points by trumpdong 17 hours ago

The EU has no sovereignty, countries (like Hungary and Germany) can openly disobey it and the worst they can do is kick them out of the EU

microtonal 15 hours ago

kick them out of the EU

AFAIK, not even that. This topic came up in relation to Hungary (before Orban was gone). What I understood from the discussion is that a country can only be punished by not giving them EU funds, etc.

  • lukan 12 hours ago

    Kicking out is possible, but not established and everyone happy that Orban is gone for now and no immediate need to find out how that process works in reality.

cassianoleal 16 hours ago

> the worst they can do is kick them out of the EU

As opposed to what? Armed invasion?

  • trumpdong 15 hours ago

    Yes. The EU has no army, no legal sovereignty within each country, etc. It's an alliance of countries NOT a single federal government. The individual countries remain in charge of themselves and the alliance is supposed to be structured in a way that only paases things the countries actually want.

    • cassianoleal 14 hours ago

      So you think it would be better if the EU started a war with a member state that failed to uphold the union's laws?

      • lukan 12 hours ago

        Why would he or she think that? Your questions are close to strawman arguments in my perception.

        • cassianoleal 5 hours ago

          Let's follow the timeline, shall we? It shouldn't be difficult as it's a pretty linear tree in the comments.

          1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423657

          I mentioned that Europe is a lot more than the EU, and even within the EU member countries diverge.

          2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423908

          trumpdong then makes a comment that I interpret as saying the EU doesn't have a lot of power over member states, and saying that the worst which could happen to one of them is to be kicked out of the EU.

          3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48424244

          Slightly shocked by the idea that the EU should be doing something worse than expelling a member for not following the Union's rules, I use a _reductio ad absurdum_ and ask if they thought the EU should be harder and actually perform an armed invasion of a member state that didn't follow them.

          4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48425100

          To my shock, trumpdong literally says "yes".

          5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48425487

          I, due to the shock described above, decide to question again in more words if that's actually what they mean.

          ---

          Hopefully that responds your question. I see no straw man, but if you still do, please present it.