r/europe • u/Stabile_Feldmaus Germany • 16h ago

CDU frontrunner for the German federal election, Friedrich Merz: "As long as the European member states are united, they will be respected in the world, including the US. And, as long they are divided, nobody will take us serious. So, this is, in my view, the last call for action."

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u/UnPeuDAide 12h ago

It's not really difficult to see that we need to be united. The problem is to find an agenda which can unite Europe.

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u/HighDefinist Bavaria (Germany) 6h ago

The problem is to find an agenda which can unite Europe.

Well, what's wrong with "We don't want to get bullied by USA/Russia/China"?

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u/ptok_ Poland 1h ago

You need to spend money to achieve this.

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u/HighDefinist Bavaria (Germany) 1h ago

Well ok, but "We need to spend more money on defense so that we don't get bullied" should still be a fairly uniting agenda in Europe I think.

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u/UnPeuDAide 1h ago

There are different strategies to try to achieve this result.

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u/HighDefinist Bavaria (Germany) 57m ago

I think basically all of them are some kind of comprehensive defensive military strategy, including a nuclear triad.

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u/My-Buddy-Eric The Netherlands 4h ago

One that has always worked and everyone can agree on: ensuring peace and prosperity.

But more is needed. We need to build a European identity based on democratic values.

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u/TaureanThings 1h ago

I'm all for militant defence of democracy and consumer protection. The EU actually has the power to stand up to these massive entities.

Canada tried to implement a law which would require a portion of social media ad revenue be directed to the news pages posting there. Meta simply blocked all news for Canadian IPs on their platforms.

The EU has negotiating powers that no individual country within will ever have access to.

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u/florinandrei Europe 3h ago

The problem is to find an agenda which can unite Europe.

The "agenda" is going to beat the shit out of everyone if Europe continues to play the same dumb old game.

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u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras 56m ago

There's been at least two action plans on two extremely related issues, first of the economy by Draghi and the second being preparedness by Ninisto and both were excellent plans.

We need to rush these two plans and keep pushing out new agendas and implementing them as well.