Talk:European Union

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the European Union article.
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Article policies
To-do list for European Union: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • Overall Article Structure: Agree where to adhere and where to deviate from country article guidelines.
  • History: add Schengen agreement, Euro introduction, Velvet Revolution/fall of Iron Curtain which made accession of 10 new eastern members possible.
  • Three pillars: needs expansion and explanation, EEC section needs specific examples
  • Institutions and bodies:convert list to prose, add purpose and function of the institutions
  • Foreign relations: expand content, mention EU stance towards Atlantic alliance, Nato, USA, China, UN, and Kyoto protocol
  • Economy: expand content, mention most important stock markets, trade surplus, etc.
  • Demographics: expand content, mention immigration to the member countries
  • Infrastructure and energy: expand content, mention Highways, Ports, Airports, Rail within EU. Explain investment and programmes initiated by EU policy. Mention energy strategy.
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Contents

[edit] Map with member states !!!

I don't understand why this map of Europe is used. It is true that in the south of Slovakia something like 500.000 Hungarians live but it is STILL Slovakia, not Hungary. So, on the map the southern part of Slovakia is cut off and added to Hungary. The area of Slovakia is 49.000 km2 and the area of Switzerland is 41.000 km2 but on the map Slovakia seems to be smaller than Switzerland. Could anyone replace the map, please?

[edit] Language in Europe...somethings wrong!

Well, ok,. i was reading aobut the European Union..and i read the official languages. But their is sometihng wrong. they said that Enlgish is the most foreign language people speak there. French is. also, pretty much every country now will teach french as a seocnd language in School. In Enlgand, French is the most forign language spoke. France is the main country of Europe, having Paris as the center of economic. FrankFurt is second (in Gemrany, Students learn french, and then English). Also, their is a big anti-American feeling in Europe, so why would they make Enlgish they 'official' language. With time, Frnech is becoming more and more used in Europe, while enlgish sits after French. Their is big chances that GErman language knoks of the Enlgish language also...

So i feel that the statemnt is untrue, and it was biased. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.243.168.10 (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

But surely the idea that "France is the main country in Europe" a bit non-NPOV? And if not, your own research? We need a citation for that. Again, with your following statements, we need a citation PROVING French is the most commonly-spoken language in Europe.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).
Students in Germany can choose wether they want to learn French or Eglish as the first foreign language. Though it is common to learn French at the elementary school in regions near the French border most students choose English as their first foreign language at secondary school. Grmpf 12:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Another point; anti-Americanism doesn't relate to the English language. It is from England, afterall, and not America. Again, a POV point. And to add to that, English isn't the official language, it's just the most commonly spoken one (per the article).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).

That English is the most widely spoken foreign language is a claim based on European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 243: Europeans and their LanguagesPDF (6.77 MiB), European Commission website (published online only). See also the executive summaryPDF (485 KiB) of this survey. This survey is the only with a EU-wide scope, i.e. it gives comparable data. In this article no claims are made about any future tendencies. So, everything is all right. --Michkalas 20:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is the European Union a supranational body?

