The African immigration crisis shows just how fake the EU is. The Italians need support but it isn't forthcoming. Germany doesn't care and Greece has its own more important issues. Of course the Italian government will likely want more immigration and demographic stability with Italy's population falling. However short term political events will drive policy, not long-term thinking. The Italian people don't want hundreds of thousands of Africans coming into their nation at will. The way Italy sorts out this problem is to kill or buy off the people traffickers, then toe the boats of people back to Libya. Italy will basically have to intervene in Libya and support which ever group can maintain order in each town and city along the Libyan coast. Italy has been attempting to suck in the whole of the EU to bare the cost, but nobody is going to do anything to help Italy. The same way Italy doesn't care about the Russian threat in the Baltic state. This further leads me to believe that the EU will break apart within 5 years. Also that Italy could be the first nation to leave the political union and Euro currency union. Closely followed by France and Poland. This will cause the EU to politically no longer matter and lose power. It will in the end dissolved.
Now that's a fascinating new perspective since from my reading of the BBC I came away with the distinct impression that if any nation leaves the European Union it will be Greece over the burden of their national debt. It hadn't even occurred to me to look toward Italy. Thanks for the insight!
Well I'm not sure if you were being fascistist about the BBC, but expecting an unbiased World opinion from reading their pro-Gay/pro-Liberal/Pro-Eu & anti-US/anti-Israel propaganda is a challenge. So it may be that many people within the European Countries wish that their state would leave the EU, as their desire & wishes of a free European market has been replaced by an undemocratic bureaucratic monolith that they want to do away with. I see that some left-wing fascist hate the UKIP party & label them with hate labels in order to discriminate against them. But the desire to rid ourselves of the overburdening EU bureaucratic sate is heart felt amongst many across all political views. The left has most to gain from the break-up of the EU. No more cheap labour driving down the wages of the working class, no more 0 hour contracts ...
Actually no one Italian politician talks about leave European Union. Northern League, Brothers of Italy, Five Stars Movement and other right-wing parties want to leave Euro, but not EU.
How do other Italians feel about it? I can only assume the EU enjoys wide popular support in your country if your politicians are likewise in favor of keeping Italy in it. Also, if you feel confident in answering, I'm wondering whether the Greeks are considering leaving the EU at all seriously, or whether it's more just a lot of noise from a loud minority who are not about to make it happen? It's my impression that the media are very often misleading their readers and viewers, giving them false impressions about matters such as this one, simply for the sake of driving viewer traffic, thus boosting their profits.
It's complicated. A lot of Italians don't like current European Union because it look like a kind of Fourth Reich. But they want a different Union, less german-centric and more equal, not to leave it. We think that a Italy alone would be weaker than a Italy in the EU. Euro is another question. A lot of Italians (a bit less of half electorate) want to leave Euro and return to the Lira, previous Italian currency. That's because Euro isn't under control of Italian administration and cannot be devalued to help Italian exportation. Devaluation was a typical financial measures of past administrations to help economy. Greeks don't want to leave European Union too. They know they're doomed without European help. Tsipras for one don't want to leave EU. Unfortunately other European countries want to banish Greece from EU...
There was talk of a Northern European Union, UK, Germany, Demark, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands and so on, by David Cameron. Perhaps its a good idea, it'll take all those evil Germanic people and let them wallow in their weak economies. While Italy and Greece could power ahead with socialism as they please.
Interesting. Shouldn't Italy be equally able to compete with every other EU member nation where exports are concerned, then? With one currency at one value, there's no particular reason for a factory in Germany to have work that couldn't be given to a factory in Italy, and Italy has a potential Mediterranean advantage where logistics is concerned too, seems to me. What is to stop Italy or the other poorer EU members from becoming economic powerhouses? If Greece ends up leaving the EU, do you think they will get help from Russia and recover partially as a consequence? I seem to recall reading somewhere about Russia being willing to help them out. I imagine China might also be willing. One issue this all raises in my mind is that of wealth inequality among different nations and around the world as a whole. It seems to me as though the EU should be balancing its member states out, helping to raise the poorer states up and, unfortunately, perhaps bring the wealthier states down a bit as well, depending on how the EU is able to increase its wealth overall. Has the EU helped Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania and such others to elevate their wealth and standards of living, would you say? Surely it was supposed to accomplish this, but with how things have been going in Greece it seems it has not always been successful. So, has it been successful at all in this elsewhere?
The E.U. would not really be "Europe" anymore without Italy. When we think of Europe (or at least continental Europe), the first three countries that come to mind are France, Germany, and Italy. These are the three main countries. The expulsion of Italy would signal end of the E.U. Italy, however, has always had a different "culture" from the other North/Western European countries, and this manifests itself in monetary policies. Italy may just not be fully compatible with complete integration into the rest of the E.U. Not to single out Italy in particular, it's really a matter of degrees. Italy is a large country, it's not just a smaller one that could easily integrate if it were so different.
I have to agree with Anders H. Remember, Italy was one of the first countries to join what is now the EU (along with the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany and France). I agree with I can't remember who that Italy would probably fare best in a less German-centric EU. NOt sure about going back to the Lira as that was a pretty inflated currency.
Yes, this is what I meant. It is a matter of degrees, some nations are further towards a certain direction. A union between France and Germany might be possible, and a union between France and Italy might be possible, but put Germany and Italy in the same boat, there is not going to be room for flexibility. Even when it comes to just France and Germany, there is conflict over debt and monetary policy. Despite this, I actually think the gulf between Italy and France is even greater. As the E.U. gets put under more strain and unemployment rises, there is only going to be more conflict. When things are reaching a crisis, the populations will not have the prosperity to be flexible and make sacrifices. Cooperation and general prosperity go hand in hand. Unfortunately, the large scale migration of people has not helped. Europe thought it was prosperous enough to have open borders and jobs for those who wanted them. This was not the case. Italy is not really even in the same class as France and Germany, as general living standards go. I discussed a little more about that this thread: The U.S. has droped to a Second world country
The treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community treaty (EEC) & its for-runner the European Coal & Steel Community was an idea to allow the free trade amongst European members without excessive import tariffs being imposed on exported goods between partners. This was seen as a good idea & many people voted to join this community. Unfortunately the EEC has become a very different beast (the EU) and it will not allow members to leave, it does this by its totally corrupt structure of bridging politicians (who will sell their sole for a dollar) & control of the media that lie to people that economic disaster & even war would ensue if the EU was to break up. In fact, given the desires of most European citizens for free trade the EU could be dismantled as their are now many free trade agreements such as GATT that would serve its members much better without the over burden & expense of the EU bureaucracy. NOTE that all EU members are signatories of the GATT agreement. So why do we need the EU? I mean why does it have two seats of Parliament on in Brussels & one in Strasburg, if that isn't a waste of money what is?
"Brothers of Italy"? Don't translate ... or I will expect for "Sisters of Italy"!! A part a bit of humor, this comes out of the blue for me. Italy is among the founders of EU, with Germany and France, so that if other European countries want to leave the Union ... they are welcome, but we are the union, why should we leave ourselves??? Mah ...
