> No, the end is to destroy national identities and cultures
I was referring to the official position of the EU, which is verifiable in their public documents; I don’t care about far-right propaganda. People of course are free to care more about “cultural identity” (whatever it means in the 21st century), than about war. But it doesn’t change the fact that the EU has been successful in creating the longest period of continuous peace in the history of the continent. And this is what it intended from the beginning.
I think throwing abuse like calling my previous comment "far right propaganda" is a case in point of how rotten the debate has become in Europe on any actual, serious issues, and especially on the possibility to express concerns.
To deny the very existence of cultural identities is also quite bizarre. Of course countries have their own cultural identies and this is in fact something absolutely key in the current political dynamics in Europe.
Your theory about EU intentionally destroying cultural identities, isn’t supported by any document published by the EU or any conference transcripts. No EU official has ever described this to be the goal. I’ve only heard about it in far right media. So as a matter of fact, it is far right propaganda.
If you want real cultural identities, build a time machine and travel back before airplanes, the internet and neoliberal finance rendered cultural divisions in western countries obsolete.
> Your theory about EU intentionally destroying cultural identities, isn’t supported by any document published by the EU or any conference transcripts.
You yourself state that the final objective of the EU has always been complete integration across all departments. I don't see how it's possible to retain individual cultural identities in that construct - either you'd have to compromise on representative democracy and equally distribute representation across all cultures, making the vote of a Croat valued more than that of a German, or you'd end up making the vote of the Bulgarian irrelevant against the vote of the French. This is kind of already the case in more closely integrated federations of a similar kind - India and Russia. Individual cultures are slowly being replaced across regions, as people are forced to learn Hindi and Russian to get a job or access some government benefits, in spite of the protests of their respective state governments.
> If you want real cultural identities, build a time machine and travel back before airplanes, the internet and neoliberal finance rendered cultural divisions in western countries obsolete.
Your arguments are precisely the kind of uneducated drivel that provide fuel to anti-EU sentiment
> This is kind of already the case in more closely integrated federations of a similar kind
And it is already the case in western countries. Learning english is more or less mandatory at this point, while democracy is being influenced by consumer culture and media, which are often produced by multinational corporations, financed through a global network of banks and distributed via the internet. But this has nothing to do with the EU, in fact it isn’t being intended by any single institution or organisation as an aim in itself. It’s a far bigger and frankly irreversible phenomenon that emerges from present conditions.
Nobody will declare war on their neighbour when they depend on them for food and other essential resources.
The EU addresses resource and cultural motivations.
NATO intimidates countries that already want to take resources from their neighbours.
NATO has its merit as well, but the EU is unarguably one of the main reasons why EU countries have not even begun to think about creating military conflict within member states since the 1950s.
I think the formation of EU was irrelevant for peace.
Disagree. Going from a bombed-out, stone-age hellscape to conflict-free and essentially borderless in just 47 years was a very impressive achievement. Unfortunately for the past several years we've been headed in the reverse direction.
I was referring to the official position of the EU, which is verifiable in their public documents; I don’t care about far-right propaganda. People of course are free to care more about “cultural identity” (whatever it means in the 21st century), than about war. But it doesn’t change the fact that the EU has been successful in creating the longest period of continuous peace in the history of the continent. And this is what it intended from the beginning.