The opening sentence states "The European Union (EU) is a supranational and intergovernmental union of 27 states." Yet the Supranationalism article argues that the EU is not considered to be supranational by most academics. I suggest this is too contentious for the opening sentence and should be reworded. Lumos3 09:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Economic politics are clearly handled supranational. The EU institutions govern the EEC with directives without intergovernmental treaties. The article about Supranationalism is therefore inaccurate. Lear 21 10:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's repeat the articles' argument against supranational. The EU itself cannot setup legislation for its members states, it has to be approved and incorporated in the relevant national legislations. Hence the EU is not truly supranational. (including the powers shifted to the EEC)
That things are governed centrally is just following a set of international treaties, and as such the EU is not necessarily different from WHO, UN, WTO, NATO and other international treaty organisations.
Thus following a very strict definition the EU is not supranational.
However, I think this is overinterpreting the phrase. The article on supranational acknowledges that no supranational union (in the strict sense) exists, but that the EU shows enough characteristics of such a body (parliament, court of justice). Thus I am of the opinion that the phrase supranational is sufficiently applicable to the EU to maintain. Arnoutf 13:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC) (PS I think the supranationalism article indeed needs improvement).
As I understand it, EU regulations are binding on citizens without first being incorporated into national legislation; and EU directives are binding on national governments. --Boson 23:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure about the first, and cannot recall an example (do you have any). EU directives are only binding after the national governments have agreed that they will be (ie accepted the directive in national parliament, or given the EU explicit authority to draft a directive). Here EU directives are not much different from other international treaties. Arnoutf 07:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by an example. There are thousands and thousands of regulations, all of which are binding. They are published in the official journal, and the database can be searched at EUR-LEX. A fairly random example would be COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 907/2004 of 29 April 2004 amending the marketing standards applicable for fresh fruit and vegetables with regards to presentation and labelling. It contains things like: ‘Stickers individually affixed on product shall be such as, when removed, neither to leave visible traces of glue, nor to lead to skin defects.’

The different binding nature of regulations and directives is explained at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/droit_communautaire/droit_communautaire.htm#1.3:

1.3.2. Regulation Adopted by the Council in conjunction with the European Parliament or by the Commission alone, a regulation is a general measure that is binding in all its parts. Unlike directives, which are addressed to the Member States, and decisions, which are for specified recipients, regulations are addressed to everyone. A regulation is directly applicable, which means that it creates law which takes immediate effect in all the Member States in the same way as a national instrument, without any further action on the part of the national authorities. 1.3.3. Directive Adopted by the Council in conjunction with the European Parliament or by the Commission alone, a directive is addressed to the Member States. Its main purpose is to align national legislation. A directive is binding on the Member States as to the result to be achieved but leaves them the choice of the form and method they adopt to realise the Community objectives within the framework of their internal legal order. If a directive has not been transposed into national legislation in a Member State, if it has been transposed incompletely or if there is a delay in transposing it, citizens can directly invoke the directive in question before the national courts.

A directive is binding on the national government, though there is room for interpretation. The national legislature has a date by which national legislation to implement the directive must be passed. I believe the UK and Denmark are the two states that most often keep to the deadline, whereas the Germans are often very tardy. AIUI, if the appropriate legislation is not passed, national or European courts may directly apply their own interpretation of the directive. Nationals may also sue their own government for losses resulting from their government's breach of the law. I believe this happened in Germany when the Federal Republic of Germany was late in implementing an EC directive protecting holidaymakers in case of bankcruptcy of holiday organisers. If I recall correctly, Germany was first convicted of a breach of the directive by the European Court, and a German court subsequently awarded damages against the German state to some holiday makers.--Boson 14:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It's all in the name! Directives frame the direction in which national laws have to be made, regulations regulate (just an odd term for a law). The terms proposed in the European Constitution are even better: directives are to be known as framework laws for they provide a framework to which national laws have to comply and regulations are to be known as laws which is of course the proper term for it. Maartenvdbent 16:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, and indeed the constitution directives will only be operational after each country has ratified them. Thus countries have (more or less) free will whether to accept a directive and after that they are indeed binding (just like any other international treaty). But I agree its all in the name Arnoutf 16:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
To my mind, the Wikipedia article on Supranationalism is talking about something different to the simple word supranational - see for example dictionary definitions such as supranational - American Heritage Dictionary which gives the definition as "extending beyond or transcending established borders or spheres of influence held by separate nations: a supranational economy; supranational federations." This is a complex area but I think supranationalism means something more than just supranational as used in this article.MarkThomas 17:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the view that countries have free will whether to accept a directive. Their "freedom" is analogous to everone's freedom to break the law (and suffer the consequences). If a country does not implement a directive within the specified period it is in breach of the law; sanctions can be imposed, and citizens can sue for damages resulting from that illegal (in)action.
I don't really see that the proposed constitution changes much, except for calling directives "framework laws".
Article I-33 states

A European framework law shall be a legislative act binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.

