It is difficult to scale across Europe.
Most countries will gladly fall back to "we do how we please in our country, Europe won't tell us what to do!" which is the usual nationalistic rally to which many fall prey not realizing how good it would be to start making small but steady steps into common regulations.
We really need a strong internal market.
It’s going to be difficult to achieve this without the establishment of a single official language. That’s where the US gets most of its advantage: a large population of English speakers means a large single market for products in English.
Sure, lots of products (like food) don’t care about language but software and media (literature, music, video games, movies, TV) definitely do. It’s no coincidence that the US dominates the global market for those cultural and technology products.
Swiss confederation solved this while having 4 official languages. Language is not the problem, especially nowadays when everything could be translated in a second.
Laws and regulations are.
This is like people who will be pointing on weak, indecisive Europe. But when somebody suggests that we should get rid of unanimous voting so one country can't sabotage everybody else, suddenly those people love weak and indecisive Europe and won't give their veto right. Wanting their cake and eating it too...
Just one example: I am hearing far too often that France is overly protecting their own interests and as such can't reach important deals with Germany about sharing burdens and profits. So it results in duplicated, incompatible systems. Germany is generally more open to share benefits and intel with other countries.
Such deal-making can drag on for decades, to only fall out. For industries to scale, they need long term planning and a guaranteed pipeline of orders. I am talking about ships, planes, MBT's, air defence, missile tech--not riffles.
It is a shame, because both countries are powerhouses in engineering. Also, this costs EU taxpayers billions of dollars, and perhaps their safety even.
This can occur even with a more integrated market. The problem is that military suppliers deliberately make as many things 'sole source' as possible so they can be the only supplier and hence charge even higher rates. I'm don't mean the big items like tanks and planes, but the little consumable stuff like lubrication oils, fasteners, gears, etc. that are made to be non-compatible with other systems on purpose. Harder to fix because of the usual corporation-military-lobbying feedback loops and because it requires standards which can be technically intensive to develop.
If there is one body on earth that is able to cut with standards and regulation through enterprises, it is the EU I think, so even that is not hopeless. But large capital flows through the mil.industry comes with risks, yes.
It has the obvious problem that it doesn't work at night and in winter. That's a big problem. I don't know how to fix that.
In other words, they count on non-solar backup... which not only makes solar more expensive, but basically redundant.
Until Solar+storage is the cheapest form of energy while delivering its promised output at 4AM after a cloudy day in freezing temperatures, the "solar is cheap" stuff is simply dishonest.
How does the US do it? They have a fair amount of states too with their own laws, don't they?
Sure, federalism produces some overhead and inefficiencies. But it also has many benefits. Especially to avoid too much power in one hand but also others. E.g. you can have different school systems in different states and see what works better and adapt the other systems (if you actually do that is another question).
People are also different in different states. This also applies to Europe and its member states. Just merging all into one is just a recipe to fail epically.
In practice, it's more nuanced and subject to continual back-and-forth arguing. E.g. California and Texas trying to decide their own standards, by virtue of their economic size, then hashing it out with the federal government in court.
I'm not sure what the EU regulatory cornerstone equivalent of the Commerce Clause would be.
The division is on purpose, to divide power and make it harder for a second Hitler to rise again. And the calculations are no assumption, it's a common topic in Germany how much additional time and money this all costs.
> How does the US do it? They have a fair amount of states too with their own laws, don't they?
Why do you assume they are different? Or better?
> E.g. you can have different school systems in different states and see what works better
You can also have this without federalism, without maintaining a dozen different administrations which are all doing the same in different flavour.
> People are also different in different states. This also applies to Europe and its member states.
Compared to Europe, people in the USA are not that different per state. At least not on the level where individual administration is necessary. The different groups are mainly independent of the state they are living in.
In Germany, we call unsubstantiated calculations like this "Milchmädchenrechnung" (milkmaid calculation).
Why is it, that when you move between states, your tax office needs to print out your records, send them to your new state's office, only for some poor soul to type them into their system because each state uses a different system without any common exchange format? Make it make sense!
And there are hundreds of electrical grid operators with different hardware requirements. In my eyes efficiency looks different.
And the compromise was the Federation of Germany.
Sadly, this centralization of political power has been a disaster for mankind IMO.
Even as we've transitioned from monarchies to democracies over the last few centuries, the trend has largely resulted in the replacement of actual, determinative choices with merely having a millionth of a share of a choice. Not a determinative choice, but a say.
