I don't think you understood anything of what I said. I'm talking about increased divisiveness on countries that already shared their culture, spurred by this idiotic "come get free shit, everyone" "plan".

Then keep supporting the current state of affairs. That's exactly what will happen.

Some of you Germans are still very traumatised by WWII, and you seem to forget that not every country carries such burden & not everyone is willing to flog themselves twice a day for something that happened before they were born.

Your perception of "nationalism" is completely different from anyone else in the world. Either stop bashing yourselves or stop bashing other people who don't live in your country & do not share such psychological traumas.

It's over. Let it go. Don't worry, it won't be forgotten. No war has ever been forgotten. Let. It. Go.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum-German-French-European-superstate-Brexit

"Let's not try to dominate Europe ever again. Oops."

But there already are thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who fell for such arguments.

I only need to look around in Germany: The partys that gather new influence have been those who blame immigration, growing religious diversity (aka increasing Muslim share) and globalisation for all the current problems our country has. You can guess for yourself what follows after this.

Ever heard of PEGIDA? One of the many goals of the people behind that movement is the Separation of Germany from the NATO and the EU.

And there will be more.

I don't know what your sentiment about WWII is, but many of you in Germany need to get your heads out of your asses & stop trying to avoid doing anything that might even closely resemble what led to WWII.

The more you tap-dance around to avoid it, the more likely you are to fall in there. And you will. It'll be the same crap all over again, but this time it will happen because everyone refused to take action.

Being paralysed with fear is no way to live. The problems are growing, not going away. They need to be addressed.

Otherwise we'll all be dragged into yet another war with Germany at the centre of it all. Again. I don't want that. Nobody wants that. So please stop being afraid of your past & take action before it's too late, before the right wing rises again. Everywhere, this time.

I'd have sympathy for this view, and indeed I personally believe we should be supporting more economic parity (not necessarily through aid, but "yes" when appropriate). Unfortunately you're making it in context of an institution that still railroads the Euro into poorer economies that are actively harmed by it. No plausable amount of aid would grant the benefit that Spain or Italy could elicit by being allowed to inflate their currency a bit. Those high fences come in different forms, and the richer Eurozone countries are definitely holding one up towards the poorer countries.

And just in case this goes unnoticed in my previous, lengthier post:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum-German-French-European-superstate-Brexit

"Let's not try to dominate Europe ever again. Oops."

Do. Something.

Ha, ha. Very funny. I'm quite young and I think I'm mentioning the war even less often than you (talking about psychological traumas).

I think you are projecting a few things too many on me. I'm one of the most non-bashing persons on earth. But I would really like it very much if we can agree that you have your opinion and I have mine. And I agree actually with the 48% of Britains who wanted to remain in the EU and I feel totally connected with them. You can have your nationalism if you like but leave all the others who don't want it out of it. And I'm sure you'll see that it leads exactly nowhere. Of course you will think the opposite.

Source sounds a bit fishy. Let's wait until there comes a bit more evidence in.

(It would be the one thing you would like to spread if you are a right wing anti-EU populist ready to lie mercilessly. But then everything is possible.)

The beeb are a buncha lefty perverts. So who cares? :P

And speaking of the Beeb. This just in. Second EU referendum petition investigated for fraud.

Well, i have heard that Poland is way better off now than what it was in the 90,s but im not sure if this is soly to the EU.
I think it also lies in smart local politics.
Things are probably not perfect and Poland is probably still way off achiving the same economic power as forexample Germany but i think polish people can talk more about polish economics than me.
I also think that the EU shoudnt expand any more before fixing issues and they have expanded way too fast before fixing issues.

I dont think aid in the form of money is the answer allthough it can solve problems in the short term it doesnt fix the issue.
You need to create jobs, and invest in the contry you want to build up.
In addition to that you also need education and building up the contrys infrastructure.
And probably also a few more things i havent thougth about.

Yeah, it still amazes me that there`re folk that say the beeb are unbiased.

Very probably true, but then given that economic growth is kind of the standard pattern, that also applies to almost every country. However I agree it was probably helped by the EU, the trade borders were opened, things were much better, and industry was helped. However it's staying ahead of that curve when times are bad that is the problem. Poland doesn't have an unemployment problem, it has an employment problem. They are fighting to keep skills.

It's why I referred to the southern states for example, that's where the Euro is damaging. It doesn't apply to the newer entry countries yet as they are benefitted by the trade.

You and the world, nobody can really know.

Sorry. I regretted that after I posted it. I never saw you have that apologist behaviour some of your countrymen seem to display.

I guess I just made a blanket statement in my irritation. It's nothing personal against you.

