HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:11:29 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct14.185712.15921@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
|> 
|> Yes, I both accept and want to see the principle of subsidiarity 
|> implemented in the EU. 
|> 
|> What does it say then? All decisions ought to be taken at the lowest 
|> possible political level. Sounds fine but what does that mean? 

It means that unless a decision *cannot* be taken at the national
level, it ought to be.    So Brussels comes in when there is a 
conflict between German and the UK over the North Sea, for example,
but the EC does not come in when the UK wants to change its work
week.     The EC has a role to play if UK pollution is affecting
its neighbours, but not if UK pollution is local.   The EC comes
in when the UK is manufacturing something for export to the rest
of Europe, but the EC does not try to regulate the ingredients in
a UK product consumed mainly within the UK.
 
|> My interpretation is that most decisions in foreign, military 
|> (defending the EC) and economic (seeing to that the single market 
|> really works) areas are best taken at the European level.

The word "economic" is too broad.   You need to be more specific
than that.

|> Decisions on other things like social welfare, culture, education 
|> and economic areas ought to be taken at the national level.

Yes, although where the richer contries subsidise these areas in 
the poorer countries, the EC has a role to play.  

|> The national economic decisions are those, which doesn't influence 
|> the relative competetivness between EC nations. If a decision may 
|> influence the relative competetivness, it must be taken commonly at 
|> the European level. 

I don't see why.    If we did that in the US, the feds would be
interfering whenever the individual states tried to improve their
relative competitiveness.

Come to think of it, it seems to me that "common decisions" about
"relative competitiveness" is a bit of an oxymoron.

|> If such a decision isn't taken here, it will never be taken in a 
|> political forum. Instead, the market will take that decision for us. 
|> This wouldn't be democracy!

Pardon me?    Saing that market decisions aren't democratic is
like saying that pigs don't make very good fish.  Of course
markets making decisions aren't democratic, but there's no reason
why they should be.    Democracy is useful at the political level,
but we don't have democratic control of markets becasue markets
are better at managing themselves than democracy is.    Set democracy
loose on markets and what you get is the UK from 1945-79.    I lived
through that, and I don't want it back, thanks all the same.

jon.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Maastricht again...
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:47:37 GMT

Helmut Kohl and the French prime minister Pierre Beregovoy met to discuss EC
issues. Their spokesman, Dieter Vogel, reported that "Both heads of government
agreed that the Maastricht Treaty must be ratified and enacted unchanged by all
12 members states of the EC". It seems the big guys haven't got much sympathy
for the little Danes and their pitiful little white papers, or rather, for all
but one of the options on the said white papers. First they make this sort of
official statements, and then they wonder why people use the word "Reich" to
refer to the EU.

  Eric
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: jyp@swarm.wustl.edu (Jerome Plun)
Subject: Re: European Military Business (was: <None>)
Organization: Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:12:43 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.142141.1@sejnet.sunet.se> ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE writes:
[Stuff about difference between flying torpedo and floating missile :-) ]
>Yes, in fact I have two points to make. The first one is that the French were
>delighted when they heard that one of their missiles had been used to sink a
>ship of Her Royal Majesty. The official line was of course that the french
>government was sorry to hear that, but magazines were full of jovial faces
>pointing out that this is a big technical success on what turned out to be the
>first test of the missile in a realistic warlike situation. Some army people
>further explained that it would be interesting to see what would happen when
>and if Argentina decided to use one of the missiles against one of the better
>equipped ships, which in principle have specially designed missiles to destroy
>this type of missiles before they can hit the ship. You could hear them rubbing
>their hands in delight. These may not be representative of the average
>Frenchman, but they were surely representative of the average officer in the
>french army. And these are the kind of people you hope to see cooperating in a
>non-nationalistic framework? :-)
>
>  Eric

This kind of people will certainly cooperate since the kind is independant of
the nationality.  Their thrill was probably not due to the nationality of the
ship being sunk (at least mainly) but more to the fact that one of their
toys worked as expected.  Had it been a British-French-German-Italian-Spanish
armored potato-peeler (with stealth option), you would have had officers of
5 countries congratulating each other. :-)

Jerome

-- 
Jerome Plun            []  Is it a crime to want something else?
jyp@swarm.wustl.edu    []  Is it a crime to believe in something different?
Washington University  []  
St Louis, MO           []  "Smalltown England", New Model Army, Vengeance
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:58:00 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct15.192215.1@sejnet.sunet.se>, eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
>
> That was of course not the idea. The idea was that if the French
> and Germans and Brits decide to go and play soldier in country X 
> which they have decided to be in need of "protection", there is 
> no reason for the armies of other countries to be forced to send 
> people as well.

