American Reacts The European Union - Summary on a Map

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McJibbin
P.O. Box 447
Bristol, Rhode Island 02809
USA

Hi everyone! I'm an American from the Northeast (New England). I want to create a watering hole for people who want to discuss, learn and teach about history through YouTube videos which you guys recommend to me through the comment section or over on Discord. Let's be respectful but, just as importantly, not be afraid to question any and everything about historical records in order to give us the most accurate representation of the history of our species and of our planet!

#american
#mcjibbin
#americanreacts
#reaction

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[araptorofnote]

Just for the record, not to mention international relations, the two 'giant wars' were not between Britain and France.

[alicemilne]

De Gaulle did not veto Britain's accession because he thought the UK was too close to the USA. He vetoed it because he thought Britain did not share the spirit in which the European Communitues had been founded. And he was right.

[matshjalmarsson]

The infancy of EU, the Steel and Coal union was a way to prevent future wars between France and Germany, but more imortantly a way to help the economy of the countries. It had nothing to do with fear of the Soviet Union

[ReinholdHMai]

The reconciliation effort after WW2 had nothing to do with being afraid of the Soviet Union and everything to do with the quite realistic fear that the next war between France and Germany would be the end of both. And the realisation that the only way to prevent it was to break the deadly spiral of rivalry and hatred between them. The USSR didn't enter into it.

[dnocturn]

1:35 No, it's not "just" fear from the Soviet Union. This is a summary, that only someone who doesn't live here can make. It is also a result of the end of a very deadly war and the vision to prevent this in the future. What lead to WW2 and what can we do to prevent this from ever happening again was the main goal here. What made it possible, what structural errors lead to it, what mistakes were made, what chances to prevent or stop it were analyzed and the search for solutions and a better future started. The biggest problem was Frances and Germanys rivalry and their manifested hate for each other echoing from past conflicts.

[DianeLittle-ddej]

Scotland was outvoted in Brexit majority in Scotland’ voted to remain in the EU.

[Bakers_Doesnt]

You have to remember that WWII was more a war against the Nazis and Italian Fascists more than against Germany (and Italy), albeit controlled by the Nazis. The Allies were more interested in rebuilding the European mainland than perpetuating animosity against the German and Italian people (popular sentiment aside). Germany received more assistance than the UK despite being on the victorious side. Simplistically, rationing after WWII ended in West Germany in 1950, which didn't end in the UK til 1954, and the UK didn't fully repay USA for war loans until 2006.

[Pidalin]

In former Czechoslovakia, we wanted to join Marshall plan, but after commies took power in 1948 and we fell under Soviet influence, Soviets banned it. Europe would be completely different if Soviets let their occupied countries accept Marshall plan.

[bjornflintberg]

The Schengen area is just the area in which you require no passport. It has no other powers or implications with regards to how well connected countries are. The Eurozone is the name for the countries sharing the same currency - the Euro. Denmark and Sweden are, for instance, part of Schengen but not the Euro. Notably, some countries outside the EU are also part of the Schengen agreemen (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein).

[dontshanonau]

Schuman's offer had NOTHING to do with "fearing the Soviet Union". Schuman was born German and a member of the German Imperial administration. He only got French citizenship when Lorraine was annexed by France after WW1, at which point he was 32 years old. Of course he'd advocate for cooperation between France and Germany.

[dnocturn]

7:29 The Commission and the Council are representatives from each member. One per member nation. And member nations aren't equally in size, population size and wealth and economical power. This ensures that all members have a say in it, but it doesn't take the quantity of the people into account and it is always only an indirect representative active. The Parliament is the missing direct connection to the population.

[thomaslowdon]

The whole point was to bring everyone together as a united family..
Plus economic advantages for all..

[Real_MrDev]

As per 2024 the EU has expanded the "waiting list" to Bosnia, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.
Croatia joined the Eurozone.
Romania and Bulgaria have partially joined the Schengen area.

[TheGrizzypoo]

Easy way to think about the three EU institutions:
European Commission: Proposes and enacts new law. Basically civil servants.
European Parliament: Considers the needs of the EU through elected MEPs. Can approve of reject proposals
Council of the European Union: Considers the needs of member states through ministers. Can approve or reject proposals

Both the Parliament and Council must agree through a number of negotiations before a new law is passed.

[jamiegrant]

16:50 Just for context surrounding Ireland's initial rejection of both the Nice and Lisbon treaties: it was because of ambiguities in the treaties which may have conflicted with Ireland's strict military neutrality. Ireland maintains a system called "The Triple Lock" for her armed forces. This is a system wherein Irish soldiers can only be deployed to a jurisdiction with approval of i) the Irish parliament, ii) the government of the jurisdiction in question and iii) a successful UN Security Council resolution or UN General Assembly resolution. Both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties were amended to give Ireland exemptions on articles which could potentially conflict with her neutrality. Once amended the treaties passed.

[bjornflintberg]

It's not so much that the Council and Commission represent the HR and Senate. It's more that the Commission is the executive branch, where the commissioners work for the EU, as "ministers" in the "EU government", and the Council represents the states involved. The Council members still represent their nation states so when there is a bill on agriculture, the commissioner of Agriculture proposes it, the Council meeting for this would be all the national ministers of Agriculture to feedback on how this law would impact them, ask for modifications and so forth. The Parliament was originally just to include the citizens in some way, so that the people would have some say in the process. Over the years, the Parliament's power has grown so that it is now able to give more than just opinions - it has to pass their chamber too for things to actually become real. So instead of two chambers, there are three - two of which represent the nation-states (with the council being like the Senate, each state having the same amount of say, and the parliament like HR, proportional by population).

TLDR: If you want to compare it to the US, the Commission is the White House, the Council is the Senate, and the Parliament is HR. (A very rough and simplified explanation but as close as I can make a comparison)

[Alias_Anybody]

It takes special talent to listen to a sentence specifically saying what exactly the Schengen treaty does, only to then be confused about what the Schengen treaty does 5 seconds later.

[TheNismo]

From the war torn europe, we decided to stand up and rebuild europe better.. together. There is no point fighting with each other. :)

[Bill-]

I remember on the run up to the eu referendum there were several reasons that made voting to leave appealing 1. Immigration was sky rocketing in the late 2000’s and politician after politician said they would try to lower it but ultimately their hands were tired by EU law so leaving was supposed to give them the power to reduce it (which didn’t happen)

2. The euro crisis, we saw it as a failing of the euro and nothing to do with us but the EU used a emergency aid fund designed to give aid in the event of natural disaster was enacted forcing non euro countries to bail out those who crashed such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland so uk citizens weren’t happy this emergency fund was misused

3. and then there was the general direction the EU was going with things like the proposal of a European army looked like a United States of Europe which many didn’t want. Like several other comments say we just wanted to trade.

[GazilionPT]

0:37 "The West looks to the US for reconstruction aid." Some mistakes there...
They coloured Portugal the same as the rest of the West, so, the quoted sentence is wrong, because Portugal did not "look to the US for reconstruction aid".
It's true Portugal was *offered* reconstruction aid under the Marshal Plan (because although Portugal was not a belligerent country, its economy had been affected by the war), but our *dictator* actually *refused* such aid, because he feared it would open up Portugal to Western-style democracies.
So, the colouring on the map at best depicts the countries that were offered help, not the ones that requested/received it.
And in fact, not even that, because the US also offered to include Soviet-occupied countries in the Marshal Plan (and the Soviets force them to refuse, of course).