The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby LukasV » Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:16 am

Hrafn wrote:
Elf wrote:Nah. I love polish people and they love me. I've dated polish women. I do think that the EU is weird and seems to hate liberal democracy, but I'd honestly would have more respect for the Polish government if it wasn't taking millions in EU subsidies and then complaining about the EU wanting a say in its policies... :roll: I'm sure the hard-working people of Poland can do well on their own, maybe even better than Sweden in the long run, honestly...

My thoughts exactly. Kudos to Poles working for a Polexit, but complaining about having to follow the directives of a union they choose to be in and which they are getting a ton of charity money from is pathetic.

Complaining about ludicrous directives that the country can't sustain adequately for any term, long or short, is pathetic? So you'd rather Poland just accept everything that the Union decides blindly, regardless of its effect on the country and its stability, because "we owe them for monies" and because we willingly joined? That's fucking rich.

Polexit won't happen at the request of the population. It's more likely that we'd get kicked out.
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Hrafn » Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:51 am

LukasV wrote:
Hrafn wrote:
Elf wrote:Nah. I love polish people and they love me. I've dated polish women. I do think that the EU is weird and seems to hate liberal democracy, but I'd honestly would have more respect for the Polish government if it wasn't taking millions in EU subsidies and then complaining about the EU wanting a say in its policies... :roll: I'm sure the hard-working people of Poland can do well on their own, maybe even better than Sweden in the long run, honestly...

My thoughts exactly. Kudos to Poles working for a Polexit, but complaining about having to follow the directives of a union they choose to be in and which they are getting a ton of charity money from is pathetic.

Complaining about ludicrous directives that the country can't sustain adequately for any term, long or short, is pathetic? So you'd rather Poland just accept everything that the Union decides blindly, regardless of its effect on the country and its stability, because "we owe them for monies" and because we willingly joined? That's fucking rich.

Polexit won't happen at the request of the population. It's more likely that we'd get kicked out.

If countries can just decide to ignore directives that they don't like, then what the fuck is the fucking point of having a fucking union in the first place? Can't just every country do whatever the fuck they want then instead?

Look, I hate the EU too. That's why I want everyone to LEAVE.
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby SlavaD » Tue Feb 06, 2018 8:58 pm

The point is that none of this is happening with adequate consultation or consideration for the part of the EU that remains less developed and is less able to afford implementing various things. The cohesion funds sadly are not for that explicit purpose, but to help them develop in general. You can't expect a country to choose to follow something that is flatly against its interests, whether politically or economically. In essentially all of the disputes that the Polish government has had with the EU so far, they have been sincere in the belief that what they are doing is correct. Take the logging in the Białowieża Forest, which is being upheld as some nationalist pro-corporate government destroying one of the country's greatest natural monuments. The contradictions are evident there. There are scientists and officials who believe that the best way to combat the outbreak of beetles is to log through everything infected to prevent the destruction of the entire forest. If that isn't the case from the Western European perspective, wouldn't it be better to acknowledge the concerns and propose a joint study from scientists across the EU to plot out the best course of action, and dedicate some token EU funding to help the implementation of the plan? Does anyone seriously think that wouldn't have been a better solution to the dispute, instead of the European Commission accusing the Polish government of illegal logging and suing, trying to implement fines, and god knows what else?

The real problem in all of these disputes is not what the government is doing, but that the wrong party won the election in Poland in 2015. The EU was more than happy to look the other way when the relatively pro-European Tusk led his government through series of scandals, state media purges, etc. - but now that PiS won, and its nationalistic rhetoric is uncomfortable and seems to threaten the vision EU bureaucrats have, its all hands on deck to try and destroy it. Of course, this has backfired spectacularly - one place where I disagree with LukasV here. PiS, despite the polarization, appears to have gained overwhelming backing. If an election happened tomorrow, it wouldn't be unimaginable for it to win with nearly 50% of the vote which would be unprecedented in the history of democratic elections in Poland. It would route the opposition on an enormous scale.

I support the EU. I even support a confederal Europe, because I think this is the best future for all Europeans from my perspective across the pond. But it seems Brussels as increasingly lost touch with reality, and instead of promoting cooperation and conflict resolution has dug in its heels thinking its Junker's mission to "save the EU from authoritarianism" but challenging Poland and Hungary.
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby LukasV » Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:18 am

SlavaD wrote:The point is that none of this is happening with adequate consultation or consideration for the part of the EU that remains less developed and is less able to afford implementing various things. The cohesion funds sadly are not for that explicit purpose, but to help them develop in general. You can't expect a country to choose to follow something that is flatly against its interests, whether politically or economically. In essentially all of the disputes that the Polish government has had with the EU so far, they have been sincere in the belief that what they are doing is correct. Take the logging in the Białowieża Forest, which is being upheld as some nationalist pro-corporate government destroying one of the country's greatest natural monuments. The contradictions are evident there. There are scientists and officials who believe that the best way to combat the outbreak of beetles is to log through everything infected to prevent the destruction of the entire forest. If that isn't the case from the Western European perspective, wouldn't it be better to acknowledge the concerns and propose a joint study from scientists across the EU to plot out the best course of action, and dedicate some token EU funding to help the implementation of the plan? Does anyone seriously think that wouldn't have been a better solution to the dispute, instead of the European Commission accusing the Polish government of illegal logging and suing, trying to implement fines, and god knows what else?

