Europe's foreign policy establishment has reacted with instinctive dismissiveness to Macron’s European Sovereigntism. They fail to see how discredited their own ideology has become.

I found this on Reddit and I read the whole thing, I thought it was interesting.

The author argues in favour of greater European independence on defence (and less dependence on the US). The article is a year old but I think it’s still relevant.

The author is apparently a journalist with France 24, a French state-owned media company, so you could say that makes him biased in favour of the French position. But I think he still makes valid points.

  • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    7 days ago

    I think the veto thing is absolutely necessary. The most important functions (defence when attacked, disaster relief) should be triggered automatically without political involvement should they ever become relevant; anything extra beyond core functions should be high hanging. If not we’ll have a European desert storm before we know it.

    I have come to think that the only thing that is going to save Europe is how much we struggle to agree on anything. That’s a good thing in times when majorities are untrustworthy.

    • WestBromwich@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      11·
      7 days ago

      Majorities might produce bad decisions sometimes but the alternative is that you have leaders making decisions that the majority of people don’t like… which is arguably worse.

      As for the veto, I wonder if the EU will dislike that sort of thing in the future, especially if greater EU co-operation is seen as necessary in order to compete with (and defend from) large powers like the US and China. If one country vetoes something that the majority of Europeans want, is that good? Maybe not.

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        Yeah, for sure it depends on the situation. But for military cooperation I think it might be good not to be too trigger happy.

        No doubt for other things we need to be able to decide things without Hungary.

        • WestBromwich@feddit.ukOPEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          for military cooperation I think it might be good not to be too trigger happy

          True. I guess maybe for some actions, a two-thirds majority of votes could be required. I dunno.

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zoneEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            Which goes back to the point about France and Germany being able to control the momentum with a third of the population.

            • WestBromwich@feddit.ukOPEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              With a mathematically representative EU parliament then France and Germany shouldn’t be able to control anything by themselves because like you say, their combined population is less than half of the EU