Consider the holy roman empire, for example. [0]
Under this scheme of decentralization, people had an actual choice of their government. Say you were a merchant in Mühlhausen circa 1700, and you found yourself in opposition to your local government. You could simply move a short distance to a different area and be beholdened to an entirely different government. You'd have 50 choices within 100 miles! While it's true that the HRE was all under the administration of one government, but it was extremely weak. It lacked, for example, the ability to levy direct taxes. After unification in 1870, the same merchant would've had to move much further to escape his government, and his options had been diminished by 95%. After European unification, he would have to travel to another continent!
While democracy has given us control of our governments in theory, in practice the "choice" it offers is much less empowering than the determinative choice afforded by decentralization. The larger our political entities grow, the more diluted our "say" and the fewer full choices are available to us. In the United States, we have less than 1/100,000,000th of a share of the choice in our chief executive!
While democracy is obviously preferable to Aristocracy/Monarchy/Tyranny, on it's own it is still only a marginal improvement. At worst, you can still end up with 49.9% of people living under a government they oppose. Decentralization solves this lingering problem, because it allows people to self-sort in and out of countries they don't like, allowing for people who truly despise their governments to choose themselves a new government.
In the absence of such a safety valve, people are forced into a zero-sum struggle for power. It is rule or be ruled. Dominate or be dominated. We're seeing this in the United States right now. We're not at each other's throats because we hate each other. Not even because we hate each other's politics in the abstract. We're at each other's throats because neither side is content to be ruled by the other.
The same reason that centralized entities only arise by force is the same reason they fall apart in the end. People don't want them. They don't want to be dominated.
Centralization of political power forces people into an inescapable struggle for power. It is the enemy of peace and tranquility, and a blight on humanity.
Whose fault is that? Who is constantly forcing regulations which hurt EU industries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal#Job_losses...
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/12/16/eu-carmakers-t...
Instead of fixing the problems they have created they are now placing taxes on imported heavy goods.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/01/01/eus-carbon-bor...
So, no coal has no future in Germany
Ahh, thats why the EU is moving to LNG, now I get it!
Is it? News for this resident of the EU. What exactly are you referencing?
Most states in the EU are focusing on renewables one way or another, are you talking about a specific country here or?
And no, renewables aren't for the upper class, the sun is free for everyone with panels, and panels can be bought relatively cheap today.
Never owned a place, had solar panels installed in the last three places I lived in, the first two were apartments, currently renting a house. None of the owners had problems with us installing solar panels.
Owning a house does not require belonging to the "upper class" in Europe.
Lol european security strategy? We switched from Russian dependence, to a more expensive US dependence. While also being strongly dependent on middle eastern gas and oil. What the hell kind of strategy is that?
To be fair, most of us believed the US to be a reliable partner, based on previous track record, but things like that change quickly. So we thought we were changing something cheaper from a hostile entity, to something more expensive from an ally, but turns it we got it wrong, so new direction now.
edit: Since I can no longer repy I will edit in place:
Just the kind of regulation that drives out investment and growth. Now we have no money printing tech giants and our best and brightest work for US companies. But we do have bragging rights with the desktop linux crowd, so that is something.
edit: I cant reply so I will edit.
The policies are clearly insanity because EU industrial self immolation does nothing for the rest of the world. Does China, Indonesia, Africa, South America, India give a crap about saving the environment? They sure as hell do not. Most of them throw their trash directly into the ocean. All we do in europe is self harm while the broad problem goes entirely unsolved. How the hell are you going to develop and sell new technology, while destroying our economies at the same time. Complete pipe dream insanity.
That's not true, but ok...
> Does China, Indonesia, Africa, South America, India give a crap about saving the environment?
Actually, they do. China is the biggest spender on investing in renewable energy-sources and moving away from fossil fuels. Africa and South America are continents, not Countries. And not sure why India or Indonesia are related here?
Other than that, I'm not sure if you are a troll, victim of poor sources or paid actor, but your quality of data really sucks.
If we don't then we'll either go extinct or regress to a level where we use less. Sure, it's gonna really really suck for the next while but there isn't really any other options.
As a benefit, if we do this then we can sell the technology to the rest of the world.
That's precisely what the border carbon tax is about. They have to now, or their products will be noncompetitive in the worlds largest market.
The joke here is, China is a master of long-term-planning and execution, which is why they are on the rise now. Yet many complain, take china as a threat and demand brain-dead short-term-solutions, leading to even more long-term-problems.
Will Europe still exist when they are done making it better?
Bad things can always happen, of course, we just had multiple of them in the last 5+ years. But we did survive it and adapted, so the probability is much higher that nothing catastrophical world-shattering will be happening again in the next decades. We are moving back to the "normal" trouble and EU so far has shown a very good survivability in those years. Heck, in 2008-2012 there was far more trouble for EU than today.
