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Yeah, the names are in many cases, funny.

https://kotaku.com/5949159/spanish-cops-name-an-investigation-after-pokemon-no-seriously

They named it "Pokemon" because there where so many people involved, and they (The police) did make jokes with "catching them all". Thats how far we have come.

At long last, the new democratically elected Italian governement is here, in its full glory and ready to fight against the corruption of the evil empire that is the EU.
Alternatively, this is what you get when you impose technocrat buffoons without any legitimacy into government and expect them to solve the nation's problems.

You want Italy to fight the EU's "corruption"? Well, they'll certainly have the experience, I'll grant you that.

I would like every European to fight the corruption of the illegitimate and authoritarian Union. And then the foolishness of the Euro.

 godardc wrote:
I would like every European to fight the corruption of the illegitimate and authoritarian Union. And then the foolishness of the Euro.

Looks like someone is still butthurt that the Germans once again got the better of the French, willingingly locking themselves into a Bismarkian Fourth Reich, that will be harder to get out of than any military defeat in the history of France!

Why don't you start with that at home, instead leaving it to an even less competent country?

So authoritarian. Much wow.

There had referendums in 2005, people voted against the European constitution, but as you know it, "there can't be democraty against the european treaties " (https://blogs.mediapart.fr/raoul-marc-jennar/blog/040215/il-ne-peut-y-avoir-de-choix-democratique-contre-les-traites-europeens) yes, that is a true quote of junker, the president of the european commission. The most basic definition of authoritarian indeed.
And there are numerous of this kind of stupid sentences showing their disdain for the people

Drunker also said something to the effect of “yes or no, we’ll be continuing with it anyway”.

Haven't we already debunked this complaint four or five times over the life of the UK politics thread? Y'know, how what passed wasn't what was voted against because the EU changed what was proposed based on feedback from the countries that voted "no", which is also the light in which Junker's statement should be seen, i.e. "ok, people didn't want what we proposed, let's continue negotiations and see if we can come up with something people can live with" rather than "lol let's ignore them completely", which you'll note never happened.

There's even this handy study on to why people change their minds from one referendum to the other.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/10/19/asking-the-public-twice-why-do-voters-change-their-minds-in-second-referendums-on-eu-treaties/

It doesn't matter how many times you correct people on this, it is too deeply wedged into their minds to ever come loose. That or they are dishonest.

So, you anonymous people on the Internet "debunked" what I am taught at college during European Union courses and the analyze of the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing ?
I think, that I will trust them more than you, for the moment, if you don't mind...
Oh, and an article: 65% would vote no (so, more than the first time) if there was a second referendum:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2015/05/28/01002-20150528ARTFIG00353-referendum-europeen-dix-ans-apres-les-francais-rediraient-non.php
(I am sorry, really, that all my articles are in French, I will try from now to search for English written ones)

 godardc wrote:
So, you anonymous people on the Internet "debunked" what I am taught at college during European Union courses and the analyze of the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing ?
I think, that I will trust them more than you, for the moment, if you don't mind...
Oh, and an article: 65% would vote no (so, more than the first time) if there was a second referendum:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2015/05/28/01002-20150528ARTFIG00353-referendum-europeen-dix-ans-apres-les-francais-rediraient-non.php
(I am sorry, really, that all my articles are in French, I will try from now to search for English written ones)

Can you look for something more recent than 2015? Because one year after Brexit approval for the EU in France jumped 14 points.

Europe : les Français y croient plus que jamais
https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2017/08/28/2634815-europe-les-francais-y-croient-plus-que-jamais.html

 godardc wrote:
So, you anonymous people on the Internet "debunked" what I am taught at college during European Union courses and the analyze of the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing ?
I think, that I will trust them more than you, for the moment, if you don't mind...

I'm not questioning d'Estaing's understanding of the situation, I'm questioning yours. This is a subject on which you don't want to get into an argument to authority pissing match.

