User talk:JLogan/Spade

Very interesting write-up! —Nightst a llion (?) 12:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, if there are any points you think I'm missing, or thinkl there is an error, do please say. - J Logan ^t/_c: 10:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clap, clap, clap. Great work!!! -- Danilot 13:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting essay. Incidentally, there are a few nation-states around that really do not have a constitutional document, New Zealand being one- with Israel's Basic Law framework similar to a more complete version of the whole EU setup. Yarkod 23:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it was just the UK and Israel without a constitution, I'll have to read up on NZ, thanks. - J Logan ^t: 08:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is really interesting. --Jirka6 (talk) 03:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Legislature[edit]

The Presidency is interesting though, now that is something unique (unless someone can correct me on that) but all that is in the Council is a different system of chairing.

There is strong resemblance with the Bundesrat of Germany.So it's not unique.--88.82.47.207 (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect[edit]

What seems to be missing in the essay is the idea carried in the first sentence of THE CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE UNION: "The peoples of Europe, in creating an ever closer union among them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values."[Emphasis added.] Regarding the EU, I think it's better to talk about what the EU is BECOMING than what it IS. Ever closer! -- Iterator12n ^Talk 18:13, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It hasn't become what it is becoming yet, it is not our job to predict the future, we write what is, not what could be.- _JLogan ^t: 21:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True, but what I'm ~~objecting to~~ disappointed in is you trying to fit what's there today (and what's not there today) with concepts that may turn out to be alien to an ever-closer union - see for instance your discussion of capitals. At least in today's situation, it doesn't make sense to consider the matter of EU capital(s). Another way of stating my ~~objection~~ disappointment: your essay does not provide enough room for an EU sui generis, a union on its own, possibly unique terms. Cheers. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 21:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But we can't predict the ever closer union till it happens. We had no idea what the European Convention would come out with till it met and thrashed it all out. And with the current state of affairs it is entirely plausible institutional changes will cease or slow to snails pace. However, if something does change, then I'll just just have to update the page. This is a wiki, the articles can evolve to adapt to changes. As for sui generis. The point of this was to throw that out the window. Yes it is different from everything else but I was trying to describe the similarities to help people understand - if you just say "yes, this is not this and it is not that, its something else" - do they know what you mean? No, you need to say "in the way it does this, you can compare it to this, and in the way it does that, you can compare it to that". That is the way we should be talking, because then people have sound grounding for understanding. Sui generis is more like a command to dump memory than an encyclopaedia entry.

Sorry for the ramble, in short you are right on your points but missing the point of why I wrote it.- _JLogan ^t: 10:05, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, we are in violent agreement regarding the essence.... Still (again using your description of the capital situation as an example) why not explain in the article that today any discussion of capital this or capital that does not make sense - that would be truly illuminating for the readers of the essay and for their understanding of the EU. (On a technical detail, you appear to make an imlicit assumption that a government of anything needs to be concentrated in one or a few places. I'm not so sure that the assumption holds anylonger, particulalry not where history hasn't already pre-empted the choice. Expect to see the next major EU government institution - say the Department of Foreign Affairs or the European Defense Headquarters, ha! - settle in Warsaw, Madrid, London, or thereabouts.) Happy editing, over and out. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 00:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC) P.S. Above, I missed an opportunity to throw in the lovely term "multi-polar." Next time.[reply]

Regarding capitals, that is not my assumption. Remember this is intended to respond to points raised by other people and the issue of the capital being spread across several cities makes people think that it isn't a capital by its nature. By drawing a parallel to South Africa (if I was assuming it had to be one, I wouldn't have brought that in) it is making another link to existing governmental systems in order to explain it and hence provide a word for what Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg are. Once again, responding to those people who don't want us to use the word capital to describe them, instead prefering "political/administrative centres" etc which mean exactly the same thing only without the state-like usage. However, in barring us from using the word capital the whole situation becomes less clear than it would be if we just said, capital. Again, that is the point of this, not a general argument about the federalist leanings of the EU- it is to illustrate the parallels to federalist systems so we can use those words to help people understand.

Just on your last point, the European Defence Agency and all other military bodies are in Brussels (to co-op with NATO) and all foreign affairs departments of the Commission, which will form the backbone of the European External Action Service, are based, and will be after the EAS, in the Charlemagne building.- _JLogan ^t: 10:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confederation, not Federation[edit]

While, because secession seems contrary to the commitment to an ever-closer-union, there was arguably no legal right to secede before the Lisbon Treaty created the Article 50 process, there is now. You say this is rather meaningless because of the requirement to negotiate, but that is not true - legally if there is no agreement after two years of negotiation the country automatically leaves without an agreement (unless there is unanimous agreement to prolong the negotiating, including the agreement of the departing country). So there is currently no legal way that the EU can prevent the departure of a sufficiently determined country. And as such, calling a spade a spade, the EU is currently a Confederation and not a Federation.

Of course this does mean that it is much harder in practice for a small country to leave (as they can expect to pay a far higher economic price for doing so). But to claim that this makes the process meaningless would be a bit like claiming that there is no real difference between allowing divorce and not allowing it as long as poor women find it more difficult than rich women, and that laws banning slavery are meaningless as long as poor people find it harder to leave their employers than rich people (the old slave-owning argument that 'free' workers were really 'wage slaves' so outlawing slavery was meaningless, unnecessary and wrong; Marxists also love 'wage slave' arguments).

In practice, as a result of the Civil War, there is no comparable legal right to leave the USA. Whether an attempt to secede from the USA would be met by another Civil War is unclear, just as it was unclear in 1861 (which is partly why the Civil War happened). But, again calling a spade a spade, as long as the US Government has WMD and the secessionists don't, it is now a lot easier for the US Government to defeat secession now than in 1861 (incidentally this also meant that in practice Britain and France's WMD always gave them a de facto right to leave the EU). Note also that WMD don't have to be used in order to be relevant, as long as everybody can easily be reminded of the possibility of their use. And even without WMD the US government now has the advantage of a vastly more powerful standing army than it had at the start of 1861, as well as the advantage that everybody now knows what happened in 1861-65. Also, even without WMD, Spain has so far successfully managed to prevent the secession of both the Basque Country and Catalonia, and it is far from obvious that a future US government would be less determined in this regard than a Spanish one. Tlhslobus (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of course arguably what really seems most absurd about this aspect of the EU is the commitment to 'irreversible progress towards an ever-closer union', if only because the closeness seemingly must logically stop getting closer at some point before its citizens are all so close that they die of suffocation.Tlhslobus (talk) 17:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]