Renewables are the future and the EU is amongst the leaders. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/22/wind-and...
Unfortunately, with the recent geopolitical shenanigans it doesn't any more.
Heck, we'll start burning oil like mad to fuel the re-armament.
Maybe after the next large war, there won't be many humans left and at least it will be good for the environment I guess ?
Apart from the part where you don't get to choose when they generate. Hopefully less of an issue in a continent–sized interconnected grid.
For a business, the language is whatever you agree with your customers. You are free to choose. If you communicate with the EU itself, any EU country language is accepted.
Language diversity is just a fact of life in Europe and not going away soon, that's like asking the US to give up the idea of states and become a single country.
- Let banks operate and merge across borders, especially neobanks/fintechs. European banks are easily 10+ yrs ahead of the US in terms of tech and customer service but they lack scale and capital, especially in the credit side of things.
- Credit, again: we need the equivalent of D&B/Fico for Europe: a single credit bureau that can judge creditworthiness of people and organizations. Even the US has solved this through private companies, why can't Europe? Fellow Euros are shocked when I tell them that a 0-day LLC in the US can get $20k in credit card limits almost immediately.
The rest are easy, especially for web/internet companies. But if we have to raise credit/money based on the rules of the biggest (and slowest!) economies, then the EU is fucked.
I'm not sure more centralisation of banking is a good idea. Too big to fail and all that. The UK has never really recovered from the banking crisis thanks to its oversized financial activities.
Hell no, please! If recent years have shown anything, it's that the US shouldn't serve as a blueprint for the EU, or any other aspiring federation.
Credit scores are probably illegal in the EU due to the laws against mass surveillance.
I have a feeling FICO would be more destructive than beneficial for Europe. Look what it's done to America. Borrowing $20k for a startup is not worth that.
FICO doesn't just do aggregation, they also do integration: as an American, running away from credit card debt to a small credit union (a community bank in the States) is as bad as stiffing Citi or JPMorgan.
The American credit market is far more liquid than Europe, partly because it's much larger (one market as opposed to 27) but also because its graded and stratified: as a bank/fund you can choose the risk you want to take and take it accordingly. We're definitely missing that down to individual/SME scale.
You can't hoover up every other piece of personal data to build it, but you could definitely get consent to access this information for other loans.
It would be super easy for the EU to charm the European populations into EU loyalty instead of national loyalty. All it would take is to offer good deals to the individual person. To start, a minimum €10 000 per month salary for any citizen taking up military duty. Home ownership to young people who contribute to the federation. And such things, the possibilities are endless.
But we all know that the disdain that the EU leaders and national European leaders have against their own population is bottomless, and that they would rather do anything except building loyalty among their population.
Partly by not importing Germano-French bureaucratic dysfunction (Papiere, Papiere über alles). Which would only grow more prominent with further integration.
Brute force does not matter nearly as much as quality of governance does. Qing China was a big, helpless monster eaten alive by smaller, more agile competitors.
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/poland/germany?...
Poland is growing quickly because it has cheap labour (for the moment).
Surely there must be more factors at play. For example, the general educational level in the country or its perceived reliability when it comes to FDI.
Because in a single market new capacity will grow where costs are cheaper. If (Cost of Good X in PL) + (Transport Cost PL->FR) < ( Cost of Good X in FR) then it is clear where the growth will be.
With France it's pretty clear, in a single market with low cost Eastern Europe it can only be competitive in very high tech industries given how prohibitive its welfare/retirement system is from the business point of view.
True, the French government redistributes the most money in the entire OECD (close to 60 per cent of GDP) and this is mostly driven by heavy welfare and old-age rent spending. They are pushing the ceiling to see what is still possible.
One interesting question is: if this French model spreads across the rest of the EU, will the EU as a whole become more or less competitive on the global stage? I would guess "less".
The problem is that there is no "democratic" way to get rid of them because in most WEU countries retirees/close to retired already make up enough of the population to block any such measure at the ballot box. See for example France.
Moldova and Ukraine were economically comparable to Poland in 1990 per capita. They have fallen far, far behind it.
Always compare comparable countries (or startups for that purpose). It is easy to explain away successes as long as failures in very similar conditions are ignored.
Again, it is not the amount of money you receive as whether you can use them in a productive way. Poland invested heavily into infrastructure and was able to reduce the NIMBY problem that is so prominent in Czechia or Germany and leads to decade-long paper wars over every railway, road and housing project. Of course they now reap the benefits.
