Comments

1. 

   _qss_id_marklegrosallen@gmail.com

   March 31, 2018 at 16:48

   The reforms that the EU needs are not well specified in this article. Most of it is clearly wrong-headed. Most of the EU's activity is directed at increasing freedom of its citizens, not restricting it. This applies to the single market, and its extension into the areas of services. Freedom to buy and sell services across Europe expands consumer freedom, and the regulatory apparatus is no more intrusive than national regulatory apparatuses, but with the advantage that the EU's strong stress on human rights protects us all. A common educational area is not a device limiting freedom, but creates the opportunity for all of us to accept each others standards and live and work anywhere within the Union. With the increased power of transnational corporations on our daily lives, the only level at which we can create countervailing power is the transnational one. This allows more democratic control than dealing with these matters at the national level. For anyone who looks carefully at the websites of the European Commission and the Parliament, the idea that decisions are largely taken in secret is laughable. There is far better access to ideas, rationales, and processes governing decisions than you will find in the UK, where indeed far too much governmental decision-making is done in private and unaccountably. Integrating the West Balkans in European structures will be of immense benefit to their peoples, and they know it. A reform that closes the door on the West Balkans is hardly in the interests of the people of Europe. We have all benefited from the integration of Central Europe and the Baltics, and the costs have been a fraction of the advantages, both to those in the west and those in the east. There is always a reform agenda to pursue, and that is true in the EU too. The creation of the euro was probably a step too far, and now there is much to do to ensure that it brings benefits to all members and that the potential for economic instability be eliminated. And there is a need to try to build a responsive European politics to reflect the rise in the need to act collectively. Those are the challenges ahead, rather than retreat to a futile appeal to national sovereignty.
2. 

   R_HITCHMAN

   March 31, 2018 at 18:10

   I am a strong Remainer, but I agree that there is much wrong with the EU. The Euro, with the accompanying fiscal rules, and the determination of the German government that at all costs German banks and taxpayers should suffer as little as possible, ruined peripheral Europe, though at least Ireland and Spain are recovering. But we have an opt-out! Schengen has been a failure too, but we have an opt-out! Cameron secured an agreement that the ever more perfect union would not commit the UK! Immigration is reasonably a sensitive issue. See ‘The Road to Somewhere’. But Nick Clegg claims that the EU was willing to discuss the issue, after the Brexit vote, and in view of his strong EU connexions, I doubt that he is making it up. He did after all work for the Commission for some years, and I should think that he has his ears to the ground in Brussels. Lastly, it is not only the UK whose voters are disenchanted with the strongly integrationist dogmas at present dominant in Brussels, including N. European politicians who will never consent to further bail-outs implied by the Macron programme. So I agree that European integration as envisaged by the Juncker faction is many decades premature, if it ever is sensible. But I doubt whether they will be able to have their way for a long time, and we could avoid the worst of the consequences if, after all, we remained in the EU.