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but another is to say
that at the moment, with each country running its own defence 
policy, the French, Germans and British don't have to ask for
advice from anyone before deciding what to do.   If there were
an agreement to aim for a common European policy, they would
presumably be obliged to at least consult with the other 
European countries.

On the other hand, although you seem to think of French, German
and British intervention as automatically a bad thing, not
everyone agrees.   In the US, people are asking why the 
Europeans are so slow to intervene.   So perhaps the real
problem with a common policy would be that the French, Germans 
and British would have to sit and listen to a bunch of advice,
and nothing would ever get done.

Something tells me that the French, Germans and British are
going to be criticised now for wanting to do something about
problems, and then, if nothing gets done and Yugoslavia,
for example, blows up into something even nastier than it is 
already, they'll get criticised again for not fixing things
in time.

jo. 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: <None>
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 01:46:42 GMT

In article <mikael.72.718567802@udac.uu.se>, mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:
> There are other assets that are worth protecting. Important seaways, 
> important sources of natural resources are two examples. There may be 
> situations where the US might decide that some asset is not of great 
> importance to them, while Europe might look at it in a completely different 
> manner. The question is, should Europe base its policy on what the US may or 
> may not want to do?

Unfortunately, I can't think of any such "asset" - not when using "Europe" as
the search key. If I substitute "France" or "The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland", I can think of many landmarks that fit your
description. Strangely, I still can't find any which just these two countries
would want to protect in a joint effort, let aside Europe as a whole. Instead,
I am reminded of a little island in South America which the UK sought to
"protect" from the evil country it had the misfortune of being adjacent to. Her
Majesty lost a ship to a hi-tech (at that time) torpedo which the French had
happened to sell to the said evil power - a long time before the incident of
course. How could the innocent and well-meaning French have known that the
unfortunate sods, no doubt blinded by their jealousy and outrage at not having
been granted the privilege of living under British rule, would have actually
envisioned the use of these torpedoes against the navy of their greatest friend
and ally of all times? :-----------)

Yeah, let's have a common army. Let's just be practical and organize it in such
a way that it can actually work without internal conflicts. There would be a
first Division with only French-speaking warriors (the French being generally
unable and unwilling to learn other languages), led by the French. Then we
would have a second, French-free Division under the control of Her Majesty's
loyal subjects. Helmut would be given a third, German-speaking Division so that
he stops crying in his corner for not being able to play soldier like the rest
of the world. Then we would have a fourth Division for Italy, and a fifth,
and... Actually, why don't we just keep the present structure and rename it to
"European Army" so that it looks better on paper, and save the costs of the
restructuration? :-)

  Eric
From: hm@fwi.uva.nl (Hans Mulder)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:15:15 GMT
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam

In <mikael.69.718474872@udac.uu.se> mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.154027.1@sejnet.sunet.se> eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
>>In article <qopdhao@zola.esd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>>> Several European countries have had referendums on the subjects.
>>
>>Wow, a grand TWO out of 12! Now THAT is what I call wide scale democracy.

>Actually it's three, i guess you forgot about Ireland (they voted yes by the
>way, it was not a such a close vote so it did not attract much attention).

It's two: France and Ireland.  A referendum on the Maastricht treaty only
counts if the "Yes" side wins, so the Danish referendum last June doesn't
count.  The Danes will be given another chance sometime next year.

:-]

--
Hans Mulder			hansm@cs.kun.nl
				hm@fwi.uva.nl
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: jyp@swarm.wustl.edu (Jerome Plun)
Subject: Re: Common foreign policy
Organization: Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 15:15:13 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.231447.17289@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>Eric Thomas (eric@sejnet.sunet.se) writes:
>>                                     While the scandinavian governments have
>>stated their desire to join the EC, it is totally unclear whether the people
>>would approve such a decision, and one thing that is CERTAINLY not a given is
>>that Maastricht would pass in other scandinavian countries! There is no way on
>>earth a neutral country can approve a treaty which calls for a common army and
>>common foreign affairs policy as a matter of routine.
>
>Which neutral country are you talking about? Sweden used to be
>"alliance-free for neutrality in war", but since there is no
>war, there is to neutrality to talk about.
>
>Everything changes, and so does Sweden. For a long it was right to
>stand outside military cooperation, but will it always be so? In
>these days when the defence repeatedly face cuts, we must ask our-
>selves: can we still defend ourselves, and against what? And at
>which cost?
>
>As for a common foreign affairs policy, I fail to see the problem.
>OK, we might be forced to support lunatic stance like the Greek
>opinion on Macedonia. On the other hand, now when we are not part
>of that common foreign affairs policy, have we reconized Macedonia?
>What's the difference, when always play second fiddle after the EC
>anyway?
>-- 
>Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
>There are many sorts of Macedonians: Greek, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Macedonian...
>