Article I-34 states:

Legislative acts 1. European laws and framework laws shall be adopted, on the basis of proposals from the Commission, jointly by the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure as set out in Article III-396.

--Boson 20:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Those are true, but the EU is not allowed to construct framework laws on all issues (e.g. abortion, same sex marriage etc.) because national government have not given the EU the power to do so in these issues. That is all I tried to say. National governments have to give EU the power to construct framework laws on certain issues (and after that the EU has power I agree, close to a supranational govt); the EU, however, has no power to attract issues the governments have never been willing to succede to the EU, in those cases the EU is not a true supranational govt in that it cannot force national govts to pass on that power. Arnoutf 20:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we are agreed on that. I'm just not sure if that is very much different from the situation in any federal state, such as the USA or Germany, where the component states retain sovereignty in some matters. Perhaps what makes the EU different, when compared with federal states, is that sovereignty in things like foreign relations and defence is retained by the constituent states, though if that were not the case, it could be argued that the EU was a single federal state and the discussion about supranationality would be pointless.--Boson 21:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Debates about these sorts of little words are never ending, even if they are interesting. I think the technical answer to the question is "yes" and "no" - "supra" just means "above", so are there things where EU decision making is above nation states that are members? Yes. Is it always above? No. Countries are free to leave the EU, and they are the ones who create the treaties, so ultimately Member States are the highest if you like; but I think that to most people supra implies what the EU is ("albeit in limited fields" as the ECJ once said) and it's something that has not been done before. I wouldn't describe the US and Germany as Supranational entities, because nation states can't be above themselves (if you see what I mean) so these kinds of comparisons don't work. Academics like Weiler are talk about supranational simply as something contrasted to intergovernmentalism- the way that the UN works for instance. My own view is that the EU is a model that is breaking past and beyond the international system of the nation state and that's what really makes it "supra" "national". Wikidea 08:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Elegant summary of my own vision on this. Arnoutf 15:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geograhpy

I think its quite ridicolous when talking about the geography of Europe to use an image of a beach and believe it is somehow representative. I've placed a satellite composite of the European continent which is far more suitable. I've made two reverts, I'll leave it for others to decide. --A.Garnet 13:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think both you and Lear21 have a bit of a point here. Although many countries have shores, not all of them have sandy beaches and this is hardly a generic geographical property of the EU. Of course countries like Luxembroug, Austria, the Tsjech republic, etc etc are mountainous countries without sea access. Perhaps a mini gallery with some of the most typical EU geographical landscapes (beaches, mountains, wetlands, dry mediterranean country side, please add more) would be more suited. I agree with Lear21, that the satellite image does not add much over the maps and does not distinguish between EU and Europe. Arnoutf 15:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The coastline is the most dominant geographical feature for the vast majority of member states. It influences especially the climate situation. It´s a standard image for this kind of section. It also avoids being a 'beach' in a touristic sense, because it lacks the people. Lear 21 21:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not completely agree. The EU is not a country; hence we should be flexible about using so called standard things. Furhtermore the climatic influence is not easy. There are several marine climates in Europe (Northsea, Atlantic, Mediteranean) that are highly different, to say that coastline without any further specification determines climates in the majority of countries is too simple. Hence again, I would say give a mini gallery of 4 typical EU geographical landscapes. PS it is not all that standard. large countries should be considered and here Canada shows both a satellite image and a waterfall, the US shows a dormant volcano, Russia shows a snowed mountain peak AND a pine forest, China shows a precipitation map and no photo, India shows a topographic map showing elevation, and Australia shows a climate map. Hardly a standard feature I would say.....Arnoutf 09:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I would support another image (alpine region prefered), when written content is expanded as well. For now, a gallery or a second image would lead to an overload in this section. Lear 21 10:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that is a fair enough argument, will see how the text develops and come back to this later. Arnoutf 11:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time Magazine article about EU

It is almost mirroring this article and could be used for expansion [1]. Lear 21 13:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

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