Quote:
Originally Posted by 1andrew1
Indeed, it's got other functions too.
As countries trade closely together in a trading bloc, it's inevitable that they will become closer so it will be fascinating to watch how these new trading blocs develop compared to the EU and other trading blocs. They may act to demonstrate how a different model can be as successful as the EU has been.
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You are fundamentally misunderstanding the whole purpose of the European project, which was to bind France and Germany so tightly together that it would be impossible for either of them to start another war. They always were, and remain, at the heart of something that was never, from day one, supposed to be just a trading bloc. French agriculture and German manufacturing were intended to create a symbiosis between the two countries and the ties were always intended to become political. Inevitably the rest of the continent has been drawn in to this and as long as they understand what they are in and assent to it that’s their business.
If after all the arguing and debating over the EU on this forum and in other places, you still don’t get this basic point, you’re never really going to understand why some of us campaigned against U.K. membership of the EU for decades and why we remain deaf to complaints about short (or even medium term) disruption to our trading patterns. Involvement in the EU isn’t about cheap out-of-season strawberries, tulips from Amsterdam or our ability to export cheese. What it is about is the ability to determine British laws and international treaties in our national interest. This is why fishing rights have become such a massive issue despite their modest economic impact. The right to control who fishes in our exclusive economic zone is a highly visible symbol of our departure from a system that is designed, in the long run, to create a single federal territory.
It is vanishingly unlikely that RCEP or indeed NAFTA or Mercosur will ever get anywhere near the level of integration the EU has today, because that is not the objective of any of those organisations.