including an end to energy dependency to Russia.
As history showed us, the most important issues are solved by blood and iron, as Bizmark once said. EU has 0 sovereignty as long as NATO exists.
The EU is an extremely democratic system, far moreso than most of its memberstates.
I wouldn't be surprised if one could make a reasonable argument that the prospect of large scale renewables throughout Europe is (one of the main) reasons for Russias recent aggressiveness. If they lose that chokehold on Eastern Europe, they quickly become largely irrelevant on the global stage.
It's scary that the one resource they will still have as leverage is their military.
All the best democracies need flowcharts to be understood.
Representative democracies, a term that is something of a misnomer, are inherently anti-democratic because they place barriers between the voting public and the lawmaking process. The EU is literally a representative democracy slapped on top of another representative democracy.
Nice. I hope Trump kicks off Europe finally becoming independent. Too good to be true prolly because I'm sure we'll get some pro-Trump leaders of our own.
Hopefully the EU can become more unified and be a real world player. There is a real potential for success here.
The only reason unified Germany exists was because the Russians wanted an anti - Atlantic core to be formed by Germany and France in Europe. UK was naturally against, but they couldn't do absolutely anything about it.
It will be important to shore up the EU strength if we don't want to be pointless in thirty years. Start a better integration, start a path for almost full autonomy including an end to energy dependency to Russia and start building up more industrial capabilities in the east.
That's swell and all, but I see Europe moving toward more regional factionalization (again) than toward a deeper union.
It's time for two speed EU.
France, Germany, Benelux and maybe a few others like Denmark and Austria go full federal. The rest join at their own pace.
This is already starting, but the result is not what many Liberals would want. With trying to free themselves from Russian gas, many European nations are having to turn back to coal. Renewables just aren't their yet in raw efficiency with fossil fuels. With recent trends, unless there is a huge breakthrough in renewables, Europe will probably have to trade in Russian gas from for American shale (we're exporting again).
I'm sure you can see why more than a few in Europe may not be all that pleased with this, but there it is.
It's time for two speed EU.
France, Germany, Benelux and maybe a few others like Denmark and Austria go full federal. The rest join at their own pace.
It really depends on the country. Germany is regressing because a cowardly nuclear stance. Europe with nuclear energy would never need Russia. It would be enough for Germany to switch to do enormous damage already.
Germany is regressing because a cowardly nuclear stance.
Depends. I'm American, so I can only speak for how it is stateside, but people here have a NIMBY attitude towards nuclear power plants. Fukushima didn't help out nuclear power's image. Maybe NIMBY isn't so prevalent in Europe (I'm actually curious if it is a problem in Europe), but I wouldn't underestimate it.
And even so, building them takes time, and a massive investment, especially in terms of loans and insurance. I can see a lot of the 'smaller' nations not having the capital (either financial or political) to get it time any time soon. Easier to just import oil and gas from the US and Canada instead of Russia. Kick the can down the road so to speak.
Citation needed.
Hopefully the EU can become more unified and be a real world player. There is a real potential for success here.
To think that by supporting fragmentation of Europe we would be advancing our interests would be sheer folly, he said. Its lunacy.
He added: For us to be the cheerleaders of Brexit and to be encouraging Brexit Mark 2, Mark 3, is the height of folly.
Describing calls to EU institutions from Mr Trumps aides in recent weeks, Mr Gardner said: That was the one question that was asked basically, Whats the next country to leave?. Which is kind of suggesting that the place is about to fall apart.
Or a colossal failure. The creation of a unified EU military force has some pretty large issues that have the potential to either make the thing useless, or fracture the EU. If using the thing requires the consent of all member governments it's going to be extremely slow at responding to anything. If it doesn't, then who controls it? France? Germany? The other nations wouldn't stand for that. The European Council?
A unified European army could very easily rise into the strongest military force on this planet. The picture of two nationalists like Putin and Trump who might have accidentally awaken a sleeping giant is kind of amusing.
The force just needs to be a larger than Russia's. Or be able to hold them off till we get through the next 4 years.The US is and always will be number one for the forseeable future.
A european army, with all of Europe's funding behind, could end up in a strong second place though.
It really depends on the country. Germany is regressing because a cowardly nuclear stance. Europe with nuclear energy would never need Russia. It would be enough for Germany to switch to do enormous damage already.
The force just needs to be a larger than Russia's. Or be able to hold them off till we get through the next 4 years.
It really depends on the country. Germany is regressing because a cowardly nuclear stance. Europe with nuclear energy would never need Russia. It would be enough for Germany to switch to do enormous damage already.
Renewable energy renders such large base load power plants plain obsolete.
If Germany is regressing (is it?) it's certainly not because of its stance on nuclear energy. + Germany is switching to renewables, which will ultimately do that damage.
I meant the "regressing" part. I'm fully aware of the plans, I live in a neighboring country.
It's time for two speed EU.
France, Germany, Benelux and maybe a few others like Denmark and Austria go full federal. The rest join at their own pace.
Renewable energy is not stable. Home energy usage is at peaks when renewable wouldn't be.
Renewable energy is not stable. Home energy usage is at peaks when renewable wouldn't be.
Germany failed to reduce coal usage and raised greenhouse gas emmissions last year because they phased out nuclear instead of coal plants. They have even opened up new coal plants last year. If a country has to open up more coal plants, then theirr nuclear stance is hurting the world.
http://energypost.eu/german-conundrum-renewables-break-records-coal-refuses-go-away/
I think the idea would be something more akin to NATO than a physical 'unified EU military force'. The focus would very much be on a 'defensive pact for Europe' rather than an external military force.
As with NATO, the 'C&C' parts of such an organization could be used externally, without a requirement on countries to take part in those operations.
So, basically NATO without the US (and, shortly, the UK). It would be somewhat embarassing for the US and somewhat catastrophic for the UK.
Also, I don't see how that situation would be catestrophic for the UK?
Nuclear energy doesn't help you a little bit for your medium and peak load needs. In fact that's the time when France imports quite a lot of energy from Germany.
Yes, it's not stable. It grows nevertheless. There are still other sources of energy that can help mitigate that issue, especially gas.
So it was more or less stable while emissions increased. I don't find a 0,5% decline convincing if you keep shutting down nuclear power plants first.Read your own link: "This undisputed success was, however, muted by the fact that production from lignite and bituminous coal hardly declined (a decrease of a mere half-percent or 1.4 TWh)."
Germany is in a kind of transition period right now. Nuclear will soon have no significant part of the energy generation anymore, resulting in all the gains of renewables directly cutting into the production of all the fossil fuels.
And that is why it is a cowardly backwards stance. It not only forces us to keep using unrenewable energy, it also forces us to keep supporting a warmongering nation. We impose sanctions on Russia, except for their gas because we are dependent on them. We are killing people in the Crimea by doing this. That is our contribution.
So it was more or less stable while emissions increased. I don't find a 0,5% decline convincing if you keep shutting down nuclear power plants first.
I'd be a lot more enthused if we invested in better and cleaner nuclear energy. I'd be a lot more happy if my own country didn't have to think of a plan for rolling blackouts in the middle of the winter because it doesn't want to maintain nuclear plants. Or if the power grid didn't almost shut down because of an overcharge of renewable energy, where we had to pay France to import it... That is the impact of an energy policy that simply thinks going green solves everything.
The idea of an EU army is completely ridiculous and will never happen, the various intelligence agencies in Europe don't even share their information about radical islamists in their countries.