> It's way harder for an alliance of US tech companies to influence small countries than a big block
Small countries have less resources to combat misinformation, bribery, and corruption of other forms.
It's a lot harder for people to spread misinformation online in a country like Estonia without speaking Estonian and keeping up with Estonian affairs. I think even corruption would be harder to swing against officials in a small European state compared to the EU, because things are less likely to be lost in endless European bureaucracy.
However, I think the nation itself could be "bribed" in a legal fashion. A large company has the resources to make a good enough offer that the country would make concessions on something important. Eg opening a large data center in exchange for more lenient treatment via regulations.
???
Non-native people hire locals for exactly that reason.
Also, there is an abundance of cases of smaller countries being corrupted by foreign influence. It's not just theoretical, it happens widely, and it commonly involves the top ranks (political, military) of those smaller countries.
What does spreading misinformation have to do with corrupting the government? If you want to spread misinformation in the EU, you also must target every individual country. There's no EU-wide propaganda channel.
Did you know that media companies are owned by foreign companies ? And when they are not, some people from those media companies are members/close to dubious ONGs ?
They are close to 30K lobbyists in Brussels as of this moment. So much for stopping bribery and misinformation. See the current Chat Control law which is sponsored by foreign corporations.
In a world without the EU, those companies would have had to lobby their way into 27 different parliaments and the countries most eager to proceed with a dangerous piece of legislation could have been the canary in the coal mine for the other countries about what not to do.
Instead corporations can now buy their way into the inner circle of a single European commissioner (who is not elected mind you). The EU basically streamlined corruption and lacks the complete oversight to do anything about it.
Finally, the EU as it exists in its current form has only been around for the last 30 years, which is a mere blip in the history of nations like France, Germany and others.
To claim that only an Institution like the EU can bring an end to corruption and bribery seems a complete stretch if not an outright lie.
There are more than 200 sovereign countries in the world out of which 27 decided to completely or partially relinquish their own sovereignty to a supra national agency such as the EU.
This is hardly the norm and history will tell in a hundred years from now that this was bad idea, just like the USSR was a bad idea.
When is this argument going to die? Should all provinces in every country declare independence and take back control from the supra-provincial government? Should all cities in all provinces declare independence from the provincial governments too? Should every neighbourhood....?
You can keep going on about the "supra-national agencies" for as long as you want. At the end of the day your argument rests on the assumption that the nation state is the final form of sovereignty, and there's just no God-given reason for that to be the case.
Entities form political and economic alliances when it is beneficial to do so. There are costs associated with the benefits of course, and those must be evaluated. Your argument that it's inherently bad because "It's not a sovereign nation state any more", is just a rather weak, but infectious, talking point. I don't understand why people keep regurgitating it.
> This is hardly the norm and history will tell in a hundred years from now that this was bad idea, just like the USSR was a bad idea.
Please, which norm are we talking about? The very first states with clear borders and independent government as we know today started to emerge in the 17th century. Germany, the most powerful state in Europe, has barely more than 30 years.
Countries are a new invention in the history of mankind and it's not the most likely that they will still exist in the next 100 years. And if you think that can't be true, imagine yourself as a citizen from the Roman Empire in 350, would you think that your super powerful unrivaled empire would cease to exist 100 years later?
Right. Unless something is perfect, then it is worthless. And it’s “moot”.
That's not the only yardstick, is it? Look at how effective large companies are in exploiting loopholes in the tax code of individual (smaller) countries, like Bermuda, Ireland and The Netherlands. The reason is that individual countries pursue this for their own interest. Corruption is probably also involved, but corruption also exists in large organizations in large countries. Do I even need to mention Trump?
The only way out of this tax explotation is "harmonizing" certain taxes across the EU. That's a sensitive topic, not under the EC's jurisdiction, and progress is slow, but we'll get there.
> a mere blip in the history of nations like France, Germany and others.
Which Germany? Current Germany exists since 1994, and is younger than the EU. Supranational organizations are also not that new, think Holy Roman Empire. That may be taking your argument a bit too literally, but modern states are not that old. Foundations were laid around 200-250 years ago, I'd say, and can hardly be compared with today's. The EU and its predecessors now span 75 years.
> This is hardly the norm and history will tell in a hundred years from now that this was bad idea, just like the USSR was a bad idea.
Just wow. The EU has flaws, but that's an insane comparison.