# What do Americans think of the E.U.?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-americans-think-of-the-e-u/742584>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 9, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-americans-think-of-the-e-u/742584 "2016-01-09T16:06:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-americans-think-of-the-e-u/742584/41 "2016-01-12T05:30:51Z")

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> [@Nava](#):
>
> Eeeeh?
> 
> Parliament is elected, what’s not elected is the Commissioners (that’s similar to how many of our own governments work, but the way in which the Commisioners are picked is different from how national governments are). We don’t have so many elections that we’ll miss the huge pile of papers European elections produce.

The so-called president, some German fellow, is also not elected. So fuck him.

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**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-americans-think-of-the-e-u/742584/42 "2016-01-12T21:04:30Z")

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> [@Rune](#):
>
> The so-called president, some German fellow, is also not elected. So fuck him.

You mean Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament? He was elected, by the members of that body, just as the analogous Speaker of the House is elected in the US.

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-americans-think-of-the-e-u/742584/43 "2016-01-12T21:42:20Z")

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> [@XT](#):
>
> Sadly, I don’t think it will ever be a ‘United States of Europe’, though I really think that’s what they SHOULD do.

That’s kind of my take on it as well- they really need/needed to shit or get off the pot about whether they’re a loose economic confederation in conjunction with a customs agreement(Schengen) and a monetary union, or whether they’re a real, solid federal republic where the constituent states delegate some proportion of their sovereignty and control of certain things to the central goverment, and retain absolute control over other aspects of governance. And “in for a penny, in for a pound” needs to be the rule; none of this UK-style cherrypicking of the good parts, and avoiding the crap parts

As it stands, from my side of the Atlantic the EU _seems_ to be a shambolic entity that doesn’t really have any identity or teeth; most of the EU wrangling about the Greek fiscal crises were really the Germans making decisions, not the EU government making decisions and having the Greeks AND Germans fall in line. And foreign policy decisions seem to be undertaken by NATO and its members, not by the EU.

That doesn’t bode well for the long haul; what happens if the Germans, French or British decide to “go rogue” in a sense and not look out for the EU proper with respect to their monetary policy or anything else?

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