Originally Posted by Zichao

And in a set of political circumstances that are completely different to what we have today and totally irrelevant...

Well I don't know about that. Lets imagine the monetary union did collapse, and we no longer had free movement of goods, services and workers across borders. If economic nationalism, or protectionism, were to make a come-back - and in some sense it already has, as in the spats between the US and China - then you could end up with European states in hostile trade wars, and possibly, real wars.

What's different about our political circumstances is precisely the existence of the EU. But as with the recent business of France imposing entry requirements for immigrants streaming in from Italy, the status quo is looking increasingly shaky.

Originally Posted by Zichao

So what's the deadline? Ten years? Twenty years? And at what point will you consider it officially fixed?

When it looks like what I've got in my head. But a tight and deep union between France, Germany and the Benelux (Nordic countries can join, if they so wish) is a good start.

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And those don't count as serious problems?

It was said with irony. But, otoh, they never took notice of public will before, why start now?

More seriously, I think that, if you let the plebs vote, the way things are now, they'll vote for a near dissolution/total paralysis of the EU project.

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My point is that the old definitions/criteria for success and failure don't apply any more. However much the EU may meet the objective criteria for failure it'll survive as long as the threats from outside are sufficient.

Maybe that's the result of working in foreign affairs but normal people don't see any threat from the outside...

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People are gradually facing up to the fact that things aren't going to get better - demographics and disappearing resrouces aren't problems that are just going to go away. We're going to have to recalibrate our definition of "normality".

If you're talking about Europe aging, I would maintain that demographics are not really relevant. We can still produce whatever we want, physically. It's only a matter of finding a way to keep the demand solvent. If you're talking about the world pop. still growing, I agree that it is a problem but I suspect it'll be solved as before: The poor stays poor or become poor again. Especially in the third world...

And resources are a bit of a tricky beast. I am not convinced we're running out of any of them except maybe oil and arable land. Energy could be overcome via solar power fairly soon and, while arable land is a bit trickier, different eating habits could see the situation changed - I already eat less meat, esp. things like beef, because of the price... It's not an absolute "too expensive", it's a relative call on my side.

I've read somewhere that the only real hard limit was air pollution as in climate changing gas emissions i.e. the idea that if we mutate the weather so much as to generate inhospitable conditions, we're fucked.

Anything else, we could deal with on acceptable terms.

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Well I don't know about that. Lets imagine the monetary union did collapse, and we no longer had free movement of goods, services and workers across borders. If economic nationalism, or protectionism, were to make a come-back - and in some sense it already has, as in the spats between the US and China - then you could end up with European states in hostile trade wars, and possibly, real wars. What's different about our political circumstances is precisely the existence of the EU. But as with the recent business of France imposing entry requirements for immigrants streaming in from Italy, the status quo is looking increasingly shaky.

With the difference that in those days France, Britain and Germany were big colonial powers. These days, not so much.

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When it looks like what I've got in my head. But a tight and deep union between France, Germany and the Benelux (Nordic countries can join, if they so wish) is a good start.

So suppose that national interests somehow cease to exist and we manage to get there. All the time we've been playing with ourselves China, India, the US and South America have been positioning themselves for the resource conflicts that we're now about to lose because we were busy sitting around arguing about whether laïcité should feature in the constitution or not.

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Maybe that's the result of working in foreign affairs but normal people don't see any threat from the outside...

Good job that ordinary people don't have a say, then.

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If you're talking about Europe aging, I would maintain that demographics are not really relevant. We can still produce whatever we want, physically. It's only a matter of finding a way to keep the demand solvent. If you're talking about the world pop. still growing, I agree that it is a problem but I suspect it'll be solved as before: The poor stays poor or become poor again. Especially in the third world... And resources are a bit of a tricky beast. I am not convinced we're running out of any of them except maybe oil and arable land. Energy could be overcome via solar power fairly soon and, while arable land is a bit trickier, different eating habits could see the situation changed - I already eat less meat, esp. things like beef, because of the price... It's not an absolute "too expensive", it's a relative call on my side. I've read somewhere that the only real hard limit was air pollution as in climate changing gas emissions i.e. the idea that if we mutate the weather so much as to generate inhospitable conditions, we're fucked. Anything else, we could deal with on acceptable terms.

So how do we transport food to the markets? Using non-renewable energy? How about biofuels? But then they push food prices up. I guess no one cares if the third world starves, except that the third world actually has a say in it these days. That's a large part of why Copenhagen and the Doha round were such epic fails. I guess you can rely on technology continuing to improve, but then technology relies on imported minerals that are usually found in dodgy places and they're running out too.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

With the difference that in those days France, Britain and Germany were big colonial powers. These days, not so much.

Wouldn't stop Spain and Britain and Brittany going to war over fishing rights, would it?

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So suppose that national interests somehow cease to exist and we manage to get there.

My point is we have the same national interests.

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All the time we've been playing with ourselves China, India, the US and South America have been positioning themselves for the resource conflicts that we're now about to lose because we were busy sitting around arguing about whether laïcité should feature in the constitution or not.

1- Details like laicite can be dealt with rapidly. At the end of the day, we are roughly in agreement on everything that matters.
2- We still have nukes so anyone who fancies a game of chicken toward the abyss can try and starve us.
3- I am not seeing resource wars yet and I am not entirely convinced we will see any. China will slow down as it catches up.
4- I don't see the Third World having much of a say on the matter - If resources get constrained, they'll just stay poor.

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Good job that ordinary people don't have a say, then.

I've been saying that for a while.

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So how do we transport food to the markets? Using non-renewable energy? How about biofuels? But then they push food prices up. I guess no one cares if the third world starves, except that the third world actually has a say in it these days. That's a large part of why Copenhagen and the Doha round were such epic fails. I guess you can rely on technology continuing to improve, but then technology relies on imported minerals that are usually found in dodgy places and they're running out too.

Okay - How much trade do we really need? The 50s and 70s were pretty isolationist times. I don't recall us having major shortages or problems. How much of its GDP the EU trades with the rest of the world? And what? AFAICT, the main thing we're buying in an unbalanced fashion is Energy (from Norway and Russia, afaict). If push comes to shove, how much more nuke plants can we build using the latest design, which, if I understand correctly, don't even require uranium?

Basically, I think that, if things really go bad, Fortress Europe can hold. We can be pretty self-sufficient.

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