Reddit reviews For Europe

Verhofstadt is a euro extremist - in a sense that in 2012 he published European Manifesto where he is calling for abandoning nation states parliaments and replace these with the European Parliament, bring more immigrants from Arabic countries, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Europe-Guy-Verhofstadt/dp/1479261882/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485788228&sr=1-6&keywords=verhofstadt
“Europe must once and for all get rid of the navel gazing of its nation-states. A radical revolution is needed. A large European revolution. And a European federal Union must emerge. A Union that enables Europe to participate in the postnational world of tomorrow.

You haven’t proved it ain’t. It just depends on what perspective you look at it from. I’m offering a different perspective which is equally correct. There are 44 countries in Europe according to NATO. Up to 51 with some other counts yet the EU only has 28 members.

The conditions for joining the EU are strict and Elitist. You can argue that this may be a good thing which is totally valid, the EU has every reason to expect a country to meet very very specific conditions. Similarly you may argue it has good reasons for being as protectionist as it is but what you can’t do is deny it is these things, the EU defines itself as such.

I don’t particularly care either way about the EU there are arguments on both sides. However I do appreciate consistency and with that let’s just acknowledge that the whole concept of the EU is at the very least elitist if not racist.

Where I find your argument short sighted is you don’t acknowledge the trajectory or concept of federalisation that the EU is on. Key figures have made no secret, writing manifestos that the only way to save Europe is to become like the USA. Therefore the whole argument turns around if you start thinking of the EU AS a nation itself with states. It pretty much fulfils most criterias that satisfy the definition of being a nation. Indeed you highlighted most of them including a single currency. Which has done a huge amount of damage which Yanis Varoufakis is pretty eloquent on. If you’re not familiar with this aspect of the EU I recommend you look into it a bit. I think you might get into it. Also you should read the Maastricht treaty and Lisbon treaty to better understand the Union. They’re all available online.