As a heathen Yank, I don’t have an actual stake in the whole thing. However, I can’t escape the following, as my considered opinion:
EU Proponent: “Hey, you know how it’s really easy to govern, fund, and defend nations and empires?”
Skeptical European: “Ummm…are you joking?”
EU Proponent: “Well, some of us were thinking.: what if we carve out a nebulous, constantly shifting middle-ground between a single nation, a group of nations, and an empire. Ya know, some kind of cobbled-together, mutated entity, possessing some characteristics of all those things, but never truly being any of them. That might be EVEN EASIER to manage.”
EU Proponent: “We figure the most important aspect would be a constant vagueness, regarding the enforcement of laws, standards, and regulations that all the nations in the semi-pseudo-super-nation group would have to follow.”
Skeptical European: “Come again?”
EU Proponent: “Well, it’s simple: maybe all the countries in the quasi-ultra-state would be bound to obey laws passed by the mega-parliament. But also, maybe they would still be sovereign states, and they wouldn’t have to obey those laws. But, then again, maybe they ARE supposed to obey them, technically, but there isn’t an effective method of enforcement. If everyone has to keep guessing, that will make sure everyone pays attention, and everything will go really smoothly.”
Skeptical European: “Ohhhhhkay. But we’ll still bully the shit out of Greece if they have financial problems, right?”
EU Proponent: “Oh, fuck yes. That’s 90 percent of why we’re even doing this.”
I think people in this comment section seem to think people who voted to leave the EU are shaking their fists in rage, why would they be? The diagram also looks sus in terms of legality
I found the proposal - I thought the lines to Ireland were all proposed rail (despite encroaching the incorrect distance by sea) but its a rough diagram and those are water transport routes.
Looms fine to me though, there’s a path into Norway, and there’s a path into the UK.
Scheming EU to make an EU travel plan for countries that didnt voluntarily leave the EU to pursue some racist bullshit propaganda that even the people who started brexit, deep down, didnt want, and never thought would actually happen.
What’s truly bullshit about this map is Hungary. To get anywhere, you have to go through Budapest and it’s been like this since the last 150 years, when it comes to rail. Even though it has at least seven metropolitan areas outside of Pest county with population above 100k… NOPE! You have to go through two of the three major railway stations of Budapest.
What’s worse is say you are a local to Hungary and you live east of the Danube. You want to visit Lake Balaton in the west. You have to take the train to Budapest. You then transfer by Metró to the other railway station. And then take another train to the lake. Three fares and two transfers, which might be fine as an individual but adds up in costs and stress if you are with family or have accessibility needs. And by accessibility needs I’m just talking about being elderly (who mostly travel free or at a very reduced rate) or a stroller.
I can only guess the reasons but I experienced this frustration when I needed to go from the very north to the very east of the country and still had to go through Budapest.
It’s always weird to read stuff from the UK to do with brexit. That paper is clearly some right wing rag and the reality is that we are connected via the channel tunnel and all that this is doing is leaving us off the maps and probably the reasoble prices.
But people like to rile it up like we are missing out on some grand EU mega plan that is going to save the world. The EU has plenty of problems and is not some sort of nirvana. Would I rather be in the EU? Yes it is better to be part of something. However it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and to be honest day to day it makes little difference to me. People in the UK are not crying into their union jack hankies, we have bigger problems like a completely corrupt and incompetent ruling class.
Because anti-globalism is the most widely held opinion on earth. You can find people supporting it in every country and they use the power of infrastructure built up by countries working together to spread their message. It is like some weird variant on the paradox of tolerance. A nationalist can only recirculate their unoriginal ideas because internationalism existed for so long.
Every time I hear about Brexit I’m reminded how 17 million people directly fucked up my ability to be part of something just to spite themselves. If you don’t want to be part of something then just take yourself and leave, don’t drag everyone else out too.
And since I was curious, here are the new guidelines adopted last week. Nothing revolutionary but an evolution in the right direction. I do find it personally interesting that the TEN-T apparently did not previously formally take into account military mobility…
TETP is just a nefarious scheme to dictate glorious typography to member states. Seriously that thing is good: Ridiculously legible and specifically so in “big font at long distances” situations, meanwhile both friendly and authoritative – exactly the kind of thing you want when asking for the way. No “yeah let me think where was that intersection” or “can’t you find your own way” but “Of course! Go straight ahead, first to the left, then the second right”.
Now if the EU would get around to telling member states that they should learn from each other in overall traffic and urban design, and follow the best practices that they can find anywhere. Which is diplomatic language for “Do as the Dutch do”.
I lived in Britain during the Leave campaign and it was all about getting the benefits without the responsabilities or costs.
In fact, the sequence of political events that lead to the Leave Referendum was Britain in the EU trying to have less and less obligations whilst keeping the benefits of Membership to the point that eventually, when the UK demanded “otherwise we have a Referedum on Leave” to not to have to abide by Freedom Of Movement into their country whilst keeping all the rest including Freedom Of Movement for Britons into other EU countries, the rest of the EU said “No!”. After this, David Cammeron was under huge pressure to do the Referendum “to show the EU” and the rest is History.
The La-La-Land fantasism of the Leave side was always unbelievable, with everything from genuine expections of, post leave, having “Same Rights as Members With No Obligations”, to after Brexit “Other EU Nations will Follow Us Out”.
I would say that by this point it’s clear that whatever Britain is “showing the EU” isn’t quite what was in Leaver fantasies.
To be fair that is because it was sold to the public on outright lies and the readings of a couple of unscrupulous twats.
Johnson for example had always been pro-eu and reportedly had two articles written, one remain and one leave, and based his decision of which one to publish on which was more politically expedient for him, not on what he actually thought was better for the country.
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