The Independence day
Bad movie. This post is not about the movie. It’s also not about 4th of July. It’s about a Slovenian national holiday we celebrated this weekend. With some nice parading, some celebrations and about 5000 people invited to the main party. If you were left out, you are most likely an enemy of the state.
We’re celebrating our declaration of Independence from the former Yugoslavia and we’re rightfully proud of what our little country has done. Things could have been better, but they’re not that bad, either. Only thing that is celebrated as much as our Independence is, ironically enough, our integration into European integrations, namely the EU, the coming integration in the Euro zone, the Schengen zone and all other “common policies” that we have in the great state (yes state) that is the European Union. Very few people realize that our independence in the EU is probably of a lesser degree in the EU than it ever was in Yugoslavia. Main difference is of course in the fields where federal government (yes, federal government) in the EU can take action and where the one in Yugoslavia could. For example, while they can regulate the size of cucumbers we eat today (and subsidiarity principle be damned), they cannot regulate the community board that gives out the better looking garden than your neighbor’s award (which would be woefully un-socialistic).
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the principle of European integration as such. It’s important to know that we give a lot of our independence, that we so cherish, away for a better common future, though. We give that part of independence away, not because we like to be bound by more rules, but because we want to leave freely in all European countries, where borders are a thing of the past. For the constitution project to be successful, the key is to write a much shorter, much simpler constitution, which has a purpose of guaranteeing those basic rights, and has much less to do with rights of EU high ranking politicians and employees. People like independence.
We’re celebrating our declaration of Independence from the former Yugoslavia and we’re rightfully proud of what our little country has done. Things could have been better, but they’re not that bad, either. Only thing that is celebrated as much as our Independence is, ironically enough, our integration into European integrations, namely the EU, the coming integration in the Euro zone, the Schengen zone and all other “common policies” that we have in the great state (yes state) that is the European Union. Very few people realize that our independence in the EU is probably of a lesser degree in the EU than it ever was in Yugoslavia. Main difference is of course in the fields where federal government (yes, federal government) in the EU can take action and where the one in Yugoslavia could. For example, while they can regulate the size of cucumbers we eat today (and subsidiarity principle be damned), they cannot regulate the community board that gives out the better looking garden than your neighbor’s award (which would be woefully un-socialistic).
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the principle of European integration as such. It’s important to know that we give a lot of our independence, that we so cherish, away for a better common future, though. We give that part of independence away, not because we like to be bound by more rules, but because we want to leave freely in all European countries, where borders are a thing of the past. For the constitution project to be successful, the key is to write a much shorter, much simpler constitution, which has a purpose of guaranteeing those basic rights, and has much less to do with rights of EU high ranking politicians and employees. People like independence.
posted by Sergej at 8:48 PM
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