As a neighbour, I am a bit frustrated by the difference that is becoming ever more visible. CZ is stuck in a bad vetocracy, hopefully the new government, populist as it may be, will change it a bit. (One reason for my hope is that the Mayor party is in opposition. They were the biggest fans of the vetocracy, because it gave power to regional politicians.)
In general, if you can learn from somebody, adapt the good things and not the bad ones. If you are allowed to choose, of course. But that requires some degree of freedom.
I know Poles quite well. There is a can-do optimistic mentality present there that is long gone from Germany. Young people aren't afraid to start their own businesses etc. There is much, much less "climate depression", ideas like degrowth barely survive on the intellectual fringes.
This, too, makes quite a lot of difference. Strong Green movements seem to be rather dangerous to most industries, not just directly (through regulation and fees), but indirectly, by nudging young people away from industrial professions. For example, the pool of nuclear engineers in many countries of Western Europe has seriously shrunk, which limits the general ability to revive the sector, even though there is some political will now.
Fear of Russia would be my guess.
Polish growth does not correlate with fluctuating levels of Russian menace at all.
> [chemicals sector] investments fell from 1.9 megatonnes of capacity in 2024 to 0.3 megatonnes last year, as the sector struggled with high energy prices, suffocating bureaucracy and an expansion of Chinese imports
https://www.ft.com/content/6d7dee96-4d6f-431c-a229-b78f9298f...
From 2019 to 2023, the EU recorded over 853,000 manufacturing job losses, with the largest losses in automotive sectors in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, and Germany.
The European Green Deal was forecast to put up to 11 million jobs “at risk” in various sectors if adjustments weren’t made:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal#Job_losses...
We seem to think that if we destroy our own industry, ship emissions abroad, and marginally reduce global CO2 emissions, we will inspire the rest of the world (i.e. China and India) to follow suit. That's self-evidently ridiculous.
EU national leaders need to stop peacocking in Davos and Brussels, and start listening to their own people, and their own businesses, who are crying out for sensible energy costs, and for red tape and bureaucracy to get out the way of business.
"Where are you from?"
This makes me quite uncomfortable, because I'm immediately getting stereotyped based on my parents DNA. (In the US, the question is often "What do you do for work? What do you do for fun?")
I have strong doubts that Europe can actually become a single nation of states. If France doesn't screw it up by demanding to be first among equals, Germany or Poland will probably side with the US who will be against this from happening.
The point is they're well used to variable electricity supply. Cloud comes past? No problem, the furnaces run slower for a moment. I think they need a certain base load to keep them hot as they can't restart them if the aluminium solidifies inside.
Aluminium smelting is an electrochemical process. Running electricity through the ore turns it into the metal and that's why they need so much. It's not just electric heating. They use direct current, so that's a good match for solar panels too. Two and a half volts per cell.
Fertilizer is something similar, as far as I know. They use electrochemical arc reactors to make nitrogen compounds from air. These can also scale up and down instantly.
AI training is pretty good too. If a cloud comes past you can pause the training run for a moment or underclock. The firmware for that might not be there yet, but the laws of physics quite like the idea.
Why do you think these particular things require natural gas?
Even the Dutch Nazi party split over it.
The EU has through its policies made everything in their power to make the EU weaker. Now they want more power and somehow this will in turn make the EU stronger. Farming and industry all being destroyed because of their net zero policies. Development programs that lead to nothing and waste hundreds of billions. Mass importation of third worlders, which are nothing but a burden on our social systems, with negative economic worth. Completely retarded energy policies.
edit: I can not reply so I will edit.
> it's controlled by individual countries.
EU countries can not execute deportations because of the european convention on human rights. It is far from controlled by individual countries.
That's not a policy of the EU, it's controlled by individual countries.
As a european I have exited the continent, sold all my properties and will never return to this place ever again.
Where did you move to?
At no point in time were Led Zeppelin, the Bee Gees, Cliff Richard, Kitarō or other long haired men transiting Singapore during that period (1960-1990) executed.
Legally, justice wise, it's still rooted in English common law from it's time as a colony prior to the British getting over run by Japanese on bicycles.
Even its class bigotry is rooted in colonial British attitudes.
When "authoritarianism" used to secure economic freedom, "authoritarianism" bad. When authoritarianism used to stop the majority from executing drug traffickers, authoritarianism ... good?
> This is high enough that i.e. in USA it would definitely be popular enough to pass an amendment to civil rights to guarantee execution even if the freedom from jeopardy to death penalty had been prior enshrined.
And legal system in Singapore works like USA? This seems like a strange claim.
A system like this cannot remain stable, and because it's unstable, it is not good.