The real problem in all of these disputes is not what the government is doing, but that the wrong party won the election in Poland in 2015. The EU was more than happy to look the other way when the relatively pro-European Tusk led his government through series of scandals, state media purges, etc. - but now that PiS won, and its nationalistic rhetoric is uncomfortable and seems to threaten the vision EU bureaucrats have, its all hands on deck to try and destroy it. Of course, this has backfired spectacularly - one place where I disagree with LukasV here. PiS, despite the polarization, appears to have gained overwhelming backing. If an election happened tomorrow, it wouldn't be unimaginable for it to win with nearly 50% of the vote which would be unprecedented in the history of democratic elections in Poland. It would route the opposition on an enormous scale.

I support the EU. I even support a confederal Europe, because I think this is the best future for all Europeans from my perspective across the pond. But it seems Brussels as increasingly lost touch with reality, and instead of promoting cooperation and conflict resolution has dug in its heels thinking its Junker's mission to "save the EU from authoritarianism" but challenging Poland and Hungary.


I think you might be right about PiS getting enough backing in recent times to win another election. The problems with the EU doing nothing but being bureaucratic frauds is really splitting the popular opinion of Poles, many of whom would still like to stay in the EU and see the nation moving forward.
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Elf » Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:22 am

LukasV wrote:I think you might be right about PiS getting enough backing in recent times to win another election. The problems with the EU doing nothing but being bureaucratic frauds is really splitting the popular opinion of Poles, many of whom would still like to stay in the EU and see the nation moving forward.
And why is that? Do Poles imagine that the EU will just magically stop working for increased centralisation? If you need defence from the russkies, you already have NATO.

It's difficult to not get the feeling that the main reason a lot of these Eastern European countries seem to want the EU is because a lot of those countries have roads and buildings with signs like "Sponsored by the EU". No offence.

I honestly think that our political cultures and contexts are so different across the continent that we will probably never be able to understand each other. We Nordics probably can't understand the context the EU was created in (or continental Christian democracy in general), and I'm sure centre-left Swedes wouldn't want Junker deciding our abortion laws or family politics, etc, and implementing a minimum wage here would be a disaster for our model of collective bargaining. Poland could perhaps have its own Intermarium thing going on, just like we could have a Nordic Union, a Nordic federal state even. But Swedes and Poles together with Frenchmen and Portuguese? We'd have more in common with Canada or New Zeeland, honestly.... :lol:

SlavaD wrote:I support the EU. I even support a confederal Europe, because I think this is the best future for all Europeans from my perspective across the pond. But it seems Brussels as increasingly lost touch with reality, and instead of promoting cooperation and conflict resolution has dug in its heels thinking its Junker's mission to "save the EU from authoritarianism" but challenging Poland and Hungary.
If a "confederal" Europe means an intergovernmental structure where everybody chooses how much they want to participate or pay, I'd be for it as well. But I think you underestimate the Napoleon Complex of the people in Brussles... :roll:
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Hrafn » Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:55 pm

New Polish animal welfare bill prohibits shechita:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5108605,00.html

"A drop in meat exports from Poland could lead to a hike in meat prices in Israel."

"According to Rabbi Margolin, the new restrictions will make it impossible to perform a kosher slaughter in Poland. "There are people who have invested a lot of money in building kosher factories and slaughter houses, and now this shocking law comes along and puts an end to it."

Oy vey, muh shekels, it's like another shoah!

What's next, a ban on cutting off a piece of an infant's dick?
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Lemongrab » Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:08 pm

Hrafn wrote:New Polish animal welfare bill prohibits shechita:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5108605,00.html

"A drop in meat exports from Poland could lead to a hike in meat prices in Israel."

"According to Rabbi Margolin, the new restrictions will make it impossible to perform a kosher slaughter in Poland. "There are people who have invested a lot of money in building kosher factories and slaughter houses, and now this shocking law comes along and puts an end to it."

Oy vey, muh shekels, it's like another shoah!

What's next, a ban on cutting off a piece of an infant's dick?

It should be noted that the more liberal government tried to ban kosher slaughter back in 2013, though that was struck down by the courts.
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Elf » Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:38 pm

After 15 years as a vegetarian, I'm not a fan of the meat industry in general. But I don't see the point of measures specifically aimed at Jews like this one..
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Hrafn » Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:58 pm

Elf wrote:After 15 years as a vegetarian, I'm not a fan of the meat industry in general. But I don't see the point of measures specifically aimed at Jews like this one..

It's not specifically aimed at jews. It's part of a broader set of laws.

I would agree however that it is hypocritical, but for other reasons. The way I see it, people are squeamish about shechita because it looks brutal. But is it actually less humane than common western slaughter methods? That's doubtful, and even if it were slightly more painful, so what? It's still insignificant in relation to all the inhumaneness that is the meat industry.

It's similar to how some meat-eaters think hunting is barbaric - shooting a deer with a gun looks more brutal than raising a pig in a battery farm and then gasing it behind closed doors.

Of course, if shechita could be demonstrated to be significantly more painful than other methods, it would be perverse to defend it in the name of "religious freedom".
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Re: The Behaviour of the Eastern European Countries in the EU

Postby Hrafn » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:44 pm

I wrote:What's next, a ban on cutting off a piece of an infant's dick?


Iceland beats you to it:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/18/iceland-ban-male-circumcision-first-european-country
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