Well they're not rounding people because of their religion or sexuality and putting them in "retraining" camps yet. Or using "criminals" as enforced organ donors. I suppose there's that.
The EU is being a bit short-sighted and shit with regard to Chat Control but let's not loose perspective here.
Right. They pay Turkey to do that: https://www.rescue.org/eu/article/what-eu-turkey-deal
I don’t think the EU is a classic dictatorship, but it’s a colossal failure nonetheless, has a severe lack of democracy and acceptance. And their personnel is mediocre, not like the US administration but it’s closer than ppl in this forum realize.
You really have trouble imagining what this could lead to?
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c70yk5xjyl1t
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/ (the biggest party gets first shot at providing the chancellor and government)
And while Hungary's Magyar is a huge improvement over Orban, let's be honest here, he's extreme right too.
Anti-immigration rightist parties are the norm across Europe nowadays. The center is shifting right in a big way, and the current "sanity" coalitions are forced to make deeper and deeper cuts in government services. They will keep losing popularity for another decade or so.
The extreme right's message of "let's kick immigrants out so we can instead spend on normal, good people" is total bullshit of course, it doesn't work like that. But voters are going to be more and more desperate for anything that stops the government service cuts, for a very long time yet.
And the problem is that the base part of the argument is true. Immigration was supposed to save Europe's collective economic ass and has utterly, completely and totally failed to do that.
And, of course, like the UK has demonstrated, the sad truth is EU governments are going to cause a lot of social problems through ECB-enforced spending cuts. They'll be looking for someone to blame and ... well we all know where that leads.
We could easily see a repeat of Trumps wrecking ball, enforced by the EU, in Europe.
Oh, I 100% see the problem with it. I think pushing draconian laws, that have already been defeated, in secret backroom deals is dodgy as.
I think you have some very valid points.
I think the centre and left just see opportunities to act without compromise, never considering that it will piss of their electorates. The electorate will reply by voting just to piss off the politicians regardless of the consequences. Just like with Brexit.
That still doesn't mean that the EU is currently worse than actual dictatorships.
If you'll indulge my argument: I have a fair amount of confidence in the stability of the system and fairness of elections. It may be rigged in favour of some interested parties, but there are solid ways to get the people currently in power to be replaced by others and still retain stability in the system. Not so in any of: Iran, Russia, Albany, Eastern Germany, The phillipines, China, Belarus, Sudan, ... That is my whole point. The rest is a different topic, but cynicism usually does not help in doing something.