I don't really know where the Express leans. To tell the truth, I don't have a political party, or even a side. I like the freedom to lean which way is more convenient for me as a citizen.

So I don't pay attention to biases on newspapers or tv news, unless they're really obvious like Fox news.

I do know Junker said it was time for a EU Army in his twitter. I don't have the link, and I really don't feel like trudging through his crap to get it.

Even if you don't believe me, please keep your eyes open, at the very least.

I'm sorry your system ate your post. I know what it feels like because sometimes I also tend to write long posts which are then gone somehow.

What you say is basically how difficult it is for poor half of the society to effectively get their voice heard. Always fighting for bare survival they do not have the time or money to invest in campaigning for their interests, they lack good education and they are sensible to populists.

It may be a tragedy. The working men who must by law of nature fail in life because birth and what not made him what he is and he cannot win under any circumstances and in case an individual of the working class rises above its class it is easily corrupt and will betray its own kind at the first chance.

Is this the end of it or is there some hope that it actually improves in the future?

In the last 40 years inequality has risen constantly but it cannot continue like this endlessly, can it? At some point the poor must have left nothing to lose (in the past this was usually the time for a revolution).

It might be they are running over to some populistic movement before and maybe pay with more than money but it could also be they are getting themselves together for once.

I read a bit about the beginnings of the Labour party (120 years ago) when the situation of workers was comparably worse than now and women couldn't yet vote. What impressed me was how much interest in politics common people showed at that time. Sometimes I think people today have just given up and maybe rightly so because with globalization and so on, everything is so complicated.

So while the poor half of the population could have lots of power in theory, chances are low they ever use it and use it for something that helps them.

Spain and especially Italy are kind of average in the wealthiness ranking I think. While poor countries like Poland and Hungary still have their own curency and could devalue.

There are economic theories of optimal single currency areas. They have advantages (bigger market, less risks of variable exchange rates, easier travelling and paying cross border) and disadvantages like no devaluation. Especially problematic is a missing fiscal union but that is not what many people want anyway. Having the single currency probably doesn't make much sense if not at least there is some sort of fiscal union (which means something like I have a say in how much you can spent as long as you have financial problems). It's a really long way to go there.

But I don't want to blame the single currency only. Look for example at the public debt to GDP ratio. Even for the UK with its own currency the debt has gone up a lot. The exact responsibility for this 40% increase of debt to GDP ratio within 8 years (you better not try to convert this to billion pounds or you might get really angry at someone) is still a bit unknown or not really followed (hint: It probably wasn't Brussels this time.)

I'm the first to admit that austerity was wrong and I never voted for it, but the second focus on long term control of deficits sounds reasonable to me. I would have traded short term deficit spending by long term financial stability reforms and I'm sure it would have worked for everyone but Greece who would have additionally needed a much stronger cut of the debt and more reforms more quickly.

But Italy and France also did not do much until it was very late. Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Hollande are all not known for their great economic strategies.

And I'm also for a temporarily, higher inflation target for the Euro. After all we are very close to deflation and that is even dangerous and unemployment is just too high. From economics we know that higher inflation results in lower unemployment (Phillips curve), so we should have done that but then the eurozone is also very inhomogenous economically so this all probably means it just isn't an optimal single currency area. If only we had known this in 1992 but who knew then how everything would develop.

Actually there is something you can do even with a single currency. It's called internal devaluation. What you do is increase taxes on consumption and decrease taxes on labour. However, this works best if the other side matches it with reciprocal actions.

I agree that EU shouldn't expand further for the next two decades at least but then there also isn't much to expand. Taking in Turkey is a joke. Don't believe it for a second, it won't happen. Maybe some balcan states at some point but they aren't very big anyway.

Building up infrastructure or providing education costs money, so aid in form of money to do this would be indeed the obvious answer to fix the issues. Corruption is the biggest problem there.

Creating jobs and sending investments to the underdeveloped places is usual done kind of automatically in a single market area, after all cheap labour is an advantage when searching for investment opportunities.

If this is not enough I recommend temporary, regional stimulations for example by reducing taxes or paying aids for investments. This costs money again but is directed at the issues. Corruption (for example in souther Italy or Greece) is again the biggest problem.

But even if smart financial transfers are the solution, you can never make everything totally equal. Even within countries not every place is exactly equally prosperous. You will probably have to live with some range of inequality. The good thing: people can move, so if the money doesn't come to you you can try going towards it.

Heed this advice, then: type your lengthy posts in a text editor and then copy-paste them in the "Add new post" window; or at least copy what you just wrote to the clipboard before you submit it so that, in case anything goes wrong, you will still be able to paste the contents back.