Moreover, wanting a common army doesn't specify what the army will be used for.
There are several neutral countries in Europe (Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland,..)
but, as far as I know, none of these countries is also demiliterized. And, I
think that none of these countries would refuse to provide troops for a UN
mission the same way "non-neutral" countries do.
  I am French and "know" one side of the equation.  Most of the current 
candidates for the EC have more experience with the other side.  I certainly
hope that Europe is moving towards an entity in which the common army's 
primary role is defense (cf Switzerland) and upon which some resources can be
drawn for world stability under the control of the UN.  
  By joining the EC, "neutral" countries can help the EC to take this path.

  Finally, on a more pragmatic line, I don't think Europe (the continent) needs the millions of soldiers it currently has and a common army should help trim
the surplus since we seem to have a hard time doing it on a country basis.

  Jerome

-- 
Jerome Plun            []  Is it a crime to want something else?
jyp@swarm.wustl.edu    []  Is it a crime to believe in something different?
Washington University  []  
St Louis, MO           []  "Smalltown England", New Model Army, Vengeance
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: bialek@i43s3.ira.uka.de (Boris Bialek Betr. Tichy)
Subject: Advantages and Disadvantages
Keywords: Denmark, Maastricht
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:17:29 GMT

I read this group now for some weeks. All the time, exspecially
the nothern european opinions, the discussion is about thew following
subjects:

- who has the right to decide about europe ?
- what's wrong with the Maastricht treaty ?
- Has somebody the right to reject the treaty ?

I really miss the real discussion about europe: what happened
in the last fourty years in europe ? Any solutions
for the real dilemma of bruessels bureaucracy ?

My opinion about europe: The last centuries were full of wars over europe.
the western european enemies, england - france - germany, build up a relationship
which brought us a long decade of peace and wealthyness. I go to france every week
without any visa or custom checks. Here in Karlsruhe eight km from
the former french border europe is reality in both directions. A lot of french
people work in germany and the way round. Why are so many people too
blind or nationalistic that they want to break up the process of 
becoming a europe nation ?

I suppose, fear is the answer. Fear consisting of predjudices about the 
ugly german, the centralistic france and ....  If we start
to weight the advantages and disadvantages of europe the result is
clear - europe wins. 

PS.: If someboby reply anythink, please, no simple polemic like 
     the ZDF-Copenhagen-discussion.

-- 
Boris C. Bialek   (email: bialek@ira.uka.de)            | 
Institut fuer Programmstrukturen und Datenorganisation  |  
Universitaet Karlsruhe;  D-7500 Karlsruhe 1;  Germany   | 
(Voice: ++49/721/699 667,  FAX: ++49/721/694092)        |

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund)
Subject: Re: War and democracies
Reply-To: etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 08:54:46 GMT

In article 1bff56INNssp@fido.asd.sgi.com, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.161152.29176@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
>|> In article 1b80vaINNr1e@fido.asd.sgi.com, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:

>|> >You might as well say that this is the definition of countries-
>|> >that-don't-go-to-war-at-the-drop-of-a-hat.
>|> 
>|> Exactly, you seem to have understood what I said!
>
>So, what you were saying is "countries-that-don't-go-to-war-at-the-
>drop-of-a-hat" don't go to war at the drop of a hat?

Yes, another synonym word for "well functioning democracies".

Peter Lund, 	mail: Peter.Lund@eua.ericsson.se
Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: [soc.culture.nordic] Re: Why did Denmark
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:56:13 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.192432.10724@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
> Non EC members will never be given the possibility to choose between the EC and 
> the EU.

If they reason like you, I agree that they never will. But fortunately most
people don't reason like this. The Swiss, for instance, know that they want to
keep their own army and neutrality. Instead of saying "Oh but if we don't
follow the Germans and French we will be stuck so let's obey the Masters :(((",
they just say that they have a problem with the common army clause. This will
obviously not make the people in Brussels happy, but it is a real concern. And
since Brussels *wants* to have Switzerland in the EC, due to their central
position in Europe and so on, they will make concessions if they can be
convinced that they will never force acceptance of the membership otherwise.
Switzerland is the most democratic country in Europe - people vote many times a
year on controversial subjects, it would be unthinkable to join the EC without
not one but several referenda.

