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openrisk | on: Dutch Align with US Export Controls on Some ASML Chip Tools
For a long time Europe was happy having the cake and eating it. Pretending to be a united, peaceful, "soft superpower" and reaping the peace dividends of a US brokered world system. Yet everybody knows that almost all power rests with its varied nation governments, that they are all preoccupied with their own demons and internal inequalities and that they all see the EU as an alliance of convenience.

History called our bluff. Event after event, Financial crisis (remember that?), the Brexit implosion of the UK, the Syrian war / migration crisis, the Pandemic, the Russian invasion, the Trumpist implosion of the US, the Adtech invasion, the Energy transition disruption from China etc. An endless list of setbacks that is not going to end anytime soon.

The old continent is shaken to the very core but somehow we are still in the denial phase.

jnurmine | parent | next
Hardly having the cake and eating it. Ideas of a pan-European army were always shot down by either NATO or UK. I mean, it's hard to develop an own army if you are not allowed to by people who are part of the decision process.
wbl | root | parent
NATO is the EU with other hats plus US.
danieldk | parent
The old continent is shaken to the very core but somehow we are still in the denial phase.

I am not sure we are in denial. Have you seen defense spending since the invasion of Ukraine? Moscow failed blackmailing member states using gas. There was pretty good collective purchasing and distribution of COVID vaccinations, etc.

It's just a very slow process with 27 member states. But it seems that every crisis so far as accelerated European integration, which is a win.

openrisk | root | parent
> every crisis so far as accelerated European integration

There is indeed some evidence of this but this is not a cause to celebrate.

It is a reactive response and minimalist in scope. Once the crisis is somehow mitigated, everybody is back singing their old tunes. E.g., the various proclamations for banking and capital markets union are still in deep freeze, two decades after the financial crisis. The first response to the Covid and migrant crises was to close internal borders etc.

> It's just a very slow process with 27 member states.

Yes, and we should always celebrate and prioritise preserving that individuality - when it is not hindering the collective survival of our cultures and values.

The beauty of the European project is that it doesnt follow a known pattern. It must invent the needed mechanisms. At this juncture it feels there is a need for drastic such invention. To stop running after disasters and have some confidence in our future.