These kinds of things should be handled on a national rather than an EU level. I don’t like the idea of giving the EU further taxation rights - that is not its purpose.
On the contrary, I feel as though a tax like that can only be done at EU level rather than a national level if it wants to have any efficiancy. The ultra-rich are not bound by the same rules of territoriality as the rest of us, and would have no problem moving to another country in the EU if a local tax displeases them.
In fact, this has been a key argument put forward by right-wing politicians against high-wealth tax on a national level for quite some time, that they would flee the country the first chance they get. But by registering it at the EU level, the million/billionaires won’t have anywhere to run if they still want to enjoy the benefits of being in the EU :)
It can still be achieved via international agreement, the EU can serve its intended purpose by fostering such an agreement, and then codifying it later.
My key issue with it is the slow removal of national sovereignty and the movenent of decisionmaking further away from the voter. This is the exact kind of thing that has led to the EU repeatedly trying to force through impopular proposals that infringe on the rights and privacy of citizens such as chat control.
The EU needs to focus on its roots as a common market and united front for foreign policy, not on becoming an abomination of bureaucracy.
For the first part, I agree with you. An international agreement, like what was done for baseline multinational taxes, would be preferable. However, given the sway many million/billionaires hold over smaller (autocratic) countries, I don’t hold out much hope on that front, unfortunately.
As for your second point on moving decision making away from the voter, this is ideology. The EU parliement needs to vote on every text, and members are directly elected by EU citizens. For me (in France), I feel as though the EU has been much more respectful of democratic pressure than our national institutions (point in case, all the chat control proposals so far have been dismissed, where as our president has passed many suveillance and other highly unpopular laws unopposed).
There is certainly a point that can be made regarding regarding the fact that less populous countries send so few EU MEPs that they don’t feel that they hold much sway ovet the EU, and we clearly need to find a better system than we do now.
As for your last point, though I understand your position, I thouroughly disagree. There is no such thing as economics -let alone foreign policy- without politics, and it’s something that was clearly meant to be with the establishment of the EU Comission, Council, and Parliement. There are many political topics that are difficult to being up on each single national levels, but that can cause positive effects in each EU country if not around the world (the so called ‘Brussels effect’, notably with standardisation of plugs, the creation of carbon emmission roofs for cars, or even GDPR).
(btw I’m not one downvoting you, I think your point is interesting and needs to be discussed :) )
Done
I only do this as I like to learn new things myself and appreciate if people correct me.
The title is wrong. It should be “A European…” rather than “An European…”.
The way you can decide which one to use is by looking at the proceeding words first syllable sound. If it has a vowel sound you use an if it doesn’t, then you use a. It’s important to note it’s vowel sound and not just a vowel.
Examples:
- A teacher
- An apple
- A car
- An hour (note it starts with a vowel sound, but not a vowel)
- A European
- An excellent teacher
Thank you for the correction. I wasn’t sure (but also to lazy to check)
I’ve edited the title
No problem. Thank you for being receptive to my comment.
Sometimes people get mad, and I don’t get why as I love to learn new things and it may help other people who may be non-native speakers to learn the quirks of English.
Here are some possible reasons for people getting mad if you’re really wondering why it happens:
- unsolicited advice can make people feel stupid (you love to learn, not everyone does)
- comments like yours can be used as a way of making fun of OP to disregard their point without actually interacting with it
- being corrected on a slip up and not something you sincerely don’t know can be annoying (either towards the person correcting you or towards yourself for “not knowing something this simple”)
- I don’t know about others but my school life never taught me how to deal with criticism, if you made a mistake you didn’t study properly and should go back to doing that instead of being explained what went wrong and why (this one might sound a worse than it really was but you get the point)
I’m not saying you did any of those things and I’m right there with you on learning but the knee-jerk reactions often do have a reason behind them. There’s also the whole issue with how polarized social media is these days and the willingness to listen or admit to a mistake can be a difficult thing to stomach (“it’s a sign of weakness”).
I hope that helps!
Sorry, native speaker and language teacher here and I disagree. This is dialect dependent, but in my dialect at least, it’s the glottal stop at the beginning of a vowel sound that triggers it. Saying “an European” for me is like saying “an yellow.”
Thanks for the info! I just signed
I think I’ve already signed this at some point last year or is this a new attempt?
