Elections for the President of the European Parliament

Anything that is not directly related to the game or its community.

Who should be the President of the European Parliament?

Antonio Tajani (EPP)
2
22%
Gianni Pittella (S&D)
2
22%
Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE)
5
56%
 
Total votes : 9

Re: Elections for the President of the European Parliament

Postby Warlock » Sun Jan 15, 2017 12:00 pm

Polites wrote:And complaining about Gypsies is better than complaining about Poles, Romanians, or Hungarians why?


Mentioning problems caused by organized Roma beggars both due their activities here and pressure on the welfare state isn't "worse" than mentioning say how we native Swedes have a habit of going cruising in the Baltic sea and get drunk as eggs on spirits in the weekends, a proud Swedish tradition since the Viking age, but also a habit similar to other countries in the vodka belt. All cultures have their drawbacks - we Scandinavians tend to be conformist and and afraid of conflict which is really hurting us when meeting people who have vastly different ideas about what's normal or realize that if you want something you better take it yourself. If you wanna know reason why you can't really just look at the Welfare state, you have to look at Lutheranism as well and its ideals that formed the Scandinavian peoples for centuries.

I'm glad I'm not homeless in this particular time and get my basic safety taken away for people who could go home to a warm country in southern Europe. Of course the same kinda applies to asylum applicants (calling everyone who've trekked through 10 or so countries for the welfare in northern Europe a "refugee" is simply misleading - just look at the virtual town they built in Calais to get into the UK because France didn't seem good enough) - the only people who have a right to three meals a day, a warm bed and internet etc. Of course that will create resentment and I'm glad that not every country in the EU is Sweden or Germany, just like I'm sure Swedish feminists are happy the EU isn't deciding our abortion policies or family politics. Looking at the substantial differences between Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe it's relatively easy to realize that we won't fit in the same superstate, we have so vastly different cultures and economic systems (for example, wanting to introduce an EU minimum wage would probably be seen as sensible in Romania, but would squash the Swedish model of unions negotiating that with employers). There isn't anything that gives the average Scandinavian a stronger feeling of unity with Italians or Romanians than with Americans or Russians. Actually I'd even argue most would probably feel more comfortable with peoples from say New Zeeland or somewhere in the Anglosphere (yeah even Americans, despite the brain dead prejudices most have been fed by the media and teachers etc.) due our similar languages and common cultural protestant heritage (funny thing is, I'm catholic lol, but I'm talking about what's shaped a people for hundreds of years and not whenever people are religious or not...) and probably with as well Ruskies due similar food and drink and shared post-socialist heritage.

MarkWill wrote:American here.

I sympathize with the sovereignty arguments a lot of Euroskeptics make (we cherish that very, very, dearly, as is known, here in the U.S. :lol: ), but from an outsider perspective, Europe is much stronger together than divided. I do recognize some of the bureaucratic problems with it (this web page helps clarify some things: https://www.coe.int/en/web/about-us/do-not-get-confused), but the common market seems to me like a good thing (then again free trade doesn't seem to be popular these days despite overwhelming empirical evidence that points to the contrary).

What exactly is the crux of the anti-EU argument? They make the laws? Immigrants from Poland, Romania, etc.? If the latter is the case, does an EU comprising only western European states sound any better? I just want to be able to understand this all a bit more. :)
I don't have any big desire to live in some Superpower, actually I'd be very comfortable of having America taking that role and not Junker or Merkel. If it's defence we are after we should join Nato (we kinda already are unofficially, Swedes even take part in high level Nato meetings lol). Being "stronger together" isn't much of an argument as long as you aren't sure that it's actually you who are getting stronger and not the largely unelected eurocrats in Brussels who might not have your interests in mind. Once the EU collapses however, I'd probably be interested in a Nordic Union in some shape or form due our similar culture/system of law etc - sadly I have a feeling our neighbours won't have any interest in taking care of Sweden's self-caused problems. :mrgreen:

To elaborate a bit more on the issue of cultural differences, I don't think we in the Anglo-Nordic sphere realize exactly what "Christian Democracy" is for people in Central Europe, it's like their "P. C." (for the lack of a better term), their story about how Europe rose after WWII and is associated with liberal conservative policies in general. Here in Scandinavia our CD parties have been formed by Pentecostal people and don't really have that connection to the Catholic CD parties in the south, if you talk about CD here people will more probably think of social conservatism rather than "democratic values" and stuff. That's probably why very few here know anything about the EU parties but down in Europe their a big thing. I'd argue that some sort of Western European union on the continent could probably do and is actually maybe what the EU was supposed to be like. In the same way, I guess that a East-Central European Intermarium will probably be the logical closest strategic partner for a future Nordic Union. It's more or less those countries who are causing a headache for the eurocrats due more conservative and nationalist polices, and while their CD parties might call themselves that, they're more like National Conservative and probably to the right of Sweden's SD or UK's UKIP (this is partly because Christian Democracy isn't a coherent ideology, but let's not make this post to much of a TL/DR lol :mrgreen: ).
Also known as SelucianCrusader
User avatar
Warlock
 
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 5:34 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Elections for the President of the European Parliament

Postby Alain Delors » Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:22 pm

I'm actually happy that Tajani got the job. I'm not a big fan of the arch-federalist EPP but given that Tajani hails from Italy and is a member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia, he's probably not a hard-core EU cheerleader.

I know I'm supposed to support Verhofstadt, given that I nominally belong to ALDE on the EP level given my FDP membership, but I can't stand him. He's the "liberal" version of Martin Schulz and everything I've heard from his suggests he is a supranationalist, statist, regulatory hardliner.

But if I had had a vote, I'd have voted for the ECR candidate Helga Stevens - of course she had no chance given how small her group is, but she's closest to my views.
GRAND NATIONAL PARTY/RALLY FOR THE REPUBLIC
300 years of Dranish libertarianism
Liberty will prevail
User avatar
Alain Delors
 
Posts: 1155
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:54 pm
Location: Germany

Previous

Return to Off-topic

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests