy, which is currently (and often) at odds with the rest of the EU.

[Borodog]

Not a European, but the euro has two main effects, one good, one bad. It's good for European businesses and consumers to have a single currency, because it increases economic integration and allows for an intensification of specialization, the division of labor, and trade.

It's bad in that competing fiat currencies act as a check on the ability of an individual country to inflate; if one country inflates the money supply faster than others, it's currency weakens relative to other countries with various deleterious effects. If all counrties can inflate together (i.e. form a sort of "inflation cartel"), then they can inflate faster (i.e. increase their rate of plunder). This was the drive behind the creation of both ECB and Fed.

[L'ennemi.]

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It's bad in that competing fiat currencies act as a check on the ability of an individual country to inflate; if one country inflates the money supply faster than others, it's currency weakens relative to other countries with various deleterious effects. If all counrties can inflate together (i.e. form a sort of "inflation cartel"), then they can inflate faster (i.e. increase their rate of plunder). This was the drive behind the creation of both ECB and Fed.

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Sadly, most politicans, especially in France, are not familiar with this idea