There's nothing to analyse away anyway; the Lisbon treaty is not a European Constitution and is only in part based on the rejected European constitution of 2005. Your implied claim that the EU somehow overruled the results in the French and Dutch referenda is thus factually incorrect and, as such, would qualify as "debunked". Similarly, the Irish rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008 before, and stick with me because this might blow your mind, voting on an amended version that adressed the major issues the Irish electorate had with the original Treaty and accepting the version giving Ireland concessions on these points in 2009.

It takes someone with a very limited understanding of political philosophy to claim that it is authoritarian to propose a treaty, have it rejected and then listen to the electorate that rejected it before submitting a modified version that adresses the issues raised. An authoritarian regime would have just implemented the original version and not bothered trying to find a compromise.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 godardc wrote:
So, you anonymous people on the Internet "debunked" what I am taught at college during European Union courses and the analyze of the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing ?
I think, that I will trust them more than you, for the moment, if you don't mind...

I'm not questioning d'Estaing's understanding of the situation, I'm questioning yours. This is a subject on which you don't want to get into an argument to authority pissing match.

There's nothing to analyse away anyway; the Lisbon treaty is not a European Constitution and is only in part based on the rejected European constitution of 2005. Your implied claim that the EU somehow overruled the results in the French and Dutch referenda is thus factually incorrect and, as such, would qualify as "debunked". Similarly, the Irish rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008 before, and stick with me because this might blow your mind, voting on an amended version that adressed the major issues the Irish electorate had with the original Treaty and accepting the version giving Ireland concessions on these points in 2009.

It takes someone with a very limited understanding of political philosophy to claim that it is authoritarian to propose a treaty, have it rejected and then listen to the electorate that rejected it before submitting a modified version that adresses the issues raised. An authoritarian regime would have just implemented the original version and not bothered trying to find a compromise.

No, an actual authoritarian regime would never have bothered asking anyone anyway
The fact that the EU goes through the effort of actually asking people what they think of something automatically disqualifies them from being authoritarian.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 godardc wrote:
So, you anonymous people on the Internet "debunked" what I am taught at college during European Union courses and the analyze of the French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing ?
I think, that I will trust them more than you, for the moment, if you don't mind...

I'm not questioning d'Estaing's understanding of the situation, I'm questioning yours. This is a subject on which you don't want to get into an argument to authority pissing match.

There's nothing to analyse away anyway; the Lisbon treaty is not a European Constitution and is only in part based on the rejected European constitution of 2005. Your implied claim that the EU somehow overruled the results in the French and Dutch referenda is thus factually incorrect and, as such, would qualify as "debunked". Similarly, the Irish rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008 before, and stick with me because this might blow your mind, voting on an amended version that adressed the major issues the Irish electorate had with the original Treaty and accepting the version giving Ireland concessions on these points in 2009.

It takes someone with a very limited understanding of political philosophy to claim that it is authoritarian to propose a treaty, have it rejected and then listen to the electorate that rejected it before submitting a modified version that adresses the issues raised. An authoritarian regime would have just implemented the original version and not bothered trying to find a compromise.

No, an actual authoritarian regime would never have bothered asking anyone anyway
The fact that the EU goes through the effort of actually asking people what they think of something automatically disqualifies them from being authoritarian.

Touché.

Unless the authoritarian regime sets up a mock referendum to then point to in order to legitimize their actions, but if they manage to lose their own mock referendum they're pretty... special.

That's why true authoritarian regimes don't actually do a fair vote. You vote, but there's only one candidate.

Some people arguee that Franco's regime in Spain was a democracy because they had elections... yeah...

Elections =/= Democracy.

(Not saying EU is authoritarian)

 Galas wrote:
Some people arguee that Franco's regime in Spain was a democracy because they had elections... yeah...

Elections =/= Democracy.

(Not saying EU is authoritarian)

Even North Korea has elections. The difference between authoritarian elections/referenda and democratic elections/referenda are that the first are a show of support for the government and a way to legitimise the leader's authority, while the second are a government honestly asking their people about their opinion on an issue or on who should be in the next government.
Basically, authoritarian elections are not elections at all. People are not asked about their opinion and the outcome is already set. They are just an act to strengthen and legitimise the leader's authority.