Once Brussels made concessions for Switzerland, it will be a matter of routine
for Sweden and Austria to say "me too!" and join with similar conditions
regarding army and foreign policy.

  Eric
From: king@reasoning.com (Dick King)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: East Germany
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:16:25 GMT
Organization: Reasoning Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA

In article <Bw6266.1o4@wm.estec.esa.nl> JOLEARY@ESTWM0.DNET.ESTEC.ESA.NL writes:
>Can anybody answer a simple question for me -
>Who invited East Germany into the EC?  Other countries have to apply for
>membership, did East Germany apply?
>It's a little late to do anything about it now, but having East Germany
>suddenly joining the EC like that cost all EC taxpayers some money
>(especially the West Germans!)
>If this question was covered in this group before, I apologise.
>--

There's no such thing as East Germany and West Germany any more.

There's only Germany, a country that was once called "West Germany".

It has a constitution that says that it would annex East Germany any time they
asked. 

Either their name became "Germany" under this provision of the constitution, or
they changed it themselves.  However, it's the same country that was already in
the EC; it just got a little bigger just like we did when we annexed Hawaii and
Alaska. 

-dk
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: Maastricht again...
Date: 13 Oct 1992 02:03:31 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct13.004737.1@sejnet.sunet.se>, eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
|> Helmut Kohl and the French prime minister Pierre Beregovoy met to discuss 
|> EC issues. Their spokesman, Dieter Vogel, reported that "Both heads of 
|> government agreed that the Maastricht Treaty must be ratified and enacted
|> unchanged by all 12 members states of the EC".

They can agree to whatever they want, but if Denmark or the UK refuse
to ratify, they refuse to ratify.

|> It seems the big guys haven't got much sympathy for the little Danes and 
|> their pitiful little white papers, or rather, for all but one of the 
|> options on the said white papers.

It's not the role of either Kohl or Mitterand to organize Europe 
for the benefit of Denmark.   Denmark could have supported the UK 
at the Maastricht negotiations more strongly than they did.  Instead, 
the Danes chose to leave the UK in a minority of one.   Now, after
going along with the other ten at Maastricht, and leaving the UK
to be accused of obstructionism, they are complaining that the other 
states are not bending over backwards to make new changes, after the
fact, to suit Denmark?

|> First they make this sort of official statements, and then they 
|> wonder why people use the word "Reich" to refer to the EU.

Then don't ratify.

jon.
From: lindq@etek.chalmers.se (Johan Lindqvist)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 9 Oct 92 11:45:53 GMT
Reply-To: lindq@etek.chalmers.se (Johan Lindqvist)
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, SWEDEN

In article <1992Oct8.181515.29511@fwi.uva.nl>, hm@fwi.uva.nl (Hans Mulder) writes:

|> 
|> It's two: France and Ireland.  A referendum on the Maastricht treaty only
|> counts if the "Yes" side wins, so the Danish referendum last June doesn't
|> count.  The Danes will be given another chance sometime next year.
|> 

So the Danes will have to keep voting until they vote like they're 'supposed'
to ? Democracy ?


______________________________________________________________________________
Johan Lindqvist                     |Due to lack of interest, tomorrow
Gothenburg         Mail:            |has been cancelled.
Sweden      lindq@etek.chalmers.se  |
______________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: dennis@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Dennis Schulze)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: ZRZ/TU-Berlin
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 21:03:48 GMT

In <mikael.69.718474872@udac.uu.se> mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:

>>Germans want a referendum, Kohl said no. The Danes have been asked to make a

>I seem to remember something about the german constitution blocking the 
>possibility of a referendum in Germany. Maybe someone could shed some light 
>on this ??

The German constitution doesn't contain the possibility of a referendum
except for a change of the borders between two Bundelaender. So it is
not legal for the chancellor to 'yes' to a referendum. There is some move
to include the possibilities of a referendum in a new version of the
German constitution but the parliament will agree to the Maastricht treaty
before probably and after that it's quite useless to hold a referendum. :-)

>Maybe there should be a discussion about what the Maastricht treaty should 
>have been like in order to be more satisfactory. A constructive discussion 
>on that issue should be very interesting.

My impression after reading the treaty is that there is a massive leak
of democracy. The commission and the councel have the power and the
European parliament often has the right to *say* something but not to
make real decissions.

The rest is rather ok after first reading.

Dennis
---
Dennis Schulze                               Free University of Berlin
Johannisthaler Ch. 361                       Department of Meteorology
W - 1000 Berlin 47                       dennis@metw3.met.fu-berlin.de
Germany                               dennis@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec