Talk:European Union/Archive 21

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Governance proposal

In the governance section there is another misleading statement. It suggests that there are 3 alternative legislative routes. There are 3 MAIN legislative routes under Community. I believe there are around 22 different legislative routes in total. The legislation section is a little better on the distinction. Perhaps an insertion of the word "main" is needed? Lwxrm (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Care to provide a counter reference?- J Logan ^t: 16:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Well European Convention, 'Legislative Procedures (including the Budgetary Procedure): Current Situation, CONV 216/02, Annex 1 spells out the 22 legislative procedures. An article by Maurer (2003) 41 JCMS 227 suggests more than 90% of law is generated by the 3 main procedures. The Community pillar does generate the most law, which I would deem "Community" law. The law generated under Pillars 2&3 may take the form of Framework Decisions (not to be mixed with decisions in the Article 249 sense), common positions etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.66.162 (talk) 16:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

One online we can look up without recourse to a law library? Sandpiper (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The Convention discussion is available online, look to annex 1 [1] The EU website lists the three as the main [2]

Yes, I agree it should read 'main'. I also think this is a case where someone could have been bold enough to just stick it in (with an appropriate edit comment), and only bother arguing about it if someone objected. The existing source for that section already says there are 3 main methods, though it does not explain others.

There is a more difficult issue here which I did bring up once before. At present the method of legislation is being explained in two different sections. This is really no good, and it will have to go into one or the other. I think my suggestion before was that the two sections, legislation and governance should be reorganised. I also think the politics section is the odd man out. I would favour combining the remainder into one new section generally about structures and processes, possibly still called governance. Then have a main section politics by itself. I think this topic is probably big enough to stand by itself, though it is still related to the others, at least as currently written. The current politics section naturally divides into two, one still about procedures, and the other about actual political discussions. There is curently no mention of actual politics within the EU institutions, eg political groups within the parliament.

Perhaps the current first para of politics would serve as a new intro to a revised governance section, explaining the bit about pillars, SN, IG and areas of competence. Then the sections on commission, parliament and council, then types of legislation and how it is enacted, then courts to argue about it, and if still in here, finally politics to say whats currently cooking. Or politics as a new second main section. It is potentially controversial, but I feel debate over the aims of the EU is one of our weaker elements. Sandpiper (talk) 13:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, on further reflection I would take the intro from 'legislation' as main starting point (about treaties). The first para from 'politics' (about pillars IG,SN) following on. The current intro in governance simply repeats stuff given later, mostly currently in 'legislation' and should be scrapped. then the 3 legislative institutions, legislation, courts and politics. Sandpiper (talk) 13:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to say that I always wondered why there was no pillars diagram like there was on many other language versions of the EU page. Saying that, the Reform Treaty basically abolishes the Pillar system... obviously we can't pre-empt the fact that its going to come into force, but it might be worth taking into account here. Once the Reform Treaty is in play, the term EC (sadly) dissappears and there is no issue. In the meantime though obviously there are issues. I think what I've said along since I came to the page was that the emphasis was wrong here, with people focusing on what I felt were irrelevant things like Religion and Sport and not instead on what is arguably more relevant such as how the EU actually works. I thought though that the current article gave a good summary as far as the main page went, but I'll have a look again at some point. For now the issue is too complex though that I can't give a decent opinion here, a bit busy at the mo :( --Simonski (talk) 14:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as a sidenote though, hopefully its made clear in the article that the listed types of legislative instrument are the 'main' ones rather than the only ones. That was my intention to make that clear when I edited that bit a while back. Obviously you have the pillar system and what, Framework Decisions/Directives or whatever they're called under the EU pillar which then starts to complicate matters. --Simonski (talk) 14:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems is that we have two sections about this, still saying different things, but one did basically imply there are only three legislative routes. How I read the article now, there are three main legislative instruments and 2 (or 3) main methods of enacting them. This may be incorrect? If we don't do anything else it is necessary to combine these two and I am teetering on the edge of just doing it and combining them both under legislation with a minimalist intro to governance. Sandpiper (talk) 14:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes there are three main legislative instruments and 2 (or 3) main methods of enacting them. I feel this is accurate and not misleading. Lwxrm (talk) 14:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

IT is misleading when an article in one place says there are two main methods, and in another says there are 3. Contradicting yourself within an article is quite bad writing. Sandpiper (talk) 02:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

How about we use the term "treaty institutions" and link that to the Institutions of the European Union for an explanation?- J Logan ^t: 17:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Again as a sidenote, Sandpiper did you notice Lwxrm corrected the sentence we discussed a while back, the "All/most EU legislation must be approved by the Council". I had said at the time I was pretty sure that it didn't have to approve all at the time but just out of interest Lwxrm do you know exactly any examples of situations where it doesn't have to? I'm not up to scratch here and am curious. --Simonski (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I added the reason to the "Legal System" section of discussion. For the sake of ease I will copy and paste it here :) The Legislation section claims that all of the legal instruments mentioned there require the Council's "approval". Decisions do not always need any involvement of the Council. Look to, for example, the Commission's considerable powers to take Decisions in the competition sphere. The system of comitology at large in the EU also introduces delegated legislation via the regulatory/management procedures that doesn't always require Council "approval". Lwxrm (talk) 08:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Some problems in single market section

1)The first sentence is not accurate. The EU was established as a customs union and not an economic union. Given the limited fiscal controls the EU possess and the lack of a full fledged currency it has not achieved, even now, the status of an economic union. I perceive this a major mistake 2)The free movement of capital is ALSO extended to non-Member States ie third countries. Not such a major thing but important to me. 3)There is a suggestion that the FMOGs can only be derogated from on the grounds of public health concerns. This is not true, either from the position of the Treaty itself or the more general "overriding" interests jurisprudence. Also "exceptions" are only mentioned for FMOG and not for the other factors. The claim that, like services, national rules still vary in some cases is misleading. National law varies in all freedoms, to a degree. 4)The use of the word "produce" in FMOG part is also misleading. A quibble perhaps :P 5)The main section is "economic policy". The use of the term citizen in free movement of persons part is not fully rational. The ability to study, "live", and retire are matters of economic policy? Or social policy? Or a little bit of both? Citizenship involves political and social rights well beyond economic policy...Just another thought. I know this is one of many "new" posts by me, and i just wanted to check people don't mind me pointing out these things? My legal education is grounded in the EU and so I tend to notice the detail. I am just trying to help :) Lwxrm (talk) 14:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understood, this is a reasonably new section, or partially new, so its possible that there are a few things that need to be corrected here. But indeed 1) is correct, I'm guessing somebody has copyedited it thinking "common market" and "economic union" are the same thing/similar or that it doesnt make a difference what term is used when of course its a very big difference indeed.

On 2), not going to argue with that if you're dealing with free movement of capital at such an advanced level. I for one know absolutely nothing about that freedom :)

On 3), that is again a good point, which I never noticed beforehand, certainly public health is only one of the possible derogations under Article 30 EC, this needs clarified: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E030:EN:HTML

On 4), haha actually again I would agree, its obviously not just a right that applies to produce, which to me would imply foodstuffs only.

On 5), the title 'economic policy' was debated a while back, it used to be 'Economy' of the EU which was too contentious a term for a number of editors. Thanks for pointing all these things out though, certainly a new pair of eyes looking at the page will spot things that nobody else has yet. Anyway, I do agree with this point as well actually, I think instead we should clarify that its the free movement of workers that allows people (economically active) to travel, before then perhaps mentioning a side point like that personal movement rights have in recent years seen an extension beyond just being for those who are economically active, through the concept of EU Citizenship. I wouldn't word it as clumsily as I just did but hopefully you get my point! --Simonski (talk) 17:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Considering the above I created a reworded, slightly rejigged, version of the single market section. The four freedoms is one of (if not the most) important element of the EU. The old section was extremely light on detail and plainly wrong in some of its statements. Providing nobody opposes it, I will edit it into the main article.

The EU was originally created as a customs union. The oldest and largest constituent organisation, the European Community, was founded as the European Economic Community. The creating and maintaining the EU's single market has been a prominent goal of the Community since its inception in 1957. It seeks to guarantee freedom of the four factors of production within the internal market. These relate to ensuring the free movement of goods, services and establishment and capital around the EU's internal market as well as the flow of persons within the area.

The principle of free movement of goods ensures ensures goods can be taken anywhere within the whole market without being subject to barriers or obstacles. This freedom has both an internal and external dimension. Internally, goods must not be subjected to customs dutes, discriminatory taxes or measures restricting import quantities. Externally, goods entering the internal market will be granted freedom after paying the Common Customs Tariff.

The free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchases and buying of shares between countries. Until the drive towards Economic and Monetary Union the development of the capital provisions had been slow. Post-Maastricht there has been a rapidly developing corpus of ECJ judgments regarding this initially neglected freedom. The free movement of capital is unique insofar as that it is granted equally to non-member countries.

The free movement of persons means citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. Traditionally the economically active were granted a much greater level of freedom. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and recognition of professional qualifications of other states. The extension to the non-econmically active was first recognised in 1999 when the concept of Community Citizenship was introduced to the EU. In addition to extending the scope of the free movement of persons, it also grants certain social and political rights to the citizens of the EU.

The free movement of services and establishment allows self-employed persons to move between member states in order to provide services on a temporary or permanent basis. Services account for between sixty and seventy percent of GDP, although legislation permitting free movement is not as established as in other sectors. This is addressed by the recently passed Directive on services in the internal market which aims to liberalise this area of the market. According to the Treaty the provison of services is a residual freedom that only applies if no other freedom is being exercised.

The freedoms are not absolute in nature. Member states may interfere with their exercise on the specific grounds laid down in the Treaty, or can rely on the case law of the European Courts for more general justifications. For example, the Treaty allows member states to restrict movements that would pose a real threat to public policy or public security. In the absence of Community legislation it is for the member states to decide the scope of the exceptions. The European Courts will arbitrate as to whether the actions of the member state are proportionate and in conformity with Community law. Lwxrm (talk) 14:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I like it, though maybe for effect it would be useful to edit it so it reads like:

The free movement of persons means bla bla bla...

The free movement of services and establishment allows bla bla bla...

Or maybe that wouldn't look so good. I dunno. --Simonski (talk) 17:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I was looking into this, and it seems to me, judging from wiki article on same, that the EU was originally a common market. This apparently being the 4th stage of Economic Integration, one up from customs union (3rd stage) and one below economic union. If this is correct, then the treaty of Rome established a common market? However, I am not sure whether this was the aim of the founding treaty, which may contain provisions to establish a single currency and economic union when the time was right. If that were the case, then it would probably still be arguable that it was created as an economic union. Not being an economist, I have no idea whether this scheme of stages of union outlined by wiki is generally accepted or not. So it might be the term 'economic union' has differing meanings?

We may have a problem with the next bit 'the oldest and largest..the european community'. In the history section and intro, it claims the european coal and steel community (1951) was the oldest component of the EU, not as it says here, the EC. Which would probably have a knock on effect on wording, assuming this section intended to refer to the EC.

In general, I think expanding the sections about the 4 freedoms is a good idea. Making them a paragraph each seems good, and maybe introducing each with a bold name might look ok too. I would also like to check how it looks when we have a real version, but it would be symmetrical with the section describing directives, regulations and decisions. The exact wording will require a little more work. Sandpiper (talk) 01:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

"it claims the european coal and steel community (1951) was the oldest component of the EU . . .". Since the ECSC no longer exists (but the EC does) the article can be seen as correct. This may be a problem of style. The article uses a stylistic device common in journalism ""The oldest and largest constituent organisation, the European Community, was founded as the European Economic Community.", where the phrase at the beginning can refer to the present (i.e. the oldest extant . . .). --Boson (talk) 06:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the first sentence of the Single Market section needs changing. It gives the impression that an economic union existed from the beginning, though in fact economic union has still not been completely achieved. It is also not clear whether "The EU was originally created as an economic union" is intended to refer to the European Union itself or its foreunner the EC (or the ECSC). Perhaps the article should be checked to see if it is generally clear on this point. The use of the term "customs union" for what was informally called the "Common Market" may also have been important because of GATT rules which permitted preferential treatment for a limited time when establishing a customs union or free trade area.--Boson (talk) 07:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The EC Treaty is clear on the customs/economic/common market issue. What was created was a customs union Article 23. The Community had the task of creating a common/single/internal market and then economic union (Article 2 EC). Lwxrm (talk) 09:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Single market edit break, quote from original treaty

Well, here we may be running into the same difficulty as whether institutions of the EU were institutions or 'institutions'. There is a copy of the original treaty (not the amended version as used generally by the EU website?) at [3].

Article 1 says: "By the present Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY." So in the sense that they said they were, they did create an economic union. It goes on to say:

Article 2 It shall be the aim of the Community, by establishing a Common Market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increased stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between its Member States.

Article 3 For the purposes set out in the preceding Article, the activities of the Community shall include, under the conditions and with the timing provided for in this Treaty: (a) the elimination, as between Member States, of customs duties and of quantitative restrictions in regard to the importation and exportation of goods, as well as of all other measures with equivalent effect;

(b) the establishment of a common customs tariff and a common commercial policy towards third countries;

(c) the abolition, as between Member States, of the obstacles to the free movement of persons, services and capital;

(d) the inauguration of a common agricultural policy;

(e) the inauguration of a common transport policy;

(f) the establishment of a system ensuring that competition shall not be distorted in the Common Market;

(g) the application of procedures which shall make it possible to co-ordinate the economic policies of Member States and to remedy disequilibria in their balances of payments;

(h) the approximation of their respective municipal law to the extent necessary for the functioning of the Common Market;

(i) the creation of a European Social Fund in order to improve the possibilities of employment for workers and to contribute to the raising of their standard of living;

(j) the establishment of a European Investment Bank intended to facilitate the economic expansion of the Community through the creation of new resources; and

(k) the association of overseas countries and territories with the Community with a view to increasing trade and to pursuing jointly their effort towards economic and social development.

I don't have time to read the whole thing now, but it appears in article 3 to make a list of items with equal weight which would constitute a common market, not simply a customs union. It then goes on to create a timetable for these things. Admittedly some happen sooner than others, but none happen at once. You can therefore only say the document creates whatever is its final goal, which seems to be a common market. Sandpiper (talk) 10:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The creation of the EEC was in no way the creation of an economic union. About all they share in common is the word "economic". The point does not bear any level of academic criticism. Not until Maastricht was the concept of EMU introduced into the Treaty with any amount of force. The full free movement of capital (a precondition of EMU) was not realised until after the SEA. Also EMU does not exist fully in the EU even today. The inclusion of articles 2&3 do not particularly prove anything, other than the aims of the Community. I would say maybe a reconstruction of the first sentence would make it more clear. The EU was orginally based on a customs union with the objective of creating a common market. This mirrors both the wording of the Treaty and the reality of the situation. The creation of a single market is more of a process than a black/white divide.Lwxrm (talk) 11:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that I will have to ask you to produce some evidence (ie a reference) explaining that the treaty of rome created a customs union. This does not appear to be what it says. Article one says By the present Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY Not, definite artiicle 'the european economic community', but indefinite article, 'a european economic community'. ie, this is not the name of the thing, but a description of it. There was some disagreement earlier, when I was arguing that many bodies are institutions of the EU, including the ECB. Others argued they were not, because the treaty did not call them institutions. Similarly here, the treaty of rome said it created an economic community. How this might differ from an economic union, I can't say from this statement. The easiest way out of this is probably to remove mention of economic union (I don't disagree about that) and instead mention economic community (as it already also does). The difficulty is how we describe it. It does not seem to me to matter whether the EU ever completed creating the common market, or not, or how long it took for each stage. The treaty defines a process with an end point of having a common market, so that is what we have to say. We can't arbitrarily claim that because a customs union was established within 2 years (I'm guessing at the time scale) that this is all it did. Sandpiper (talk) 12:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't claiming the customs union was all it did. I was saying the Community was based on a customs union with the task of creating a common market. It was an economic community based on a customs union. This is the position under the original Treaty of Rome Art 9(1) (now Art 23). The intention/end point of the Community at inception cannot be fairly taken as what HAPPENED. If they had said that they wanted to create a union with the Pasta Monsters of the moon it wouldn't be accurate to say the EU was orginally a trans-galaxy allegience with those pasta monsters.... On a less silly note, if they had said they intended for EMU, this wouldn't mean that is what sprang into existance. Lwxrm (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If they wrote a treaty setting out a timetable for union with moon pasta monsters, then yes, we would say exactly that. If we are arguing the issue of nonsense, it would make no difference how unrealistic the treaty was, just that it did have that original aim. If the customs union existed the day before the rome treaty came into force, then I would be happy to say it was based on one. If the customs union was set up after ratification of the Rome treaty as the first step in the outlined process, then I see no justification to claim (in the terms in which the article is now written) that the act of creating the EU (implicitly of creating the European Economic Community, because that is what is mentioned) was completed when a customs union had been achieved. There is no justification for implying that the only thing created by the treaty of rome was a customs union, because it wasn't. I don't think I am disagreeing with you about facts (though I might be), but about exactly how it is phrased. Simply replacing 'economic union' with 'customs union' would not work as it is phrased now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandpiper (talk • contribs) 14:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Which is why i suggested the sentence should read that the EC was based on a customs union, with the aim of creating an internal market. Within the single market section of economic policy that seems rational, no? Especially considering the Treaty says it was to be based on a customs union... I did not mean to suggest that the forming of the EC was "completed" by the Treaty of Rome. Re-reading the original "swapping" of economic union with customs union I agree this is not the best phrase to use. 137.222.85.74 (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have inserted more or less your proposed version into the article. Please have a look through. I revised the start hopefully to take account of our discussion. I think the new stuff all seems usefull, and this is a fundamental and important part of the EU. I am a little bothered that the section has roughly doubled in size, and the article is long. But on the whole I thing other sections are probably less important so we ought to be looking for cuts there rather than here. Sandpiper (talk) 21:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this section looks much nicer now. It is also accurate and informative without being over the top. I agree it is long and i also agree the importance of it justifies this. All in all I am happier with this now. Lwxrm (talk) 14:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The section has become to long. It should be trimmed by at least 2 paragraphs. When I look at the last para, it becomes clear that highly specific information has been introduced. That is too much. Lear 21 (talk) 10:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I agree it is long, not so sure I agree it is too long. In reality it is deserving of a section of its own, given the importance of the single market project to the EU as a whole. It doesn't appear much longer than the section on "foreign policy" which does not seem more deserving of length. It is also not longer than sections in other articles such as the US/UK/French articles... I am also interested to know what exactly is considered to be too technical? Lwxrm (talk) 09:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Regional development ref

I took out the following ref from the regional development section:

There are substantial economical disparities across the EU. Even corrected for purchasing power, the difference between the richest and poorest regions (NUT-2 and NUT-3 of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) is about a factor of ten. On the high end Frankfurt has €68,751 PPP per capita, Paris €67,980,

[4] the link doesn't work for me, and I don't really know what it is supposed to be. There is still another ref quoting some of the figures, but I'm not sure if it has all of them. Anyone? Sandpiper (talk) 18:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Anon IP reversions

I see we have had reversions today from three anon IP addresses all belonging to HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH [5] [6] [7]. I see that there was another yesterday amongst the multiple reversions by Lear [8]. Sandpiper (talk) 21:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I noticed Lear21 has been blocked for edit warring here. I have no evidence this anon user is Lear21 (although he is also German), and I hope he is not, because that would be block evasion which would look very bad on his record. Arnoutf (talk) 22:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Apparently an IP claiming to be Lear posted objections to lears block, also from Hansenet. Sandpiper (talk) 08:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Lear violating his block! Shock horror! I'd never expect that from such an upstanding member of the community!- J Logan ^t: 09:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

editorial proposal for intro :use of the term "loose confederation" or "very loose confederation" or "extremly loose" or "very very loose" or ....

This is not OR.This is an editorial decision, everyone agrees that the inner workings of the EU are very convolueted, a result of endless compromises.An intro must be simple,this is editorial etiquet,in quantum physics we have"In physics, quantum mechanics is the study of the relationship between energy quanta (radiation) and matter,in particular that between valence shell electrons and photons.",this is quite hem according to my standards on the issue, but i understand that theirs no point about talking about hilbert spaces,eigenvalues,operators,partial differential equations,particul-wave duality in the introduction.The intro is,oversimplifying for editorial reasons.For the same reason,it's bad etiquet not to simplify the description.The other "professional" encyclopedias know this very whell,that's why they put theirs simplified explanation in ther intros,they know what they are doing,it's not out of incompetence.The intro manages to be inferior by trying to be fuller.

Some reminders for however answers.This is an editorial decision,not OR,in the same way that Q.P. intro is an editorial decision,not OR,strictly speaking QP intro is shit.Example "european economy" or "european economic policy".I remind you,that in a confederation the states are considered independent,it's a special case of a international organization,in the EU ther is a common foreign affairs and common security policy...... the decisions just have to be taken by unanimity(that's why you rarely hear of them but they exist).The EU has no "army",yes,but each country has it's won "militia",to use familiar terminologies with some editors.If i'm not mistaken,if the EU "decides" to take a military action (by unanimity :)),the whay i understand it is that afterwards it's binding on the members.The european council is the upper house of the european legislature ,not a forum of european ministers,a feature directly copied from the german federal system(=bundesrat),yes in germany,the peopol governing the landers and the peopol voting in the federal upper house are ....... the same.I'm saying this because many consider that because mister brown or merkel or sarkozy,in real term vote in the european council,that it doen't qualify as a federal structure,but as an international organization,in that sence the bundesrat is a "international organizations" travesty inside the federal system of Germany.At my knowledge this is unique in the hol word.--88.82.47.38 (talk) 22:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed here after you (or someone using your IP address) raised the same issue two days ago. SouthernElectric (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't discussed,don't attempt to scare people away,i was absent and now it's too beried to atrack peopol in the debate.And it's not the same.--88.82.47.38 (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The idea was discussed (and has been discussed several times) by a large number of editors and most completely disagreed with your suggestion. The chances of achieving consensus on your proposal is incredibly unlikely, and the current status of the introductory sentence reflects a long-drawn out compromise. Read above for the reasons why your idea is not a good one. Writing 'loose confederation'/'confederation' would instantly lead this page to be tagged as possibly non-NPOV, as its clearly a personal point of view, and not one shared by all. --Simonski (talk) 23:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It's in the table of content and it was discussed, you or somneone using your IP address made numourous replies - see here. SouthernElectric (talk) 23:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not true.I ansered only two times,two times in a row,that realy counts as one.It wasn't discussed i left too almost right away and then it was beried.Lets discuss it one more time ,it's not set in stone.This is not POV,read all my arguments.I strogly doute that the argument was set in this way.--88.82.47.38 (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

If this was discussing the introduction, yes I agree it is terrible and Arnoutf and I are still discussing above how to improve it. If no objections are lodged, I suspect we will implement it in the near future. We seem to agree that a slight amendment explaining supranational and intergovernmental as we go along would help. As to whether it is a federal state, my own conclusion was basically that if the members say it is not, then it is not. But also, strictly, the countries have the final say in everything and the central organisation has no authority to change anything. That seems to be the difference. Sandpiper (talk) 23:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you peopol do it in purposse.Why do you argue if it's a federal state or not,clearly it's not.The question is not what it is but what to put in the intro,it's clearly different things.In a confederation by definition,it's the states that have the final say,so you didn't argue any thing,please read all my arguments at the top of the section,they are quite different then the last time.--88.82.47.38 (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to show that "loose confederation" it's not a bad simplification.After you read the article of Bundesrat of Germany,do you classify the council as an intergovernmental body,or a federal one?the bundesrat is the almost exact duplicate of the council,is the bundesrat a intergovernmental body?--88.82.47.38 (talk) 00:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as a sidepoint, because I'm (sadly) doing EU Citizenship at the moment, I'm reading articles/journals which actually describe the EU in a way similar to the start of this article. I've never once read 'loose confederation' used. It might be, because its not an accurate term to use for the current state of the EU. Just a thought. I'm starting to wonder if this is a wind-up actually (ie. the spelling, wtf). Your claims are by default POV as they're your opinion, however you dress it up. You'll need to find sources calling the EU a loose confederation for a start (and then have to convince us that those sources are more convincing/useful than the others that disagree).

Also, The Bundesrat an almost exact duplicate of the European Council? Is that what you're seriously saying? The European Council is made up of 27 Independent nation states... so in effect you're saying its a loose confederation of independent nation states. Isn't that paradoxical? I don't think you're going to sway anybody's opinion here unfortunately. I still actually prefer the current introduction. Wow, so it might confuse people, but its legally accurate. If they want to make Wikipedia for Dummies, we can change it there, but for as long as this is an encyclopedia, the current intro is surely fine. --Simonski (talk) 00:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, how the hell are we going to deal with this issue. Its too contentious. I really think that the current intro satisfies all sides of the argument. We are (though I can't speak for everybody) not in a position to accurately define what the EU is when there is not even consensus within the EU about what it is (hell even in academia - one academic will come out with the statement 'the EU is to a large degree a state', whilst another will come out and say 'the Member States remain completely sovereign and independent over the majority of key issues'. If they can't agree, how can a bunch of Wikipedia editors) Anybody have any ideas? I really thought the intro as it is was fine in that it didn't really attempt to address the issue fully. Loose confederation, with all due respect, is not a good suggestion for a replacement however. I have to say now I would oppose strongly this idea. --Simonski (talk) 00:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

For the bundesrat=council, i ment to show that the concil is federal in nature,not how strong the central goverment is.Imagine that instead of the senat,every governor of all american states had one vote in the senat.Does this mean that the USA is less of a federation?It would still be a federetion.I whant too show that loose confederation ,or extremly loose confederation,or very very loose confederation,or whatever you whant to say it, is a good aproximation for the introduction.The issue is to have a good aproximation for editorial/pedagogical reason, so i'm saying that sources are not needed,this is not content,it's just the wording of the introduction,that by good etiquet should be simple,and push the explanation in a relevent section,for example the intro of quantum physics is laghable,but should not be changed."legally accurate",all lowers i asked told me (after some thought) that the EU really was a confederation. --88.82.47.38 (talk) 01:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

But do people understand what the word 'confederation' means? If you want to change the intro, I think you need to state more clearly exactly how you would wish to reword it. (Incidentally, it seems to have changed at some point in the fairly recent past) Sandpiper (talk) 02:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Do not get me wrong, I do believe the term "confederation" is quite an accurate description of what the EU currently is. But this view does not seem to be shared by most of the literature on the EU. As far as I know, most scholars argue that the EU is only one of its kind because of how it combines intergovernmental and supranational elements. Although opinions range from "just another IGO" to a new federation in a period of consolidation, this appears to be the most widespread view in the literature I know. 88.82.47.38, could you please cite any influential sources defining the EU as a confederation? Without them, this discussion somewhat lacks substance. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Well my arguments are as follows,the intro must be simple for editorial reasons,i think that something about it is said in the editorial guidelines,or what ever they are coaled.Thus it's not a OR since we acknowledge(in the intro) that it's not "the real reality",we never claim it to be true and that we are doing a simplification.Quantum physics intro is a example of this trend,or the EU in some other encyclopedias.Something like "The EU is complicated stuff but if it's seen as a loose confederation,it's an approximation".Currently,the intro reads like math.--88.82.47.38 (talk) 05:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

With simple I agree. However as we all agree the EU is a complex thing, there is a fine line between being accurate and overly complex, and simple and not correct enough. Personally I think that the connotation of a "state" that surround the word confederation push it beyond the acceptable correct level. Also this (implicit) connotation makes the word (which looks a simple single word) a very complex construct, that may raise more problems in understanding then longer more precise phrases. (although I agree the whole supranational wording is unnecessarily complex as well). Arnoutf (talk) 08:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the Confederation is kind of close, however it is oversimplification of the issues and would mislead - particularly as there is no real set definition of confederation and is used at random for different things. The EU has never, to my knowledge, been described as such. I for one would describe the UK as a Presidential Republic with a national ribbon cutting service, I think that is more accurate but its never described as such and is a gross simplification. No, we have discussed the intro over and over, you might want to go through the archives and see the arguments there first.- J Logan ^t: 10:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Now there we get into difficulties because there is a huge vested interest creating literature describing it as a parliamentary monarchy. Nonetheless we should not use the words something uses to describe itself unless those words normal meaning suits the reality. I do not agree we cannot use the word confederation simply because most technical references use different ones. Part of our job is to translate out of jargonese, and this is essential to writing wiki. People often forget that what is normally considered original research is essential to write any encyclopedia. In this case, I have similar potential objections to confederation as to intergovernmental and supranational. yes, I do and did understand these words general meaning, but I did not understand their meaning when used here in the intro to describe the EU. Any rewording has to make sense to the average person with no legal/political background. The first paragraph ought just by itself to make sense and give a good, quick, simple, explanation of what it is. Sandpiper (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a very good point. We should translate "supranational" and "intergovernmental" into English instead of redefining the EU as a "loose confederation". What I mean is something like: "...is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. It is governed partially by its own supranational institutions (such as the EU's supreme court) and partially by the governments of its sovereign member states." Of course, the sentence describing what "supranational" and "intergovernmental" mean should be less awkward than mine and it may be placed elsewhere in the lead. But I think this is the best direction towards accuracy combined with understanding. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I support something like that (see my own suggestion a little higher). I was also struggling with the second line, that will need some deliberation to get it right. Arnoutf (talk) 17:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer Andrzej's idea too here. Either way as long as its not just dummed down so people can understand it when the current (or the description that was there like last month but seems to have been altered slightly) version is accurate. --Simonski (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I like the wording proposed by Arnoutf in another thread: "The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. The European Union has both supranational features being able to make directive which are binding to its members, as well as intergovernmental features, as it depends on agreement between the different members." But I am afraid many readers would not understand what exactly the part "supranational features being able to make directive which are binding to its members" means. I also believe any reference to supranationalism should make clear that an organ independent from sovereign nation-states makes decisions binding to these states. Moreover, the word "directive" might be mistaken for Directive (European Union). Dependence "on agreement between the different members" should be presented as significant yet not absolute (e.g. decisions by ECJ and ECB). Here is my update that hopefully addresses these issues: "The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. Depending to great extent on agreement between members, it shares intergovernmental features with other international organizations. But the European Union also has its own independent supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding to sovereign member states." Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 19:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that is a good start, althoug I would try to trim down the second part a bit: something in the direction of this might work? "Its functioning depends largely on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organizations. The European Union also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding to member states." Arnoutf (talk) 20:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Your new version sounds perfect to me. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 03:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the introduction is not the place to elaborate the question "how the EU institutional body is working" while using "meta-political theory" definitions and further explain them. The introduction gives an overview to the article and includes the most significant activities of the EU. That is already the case. The current version and its content is stable, readable and sufficiently comprehensive. "Things should be simple but not simpler" - The opposite is true as well —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.101.141 (talk) 21:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Right direction but I'm not sure about "largely on agreement between members", the majority of issues are covered by the Community and its supranational methods/institutions, not the intergovernmental method.- J Logan ^t: 09:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point. There is no single answer to the question how intergovernmental the Union is. Not so much in everyday agenda, but quite a bit in principal questions. So, let us replace "largely" by a more neutral word, such as "partially" or "to some degree". Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming that you ignored the separation below.Intergouvermentalism is just a dessision-making method,it doesn't, tell anything about how strong the union is.The current proposal,and current wording just propagates the misunderstanding.The example with Germany shows that intergouvermenatalim is not mutually exclusive with federalism.The current "bug" with the intergouvermental council voting legislation,will very probably survive well after federalization of the EU.So either you add the explanation on the intergouvermental method of desision making,either you avoid the issue by removing it al togather.It is a fact that peopol doing the amalgam intergouvermental=international organization like UN and supranational=country.How are you going to account for that in the intro and staying simple at the same time?--88.82.32.84 (talk) 16:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Introduction revision comfort break

I've had a look at the intro. I think the current first para needs breaking to remove the history stuff into a separate para. The remaining stuff defining the EU should make the first para by itself. I think we will continue arguing about exactly how to word it, but I'm going to be bold and separate off the history para right now. The intergovernmental bit seems to have been shoved to the end of the para where it doesn't really make sense. I shall rescue it from there and insert Arnoutfs proposal (more or less, for the time being, which I think is closest to the current. We can then argue about exactly how to phrase the second sentence (the first seems reasonably accepted).Sandpiper (talk) 11:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above, on looking at the old second para I see it talks about exactly what the eU does. My view is that the supranational etc bit best belongs after the explanation of the sort of things it does, so I have place it at the end of the second para. This gives us a one sentence simple definition opening para, and a second longer one giving a bit more detail. I thing the legal theory explanation of it being supranationl etc is better placed after the practical explanation of what it does. Sandpiper

Andrzej, I don't think it matters whether people understand the word directive in its ordinary sense, or take it to mean EU directives. Either would be appropriate in this very simple example. I also think going into a little more detail about the degree to which it is supranational or intergovernmental is fraught with difficulties in this short space. It is seriously contested between editors exactly where the balance lies. The best way to solve such difficulties is usually to make a careful explanation in as much detail as is needed, which we try to do lower down the page. In a short space like this you basically have to take a stand coming down on one side or the other, and that is a problem. Sandpiper (talk)

All your changes make sense to me, but I would prefer the version of intergovernmental/supranational stuff discussed above to the one you have reinserted. So, I suggest we should replace "It has both supranational features, being able to make directives which are binding to its members, as well as intergovernmental features, as it depends on agreement between the different members" by "Its functioning depends to some degree on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organizations. The European Union also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding to member states." It is not much longer, yet it explains the basic difference between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism somewhat more clearly. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Part of my proposal is too remove the other technical details from the intro,(fisheries,agriculture...).Firstly i recently edited the intergouvermental article,so don't look there for a neutral opinion.A couldn't find source,but the way i understand it is that intergouvermental is not meant to mean unanimity among the governments,just that the governments are discussing among them selves,from there you can have votes ,with some ponderations,vetoes for all or just for some.For example the UN security council is considered intergouvermental.The example of Germany, show that intergouvemental elements inside a federal state is not a travesty(for those protesting,yes i saw the term used that way),thus intregouvermentalism is not mutually exclusive with federalism.I'm saying this because apparently everybody has concluded that the two are mutually exclusive and only pure supranationalism can be used in a federal state or a confederation.What i whant to say is that the reason that you(the editors) are so opposed to "confederation" is that you are ,your selves misinformed about what intergouvermentalism is about, intergouvermentalism is just a way of decision making,it doesn't determines by it self how strong a union is.The current wording just propagates this belief.--88.82.32.84 (talk) 13:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Honestly man, your intentions are honourable but your proposal isn't really going anywhere here. Its not going to gain any support. I think the intro post-Sandpiper's change is absolutely fine. It is impossible to say what the EU is in one sentence, and it is completely unwise to try and dilute the intro any futher. --Simonski (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The way i understand, about what an intro have to be,is that it must be "dilute".Ferthurmore,how do you account for the missconseption on intergouvermentalism in the intro?Shouldn't we explain something about intergouvermentalism in the intro?If you have a foggy idea of intergouvermentalism, you automatecly have a foggy idea about the EU.If i take the quantum physics article,according to your way of seeing things,we should mention in the intro, hilbert spaces,eigenvalues,linear operators,partial differential equations,particul-wave-probability duality....--88.82.32.84 (talk) 15:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

duplicate responce from the previous section.Intergouvermentalism is just a dessision-making method,it doesn't, tell anything about how strong the union is.The current proposal,and current wording just propagates the misunderstanding.The example with Germany shows that intergouvermenatalim is not mutually exclusive with federalism.The current "bug" with the intergouvermental council voting legislation,will very probably survive well after federalization of the EU.So either you add the explanation on the intergouvermental method of desision making,either you avoid the issue by removing it al togather.It is a fact that peopol doing the amalgam intergouvermental=international organization like UN and supranational=country.How are you going to account for that in the intro and staying simple at the same time?--88.82.32.84 (talk) 16:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

You lost me there after "will very probably survive well after federalisation of the EU". For me that says its all. Your proposal is not representing a NPOV or describing the EU from an objective standpoint, rather you are simply describing a school of thought about what the EU is. I don't see any 'misconception on intergovernmentalism' in the intro. If somebody has a foggy idea about intergovernmentalism, they can go read about what intergovernmentalism is. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not the Ladybird book on the EU. I'd suggest channeling your enthusiasm elsewhere here and helping out on other sections where you are more likely to have ideas that people can agree with. --Simonski (talk) 17:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, and this may shock people, I'm actually with Lear here on maintaining the status quo as to the intro. For me the way it was was fine. Though I thought the Sandpiper version was also fine. I'll be happy with either, just not this loose confederation Disney's guide to the EU type idea. --Simonski (talk) 17:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I liked arnoutf's suggestion because it gave a simple example of supernationalism, and another of intergovernmentalism, which I felt was necessary to help readers understand what was meant. But I also liked the fact that it did not attempt to explain what degree of each was present in the EU, or anything about what implications this might have. The guiding rule is that we should describe the EU as it is now, not as it might be, or even what it is popularly thought to be. yes, easier said than done. There is an enormous fog of people out there claiming it is all sorts of different things. At the moment it is not a federal state. Anon, I'm sorry, but your writing is not entirely clear to me, so I am not completely sure what you are arguing for, so I might be answering something you did not mean. But I don't think the article can contain any trace of a suggestion the EU will inevitably become a federal state, because it is not inevitable, and I would not be at all surprised to find it does not change in its basic structure in my lifetime.

I moved the history section down the running order in the introduction because I do not think this is the most vital information. It is normal to talk about what a thing is and does, before talking about how it came to exist. But I thing the logical structure of the article should be: first a one sentence definition of what the thing is, next a short section summarising the highlights, which someone could read and get an overview, then the body of the article giving greater details. I think it very important that the introduction mention things like fisheries, agriculture, coal and steel, single market: all the highlight important issue for the EU.

Andrzej, I don't think we can say depends to some degree on agreement, because I think the fact is it depends almost entirely on agreement. I would much rather use a form of words which avoids implying any kind of degree of one or the other in the introduction.

Lear has been banned for 3 weeks for repeated page reversions, but I see we have attracted a knowledgeable anon IP who has reverted the page. If it goes on i shall ask whether anyone can investigate the IPs to see if they are from the same source. If it was someone other than Lear, I would be happy for them to identify themselves on this page and explain. While I think the edit comment is cart before horse, it is something to consider as we try to restructure the article. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at this article.Strickly speaking other organizations have supranational and intergouvermental aspects,so saying that the EU has that doesn't explain much,it obscures more then anything.Peopol(including you), have an intuitive inderstanding that supranationalism=federation while intergouvermentalism=international organization.I argue that peopol think they know what intergouvermentalism is about,so they will not investigate further, my sets of examples show that you find intergouvermental elements inside federations.Just an example with russia,there are over 100 subunits in the federation,for beter coordination they have inplemented regional organizations(like in international organizations),the seats in the federal concil was appointed by the federated units,and could be recould at any time(i coul this intergouvermental element,Puting changed the constitution since then).For the EU getting federalized,i was making a parallel with germany(it started as a confederetion of independent states) in that the way legislation is made,will probably survive a federalization,i was arguing that the intergouvermental aspect of the EU,on it's won, doesn't give any significant information on the level of integration.Summary:

• peopol have a distorted vision of intergouvermentalism and they will not dig any further since they don't know that they don't know.
• A bunch of other io have a mix of supra/intergovermental,the reader assumes that it's about the same type of organizations,but this is not the case.--88.82.32.84 (talk) 20:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Amazing what you can find on wiki. Two articles essentially both about suprantionalism. However, this doesn't convince me that we need to go into the issue more deeply (more deeply than the revison by me/arnoutf) in the intro. Sandpiper (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I can live with most of the current versions to be honest. Most of the supranational stuff etc is gone in one of these, but IMHO it still represents the essentials, which is after all the goal of the intro. I could accept the more expandeded version as well. Having had a heavy day of work I kind of have lost the thread of this to be honest ;-) Arnoutf (talk) 22:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

88, please accept that there is no wish here to have 'loose confederation' or anything like that used in the intro and save yourself some time here. Instead I'd suggest channeling your enthusiasm here into helping to tweak slightly the current intro, an approach favoured by almost all the editors who have replied since you opened this discussion. As far as I have seen not one editor has been in favour of your suggestion so come on, change gears here? --Simonski (talk) 23:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. I can go for the current version or the ones proposed above (can someone post the final version down here just before? Tad lost in exactly what words we have now). But not confederation. For a start, it may be a simplification in one sense, but if your a new reader, what does that word actually mean? I don't think you can read much from it at all and may be misled by its simplicity. Hence it really isn't an improvement.- J Logan ^t: 09:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If we are specifically arguing about 'loose confederation', the definition of confederation fits (though it is arguable whether readers will understand it without explanation), but 'loose' is a bit thorny. In some ways it is loose, in others it is quite tight. The EU is very skewed towards its original goal, which is creating a single market, and its quite 'tight' on that. Sandpiper (talk) 10:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Well exactly. In some economic matters it operates federally, but you can't call it that here because federations traditionally are heavy in foreign affairs - as opposed to recycling. No matter what term we come up with it will never fit properly because of the unique (i.e. wonky) development of the EU.- J Logan ^t: 16:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh well done, that made me laugh. I can just see it in the intro, EU is a tight federation responsible for recycling. Kinda puts the world into perspective. You know, a satirical cartoon would be fun somewhere if we are going to have all these pictures. Sandpiper (talk) 19:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

And people wonder why no one takes the EU seriously. While Bush can force an invasion, Barroso can force a common driving licence - well we have to be ahead of the Americans in some areas don't we. How they manage with all there different licences lord only knows, but at least a driving licence isn't as unpopular as an invasion. Cartoons would be fun though, save us the trouble of messing with copyright issues - just draw them all! Problem solved! What was this discussion about again?- J Logan ^t: 22:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok what the hell, can we have some agreement here before people start carrying out these changes. The introduction is now absolutely horrible. That sentence about 'the phrase European Union' really has to go in my opinion, it doesn't read well at all. Can we go back to what it was beforehand and then come to some sort of agreement? In the process we can pretty much now just ignore as irrelevant discussion on the 'confederation' idea and concentrate on how we can supposedly improve an arguably already fine intro? The federation discussion is boring now and not the sort of thing we should be discussing here. The fact is there is no agreement between the member states on the issue, no agreement between academics, no agreement between us mere wikipedia editors, so there is NO POINT in trying to deal with the issue. Contrary to what is claimed, in my opinion anybody who tries to come up with some minority held view on what the EU is can either be accused of coming out with Original Research or harbouring a non-NPOV view (and that is mainly aimed at 88). Can we get back to business please? --Simonski (talk) 14:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Back to business comfort break

I agree with Simonski... "the phrase..." is in my opinion awkward. Let's review the intro version of 31-jan midnight (arbitrary choice)

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty seven member states with supranational and intergovernmental features, located primarily in Europe. It traces its origins to the European Economic Community (EEC) formed in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome among six European countries. Since then the EU has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty established the current legal framework. The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 initiates a ratification process in 2008 and is amending the existing treaties. It is intended to come into force on 1 January 2009.

The EU creates a single market by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital.[3] It maintains a common trade policy, agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy.[4] In 1999 the EU introduced a common currency, the euro, which has been adopted by fifteen member states. It has also developed a role in foreign policy, and in justice and home affairs. Passport control between many member states has been abolished under the Schengen Agreement.[5]

With almost 500 million citizens, the EU generates an estimated 31% share of the world's nominal GDP (US$16.6 trillion) in 2007.[2] It represents its members in the WTO and observes at G8 summits and at the UN. Twenty-one EU countries are members of NATO. Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. EU citizens elect the Parliament every five years.

Noticing that this discussion has focussed on the problems with the first line in that version; now look at the most recent version.

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. The phrase European Union applies at the same time to the area and community and to its institutions.

The EU comprises a single market created by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital.[3] It maintains a common trade policy, agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy.[4] In 1999 the EU introduced a common currency, the euro, which has been adopted by fifteen member states. It has also developed a role in foreign policy, and in justice and home affairs. Passport control between many member states has been abolished under the Schengen Agreement.[5] It has both supranational features, being able to make directives which are binding to its members, as well as intergovernmental features, as it depends on agreement between the different members

With almost 500 million citizens, the EU generates an estimated 31% share of the world's nominal GDP (US$16.6 trillion) in 2007.[2] It represents its members in the WTO and observes at G8 summits and at the UN. Twenty-one EU countries are members of NATO. Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. EU citizens elect the Parliament every five years.

The EU traces its origins to the European Coal and Steel Community formed among six countries in 1951 and the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Since then the EU has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty established the current legal framework. The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 initiates a ratification process in 2008 intending to amend the existing treaties.

If I compare these versions I notice the main differences are: (1) The history bit is moved to the end. (2) The explanation of supranational and intragovernmental is moved to the back of the regulations section, making the opening sentence shorter and (3)The line "The phrase European Union applies at the same time to the area and community and to its institutions." was added. I hope you guys agree with these observations. I will continue with my opinion.

1. History to end. I am ok with this, but I don't see much of an improvement over the other version, I am neutal in this
2. Splitting of supranational. I think splitting the first line was a good move. I am neutral about the placement, in front or in the back of the rules section. If we put it in the back of the regulation section we need to solve the fact that the first paragraph becomes very short, e.g. by merging it with the second para
3. Phrase EU I think this is not a good addition, both because the actual phrasing is awkward (e.g. the word phrase is not needed), but more so because the argument seem tautological. Can we come up with a single international organisation that does not refer to its members (the geography) its own name (mmm) and its internal bodies (for a country this would even be ridiculous). So I think this line does not add any content and should therefor be removed. Arnoutf (talk) 14:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Ditto to all of the above.- J Logan ^t: 15:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree. It would be better to remove the "phrase EU" sentence and to merge the first sentence ("The European Union (EU) is a political...") with the second paragraph ("The EU comprises..."). Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Done Arnoutf (talk) 15:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If you guys do not mind, I would like to go back to the last sentence of the first paragraph. I still think we should replace "It has both supranational features, being able to make directives which are binding to its members, as well as intergovernmental features, as it depends on agreement between the different members" by "The EU's functioning partially depends on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organizations. The European Union also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding to member states." Here are the main advantages: First, the old version says the EU "depends on agreement between the different members", which is not always true. ECJ does not care about agreements between states, does it? Second, the new version gives a specific example of intergovernmentalism (IGOs) and also implicitly refers to the EU as an international organization, which is basically the legal status of the EU in the international law and a frequent description in the literature. Third, some readers might mistake "directives" in the old version for legislative directives. Well, it is not a big deal either way, but I think the proposed version is slightly better. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The first version is shorter but a bit harder to graps for the lay-reader, the second more precise but longer. I can live with both (and agree it is not, and should not be, a big deal). Arnoutf (talk) 16:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Surely in many ways though, the introduction is the most important part of the page. If this section is not a big deal, then the question has to be what is? I have to admit though after reading it again, the current version (as I'm typing), without that 'the phrase EU' bit is actually fine by me - though I did like what Sandpiper had done with the taking a new line after "The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe". That was a nice touch that should be put back in. --Simonski (talk) 11:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I slightly reorganized the order of sentences in the lead.[9] Now, the first paragraph sums up what the EU is (e.g. single market, common policies), the second paragraph is devoted to the EU's institutions and governance, and the third paragraph outlines the history. Basically, this structure existed before, but few sentences seemed to be out of this order. I hope you will like this change. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support for the one sentence first para. This is a principle I strongly support for any article, that the very first sentence should be a complete (if very short) definition of the subject, and placing it by itself makes this quite clear. I think this helps improve wikipedias usefulness. We offer three types of article in one, single line definition, short intro summary, and longer explanation. I agreee with comment above that the intro as a whole is important.Sandpiper (talk) 10:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Re the addition proposed by pgreenfinch, saying the word EU may be used in different contexts. As I understand it, his point is that the EU may be considered as the institutions and rules, or may be considered as an area/country/federation and be talked about collectively. I think Lear has argued this, eg with sport and economy, and googling 'EU this' and 'EU that'. On the whole, we talk about the institutions/rules, and i think this is correct. However, I am not sure it is not worth mentioning in the intro that there exists a different usage, whereby people may be referring either to the the whole thing as a place, or as an international organisation. I agree, this would not be an issue with a country, but the point is that despite not being a country, it is sometimes though of as though it were. We argue about this quite a bit, which supports the suggestion that it ought to be mentioned. Though I don't think the form of words as proposed would do, it needs improving. Sandpiper (talk) 10:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Seems very pointless to me, does it matter? People will understand any usage used on this page and it is obvious to most. Adding a sentence like that would probably add to confusion in it being an unclear statement of something that wouldn't usually be mentioned.- J Logan ^t: 13:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Logan. I really strongly oppose the placing of Pgreenfinch's sentence back in. It seems wholly unnecessary. I think the distinction is clear throughout the article itself without requiring it at the start. Surely as a compromise it can be omitted, but the other changes kept? --Simonski (talk) 16:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

So, are we done here?

Just to check, do we have a consensus here then on the current state of the intro? It would be handy to have one before he who violates his edit block returns and just reverts whatever changes have been made (which of course will just lead to another edit ban anyway). I for one can live with the current version, but wouldn't add anything to it. Anybody else have any major problem here? --Simonski (talk) 11:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I carefully read it and am fine with most. However, because of the new structure more emphasis is now placed on the last line:

The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 will amend the existing treaties when ratifification is completed in 2008.

This line is fairly vague as it does not mention in what way it amends. From the text this amendment could be as little as clarifying an ambiguous text; or as massive as being almost a constitution. Therefore I think we need to amend this line. Suggestion; which I am not completely happy with, so please respond (my considerations, keep length down as much as possible, try to find a neutral point of view - ie not saying the the amendments are good)

The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 will amend the existing treaties in a way that will extensively update the political and legal structure of the Union, when ratifification is completed in 2008.

Sorry for stopping you consensus building Simonski, but I think this important enough; it is only this single line I am having problems with so I do support a consensus on every other bit of the text. Arnoutf (talk) 13:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem man, I mean if we aren't done here, we aren't done here after all! We have, from what I understand, 2 more peaceful weeks to reach one anyway! :P

I see your point on the Lisbon Treaty. I think most objective people who step out of the whole 'Constitution' debate will agree with the idea that "We are currently working with rules designed for 15 countries, when we now have 27 in the EU - the rules need updated." So perhaps a mention to the fact that the Lisbon Treaty is a response to a need to reform post-Enlargement. However, I personally think that we should go with your idea as it is relatively neutral/objective/doesn't say anything that could be nitpicked at. After all, why the Lisbon Treaty is being ratified is open to debate/non-NPOV considerations. So I'd be fine with you sticking that extra bit onto the sentence on the Lisbon Treaty. As long as we avoid trying to summarise what the changes are in a sentence, as they themselves are also open to debate.

Other than that, any other problems? Have we got a compromise of sorts here? (I'm referring to those who brought the issue up in the first place including the confederation chap) --Simonski (talk) 13:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

well, in furtherence of this debate I read the Lisbon treaty article (again). I still would not care to say whether it 'extensively update(s) the political and legal structure of the Union'. I could go with any of it except 'extensive', which seems to be debateable. Surely, an extensive amendment would be, abolish the parliament and make the council elected. Now that would be a change, but does this treaty really do more than tinker? I seem to recall also that the last treaty was touted as necessary changes to allow for the expanded EU to function effectively, so this is hardly a novel change either. I do not think the introduction should have more than one sentence about lisbon, and really only as a note that it is happening. If we include more content in this article about Lisbon, I think it needs to go elsewhere in the text, where the treaty will cause a change. Arguabley, this makes sense for us, because if the treaty passes those sections of the article will have to be amended anyway, and the necessary changes will already be here. The question would be whether it is still to early to effectively double-up every section with an explanation of forthcoiming changes which still might not happen. Alternatively, we might place a paragraprh at the end of the history section with the highlight changes (perhaps as a subsection by itself so it appears in the index, since I think this is an important issue).Sandpiper (talk) 18:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok Extensive maybe too much. Suggestion - delete; or replace with "significantly" ? Arnoutf (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Its still a value judgement. Any adjective says it is important (or eg 'minor', unimportant). I really don't know whether it is or not, but I do know some people are quite rabid about it. I also don't like us claiming it is important, if it isn't (or contrariwise, unimportant).Sandpiper (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I think "significant" is sufficiantly weaker compared to "extensive" but ify ou would favour the "delete" option I am ok with that. So we go for something like: "The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 will amend the existing treaties in a way that will update the political and legal structure of the Union, when ratifification is completed in 2008." At least this gives some hint what it is about otherwise there is (in my opinion) no sense in adding it in the lead at all, which has to be readable as a stand-alone summary. Arnoutf (talk) 21:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I've stuck it in, though i've also changed "in a way that will" simply to "to" as the complexity was bugging me. Sandpiper —Preceding comment was added at 07:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)--Autosigned by SineBot--)

Now, I do also have a problem with the line The EU's functioning partially depends on agreement between members, where I have similar difficulties with the word 'partially' as I did with 'extensive' above. In this case I would be inclined to come down of the opposite side, not 'partially', but 'largely'. I'm not quite sure where you place 'qualified majority voting' with regard to requiring agreement, but I would say it was still necessary to obtain agreement. An element of supranationalism does creep in, just not enough to describe the remaining need for agreement as 'partial'. Ive changed it to 'Some areas of the EUs functioning depend..' Sandpiper

I agree your argument is reversed here. partially is non-quantified and does not say how large the part is, while "largely" assumes more knowledge. I think you are right, but if anyone objects the search for a good source for the largely will be more demanding then for partially. I am happy to leave it for now. Arnoutf (talk) 11:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Righty, anything else from anybody? From my point of view aside from that sports section and a couple of other debatable sentences here and there (which are obviously there to cater for the alternative view of the EU, ie. taking the member states as a whole under the EU banner even where they dont really act together as the EU) this page now seems alright. Considering the variety of views held by the editors its at a reasonable state just now isnt it? If it were me I still don't know if I'd ever give it FA though, simply because that'd be like saying 'its 100% accurate' when because of the contentious nature of the subject, at the moment it will never be. --Simonski (talk) 21:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

and another section, debate on lead

I read through again and was struck by this claim that the EU has 'supranational bodies'. I'm not sure I could name them (plural), especially since they are distinguished by the way it is phrased from those areas of the EU which work intergovernmentally. Would anyone care to suggest a list to justify this statement? (not for inclusion, just to satisfy me it is factual).

Another point, I quite like the lead, but I am bothered a reviewer might come along and start arguing why it does not accurately summarise the article. Now, I think it may well summarise the important points of the EU, but that is completely different. I support a lead which does its job, not one which slavishly mirrors the article, but others may not. In particular I noted the mention of the agriculture and fisheries policies right at the top. This is entirely correct given their historical importance, share of budget and continuing source of wrangling, but you would never know it from the rest of the article.

I also rephrased the sentence of EU statistics to be consistent with the rest of that paragraph, talking about things from the perspective of members. Sandpiper (talk) 08:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting you bring the first point up, as it was actually discussed in a seminar I was at today. The ECJ itself is the most obvious example, as it is acting independently of the Member States. I guess the Commission would also be considered a supranational body as well (and maybe the parliament, not sure). You could probably nitpick but I'd say these bodies are mainly supranational bodies, to answer your question (obviously for each it could be argued that there are intergovernmental features as well but they are mainly supranational in nature). --Simonski (talk) 18:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, the way the article is currently structured, it says there are some intergovernmental areas, but then goes on to say some institutions are supranational, ie not at all intergovernmental. I also immediatly thought of the court. Arguably, the commission is acting supranationally if it is acting by itself enforcing EU legislation, but when proposing new measures, they have to be approved by the parliament (sometimes) and the council (always). Given the council is at least largely intergovernmental, then the commission/EU can not act supranationally to create new legislation. What implications the fact that all EU legislation is therefore derived intergovernmentally, including that which is enforced by the commission or court has on this, I'm not quite sure. The upshot though is that I am uncomfortable arguing any part is entirely supranational, never mind more than one. It is an issue of precise meaning: I'm quite happy saying some aspects are IG and some SN, it is using language which pins it down which is troublesome. I think I am going to have a stab at improving this by replacing 'bodies' with 'elements' in the article, and see if it reads better next time I look at it. Sandpiper (talk) 23:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I would heavily oppose that change though to be honest. The sentence as it stands reflects a long established view on the EU. The ECJ is described as a supranational court at the very least. Like I said, you could nitpick that sentence and try and somehow qualify it, but I don't see how the ECJ can be considered to be in any way an intergovernmental court, particularly post-Reform Treaty with the abolition of the pillar system. And also, the fact that the Commission's proposals ultimately get dealt with by the Council and the Parliament, I don't see how that would change the fact that the Commission was supranational in nature. Whilst you may be uncomfortable arguing that the EU has supranational bodies, I'd honestly say the majority of experts on the issue don't share your discomfort. At the very least, I would encourage you to propose what you're going to change here rather than just going ahead and changing it. I think the editing re: the intro has highlighted that people are crossing the line between WP:Bold and WP:I'm just being a bit rude actually. But anyway, I'd really, really argue against this last concern of yours. --Simonski (talk) 00:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As this concerns my wording, I would like to jump in. I support Simonski's opinion here. The ECJ is a textbook example of supranational bodies. I do not know any author arguing that the ECJ's extremely activist rulings are somehow "derived intergovernmentally". ECB is another supranational body independent from national governments (although its affiliation with the EU is somewhat complicated). The European Commissioners and members of the EP are supposed to decide independently from the governments of their respective home states. Of course, the intergovernmental organs (the Council, COREPER, etc.) exert extraordinary influence on many policies. But this fact does not contradict existence of other, supranational bodies, able to shape policies in their domains without much (or any) interference from member states. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 01:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Supranationalism requires not merely a group of people not appointed to their task by the country affected, but also the power to act. The commission is in the position of an expert group appointed with a remit defined intergovernmentally, whose task is to come up with proposed legislation to accomplish that remit. The intergovernmental council then has the power to accept the proposals, suggest amendments, or reject them and tell the commission to start again. The commissions supranationalism is further diluted because individuals are appointed by the council member states and inevitably represent those states. The parliament similarly has powers of veto, but again while it may fit the definition by its composition, it has no powers to impose its decisions. Curiously, the wiki article on supranationalism at least currently argues the EU may not be a supranational body at all.

I say again, the difficulties are that the current wording implies the existence of multiple, exclusively supranational bodies. I read the ECB article, but sadly remain rather unclear as to what its powers actually are. It sounds as though it is a good example of a supranational institution, but to what extent is this a major part of the EU, to counteract the intergovernmental nature of the main elements? Is it truly exclusively supranational?

While some people editing this page seek to dominate its content by edit warring, others also seek to dominate its content by denying editors rights to edit. That is wholly against the founding principles of wiki, particularly when an article has as many pitfalls as this one. Stability is not better than accuracy. Whatever anyone may decide at the conclusion of this particular discussion may be overturned by the next editor to visit this page, and rightly so. Rudeness has nothing to do with it: are you suggesting that any of the serious editors here is editing in bad faith to deliberately make the article worse? Sandpiper (talk) 09:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Does n't the wording"Some areas of the EU's functioning depend on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organisations. However, it also has supranational bodies," shows that the EU is not exclusively supranational; so I see no contradiction with the supranationalism article.

I think your other point is interesting, but would go close to original research. Taking In any case, although this is all very interesting it is at a level of specialisation in international law that would in general not benefit the regular reader. I would say that there is at least one truly supranational body: ECJ (which can enforce EU regulation over national law); and several bodies that could be classified as such ECB, commission, and some others. For the lead I would say that this would justify the use of plural in the lead. If you want to discuss the details I would suggest starting an article supranational bodies of the EU or something similar. Arnoutf (talk) 09:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Sandpiper I was mainly meaning that its far better when contentious changes are discussed before implemented. I've felt at times like you have just gone ahead and replaced things/edited things which do not have agreement and are in the middle of being discussed, look at the whole debate over the structure of the page for example. That tends to just lead to edit-warring. As for here, I would still be of the opinion that the ECJ and ECB at the very least are supranational, and the Commission might be considered so too, regardless of the Intergovernmental roadblock that is eventually placed infront of it in the form of the Council. I think if anything you should be looking to qualify the wording after the statement 'the EU has supranational bodies...' if you get what I mean, rather than change a statement which is agreed with by most. --Simonski (talk) 10:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

If you 'ignore the intergovernmental roadblock of the council', then any think tank or discussion group which proposes changes to the law but has no power to impose them is also a supranational organisation. I think the element of being able to carry out the change despite the protest of a government is the heart of the thing.

Arnoutf, the difficulty is that while this is not a specialist international law analysis, it does need to reflect any such debate when stating bald conclusions. If the specialist debate says this is a tricky issue, then we can't simply come down on one side. We already have the article Supranationalism#Supranationalism in the European Union, and it says what I have just reported. It is at least very close to contradicting this current statement here. One of them is plainly wrong.

As to editing, there are things on this page which I hesitate before changing which I would change as a matter of course on any ordinary page. This page is frozen in glue and could do with some more intervention from time to time. As a matter of course, anyone overviewing any page should look at any edit with a presumption that it improves the page unless it clearly does not. Similarly, even where some very odd edits sometimes appear, it is important to try to figure what the person meant by them, and whether they might have a point, even if not as quite currently expressed. And perhaps finally, it is important to try to read a page as a newcomer would with no knowledge of the subject or any massive debates which might have happened about one phrase, and try to figure if they really make sense. Sandpiper (talk) 11:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that at the moment this discussion has convinced me that the best way to phrase the two sentences would be to replace 'some areas of Eu functioning depend on agreement' with 'most areas...', and then leave the second sentence as was 'However...'. This would be the correct summarisation, mostly by agreement, but some areas supranationally? Sandpiper (talk) 11:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not see the exact lines you are proposing, but it seems reasonable. With regard to complex intnl law, I agree it should be correct, but we should not lengthen the text, especially in the lead. Arnoutf (talk) 12:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh good lord, I lose the internet for a few days and totally loose track of what is going on here. From what I gather skimming through maybe we should say that decisions require agreement between member states together with the supranational bodies (majority in Council and Parliament)?- J Logan ^t: 13:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Going by your definition of supranational Sandpiper then the ECJ is very much about as supranational as it gets (anticipating that you'll probably say well what about Member State process - well within the EU sphere when the ECJ says 'no, this is not the case, this is how it is to be' it is saying to the Member States that is how the rules of the EU are to be interpreted, if you don't like it, go and change the rules. The number of cases before the ECJ where so many Member States have intervened in the proceedings only to lose the case is vast in number). I would also say the Commission is as it pretty much acts independent of the Member States in choosing which companies to go after in Competition Law etc. So the EU does have supranational bodies in my opinion and this should be stated in the intro. However, the sentence which follows the statement, which reads: "able to make decisions binding to member states" should be replaced with "which can act independently of the Member States". That would surely soothe your concerns here Sandpiper? --Simonski (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I would say that was a section I had decided not to worry about (though I did earlier change 'to' to 'upon', but it got swapped back). Changing that section of the sentence as you describe changes its meaning. For example, the government of Iran acts independently of the member states of the EU also, but that does not make it supranational or able to make binding rules in the UK. I think we should make clear that what this is about is the ability to make law in any member state against the wishes of that state. It is important to say that, it is just that it is also important to get the balance right. Yes the EU can do this in some respects, but in other important issues it can not. Wikipedia argues that the ECJ is not supranational, because the rules it enforces are clearly constrained and created by a series of intergovernmental agreemenets, the governments concerned can change the rules and do so quite frequently. I don't mind counting it as an essentially supranational body for this debate, becaus I think it fits the definition although its scope is more constrained than some would argue. Similarly, the ECB is a good example, but I remain convinced the overall balance is more towards IG than SN decision making. Quite a number of people think an independant central bank is a good idea, and an independent arbiter of the rules (ECJ) is also necessary. But they are ringmasters, not players. So far, the states have kept very firm control of power for themselves. Sandpiper (talk) 15:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia's" representation of the ECJ as not supranational clearly reflects the view of whatever editor heavily influenced the page. A lot of academic writing on the issue would come to the opposite conclusion. Its like your points just there, they are fair points, and some academics would agree with what you're saying, whilst others wouldn't. Its a point of view, much like the issue of whether the EU itself is mainly Supranational/Intergovernmental in nature. I think personally the current intro reflects a middle ground which exists in general writing on the issue, and we should not try to replace generally held opinions with our own, if that makes sense. If we qualify every statement within the introduction because they are contentious points, then the intro will be massive. You could easily argue that the ECJ does create law which is binding on the Member States until they re-draft the next treaty. Its happened on numerous occasions. I still am not convinced that the statement the EU has supranational bodies is wrong. It does.

Clearly though this debate is reaching a saturation point, so it might be useful here for people to state what their opinion is on whether the EU can be considered to have supranational bodies. So far, from what I've gathered (and correct me if I'm wrong), its only Sandpiper who has a problem with the statement in itself? --Simonski (talk) 15:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The ECJ decides independently from governments of member states and its decisions are binding. The ECJ's activist rulings not only interpret the EU law, but also help create it. At least this is the most common view in the literature. The ECB is responsible for the monetary policy of the Eurozone. Again, its decisions (e.g. setting the interest rate) are binding and independent from the will of governments. I do not understand why Sandpiper believes the "overall balance is more towards IG than SN decision making" in case of ECB. If the ECB were an intergovernmental institution, the Euro would be already devalued to the level of USD:-) Two clearly supranational bodies (ECJ and ECB) are enough to use the plural in the lead. But we can continue. The Commission, for instance, makes binding decisions independently from national governments in the area of the economic competition. The European Medicines Agency approves new drugs for all states without any interference from the governments... Isn't it enough? Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Supranational Bodies

Ok, so just to try and get some consensus here on the intro to try and stabilise it (because I still suspect that a certain somebody is going to come back in a weeks time and try and revert it, so we would need to have a consensus in place to make it easier to ignore such action).. Do you have a problem with the following sentence in the introduction to the EU page: "However, it [the EU] also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding to member states" (please keep your explanations short if possible!) --Simonski (talk) 15:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• No - I for one think it reflects a generally held position on a number of the EU institutions, particularly the ECJ. --Simonski (talk) 15:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
• No. The prevailing consensus in the literature is that the ECJ and ECB are supranational and not intergovernmental bodies. In addition, there are several other supranational bodies (listed in my previous comments) able to exert their power in some areas. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
• No. with 2 caveats: that it should read 'binding upon' (or maybe 'on'?) and not 'binding to' as a matter of language, and that the previous sentence be beefed up slightly rather than saying 'some areas..', perhaps 'much of the EUs functioning depends on agreement..' Sandpiper (talk) 18:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
• No. Not fantastic but it works and its an agreement, same as above.- J Logan ^t: 11:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

_____________________________________________________

Comments on the Above

Thats fine by me Sandpiper, and I would agree that 'upon' seems like the better word to use. I personally would have no problem with you 'beefing up' the sentence in the way suggested. --Simonski (talk) 21:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with the proposed wording ("binding upon" and "much of the EUs functioning") too. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 23:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Fiine with me. Arnoutf (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Introduction

To get in line with many GA status layouts and almost all FA articles some adjustments are needed. 1. The single sentence at the beginning has to be merged into a paragraph. An article as comprehensive and an issue as broad as the European Union can´t be summarized in one sentence. Therefore all paragraphs should at least aim to appear of equal importance and size. 2.There are probably some fishermen editors out there who are disappointed, but I think the mentioning of the fishery policies are not significant enough for the intro, sorry. 3. Quote: "Much of the EU's functioning depends on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organisations. However, it also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding upon member states." This phrase contains weasel words (much) and sounds not encyclopeadic at all. It has to be rephrased. I took the freedom to tackle the most pressing problems on the road to FA... Lear 21 (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Considering as you well know there was a consensus on the intro whilst you were away Lear, I disagree wholeheartedly. Separating the first sentence in particular was incredibly effective in my view. Why the CAF is not as important as the CAP makes absolutely no sense Lear, you can't just disregard it without decent reason. Also, whilst 3) is debatable, I think you're completely wrong regarding 1) and would urge you to just accept that people agreed on that already. If you want to do the page a favour re: FA, then leave the intro alone.

Furthermore, maybe you should have a read of the comments posted on the FA review page so far about this page, more people are concerned with your ability to disrupt things here at times rather than the intro. Infact not one has voiced a problem with it. The assumption must be therefore that the version going to review was satisfactory. The previous one was good enough for GA, not for FA. --Simonski (talk) 10:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

1.Please see [10] and please respect how introductions are organized in Wikipedia. My personal view also tells me that the 2. Para appears to bulky while the 1.sentence looks lonely. Lear 21 (talk) 08:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, what you've tacked on to the first sentence doesn't seem to belong in the opening sentence. Look at the opening paragraph for example of the USA page, or indeed the UN page, or the African Union. The second sentence you have placed at the start looks out of place. If you want to extend it I think you'll have to find something else to tack onto it, from what I'm seeing it should be either a brief bit on why the EU was established, or perhaps the intergovernmental/supranational sentence. And also again, nobody has brought it up at FA review - so I'm still sceptical as to whether the current intro wouldn't be acceptable under FA standards. --Simonski (talk) 10:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the most recent changes (at the time of typing), I would revert but I'm interested to hear what everybody else thinks. I still don't think its a good idea to have that GDP line in the first paragraph, I don't see why that is more relevant than the other stuff below it (indeed arguably its less relevant). However I'm anticipating that if anybody else does have a problem with Lear's changes, it would be over the intergovernmental/supranational sentence.. wasn't there a massive discussion leading up to that new consensus? Lear honestly it'd be far more helpful if you actually discussed your changes before making them, particularly given the importance of the introduction to the page. --Simonski (talk) 14:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The EU is seen worldwide primarily as a unified economic entity. There seems nothing wrong to put the GDP data in the first paragraph. The German [11] & the French article[12] prioritize this indicator very high. Right now there is certainly some room within the first para to amend the intergovernmental/supranational issue. Personally, I would prefer that every specialized explanation how the EU works should go in to the respective sections. The Governance section for instance needs a lot of work. Lear 21 (talk) 14:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, if you don't like the revised intro I would suggest you read the debate we had about it, and comment here why you object to the arguments made for changing it. As to your current comments:

As far as I am concerned, an introduction should contain the very most important informtion about the subject. You reinserted the words supranational and intergovernmenmtal into the top of the article. My personal objection to inserting these words as you have and as they were used before, is that they are incomprehensible to a non specialist reader without further explanation. Thus we added some explanation. We also moved them down the intro, because frankly they are not the most important thing about the EU. What it does is more important than how it does it. Arguably, explaining this aspect of the EU could easily be relegated from the intro entirely, as a legal trechnicality, but it makes a lot more sense when placed in a paragraph together with the institutions which are being described. An introduction needs to be sensibly organised so it does not flit about from one thing, away and then back, but instead the information must be organised logically. This applies to the body of the article too, of course.

The GDP of the member states is almost irrelevant to the functioning of the EU, and is also already quoted in the infobox just right of the text. Arguably it need not be mentioned in the intro at all. The single market and other EU institutions clearly are more important than the GDP so should be mentioned first, and anyway need to be explained somewhat before mentioning the GDP, which is really only usefull to give an idea of the scale of this undertaking. Perhaps we need to stress that the EU is not a country, does not have its own economy, and thus the priorities for writing this article are almost the opposite of those you suggest relevant for writing about countries. At one and the same time you are seeking to say the most important thing about the EU is that it is a supranational and international organisation, yet then you abandon explaining the nature of this institution and instead discuss it as if was just another country.

I entirely disagree that one sentence can not sum up the EU, and think that a one line definition is a very good way to begin an article. As to arrangement of introductions generally, I'm afraid the link you gave is not to any page recommending style for writing intros. Please can you provide a better link? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandpiper (talk • contribs) 19:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

1.Please see [13] and please respect how introductions are organized in Wikipedia. The 2. Para appears to bulky while the 1.sentence looks lonely. Nobody at Wikipedia would try to sum up an article of 160kb in one sentence. Please also don´t introduce false claims anymore like Quote: "Much of the EU's functioning depends on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organisations. However, it also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding upon member states." This phrase contains weasel words (much), sounds not encyclopeadic at all, and is plainly wrong. Most of the Institutions are organized supranationally. Please accept how the EU is seen in the world [14] - as a unified economic heavy weight. The GDP figures is the most decisive indicator to this fact. Thanks a lot for the attention. Lear 21 (talk) 06:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

That is the same link you gave before. It is just a list of FA articles and says nothing about what kind of intro might be better or worse.

It may be your opinion that one particular para is too buky, or that one sentence looks lonely. My opinion is that I am not concerned if a sentence is lonely. I seek to give the article impact at first glance. Are you saying that much of the EU's functining does not depend on agreement between member states? The question of to what extent the EU is supranational was debated extensively above, with the conclusion that mostly it is intergovernmental. Can you explain how this is false?

It is not the case that wiki bans words such as 'much' when used accurately and descriptively. This is an excess which some editors fall into, because of the potential for stating vague claims. However, this is not a vague claim, but a summary expanded on rather later.

Thank you for the ref talking about the econony of the EU. However, this article is not about the economy of the EU, but the EU as a whole. Perhaps you should raise it on the chat for the article talking about the EU economy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandpiper (talk • contribs) 08:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

intergovernmentl v supranational, refs analysis

Preliminary statement of CIA WFB: [15] and Intergovernmental vs Supranational at Eurojargon [16] Lear 21 (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Which points are you trying to substantiate with these references? The cia has a fairly large page and does not mention economic statistics until 2/3 of the way down it. It then manages to mention each fact only once, whereas we repeate them three times. So logically we should remove at least two mentions, if we follow their example, and it should not appear in the introduction. I would have no problem following their example here. It might also be useful to add some of their economy information to our page about the EU economy. It also says they have a page about the EU because it is country like in some respects. I don't doubt the importance of the EU and its worth for having an article, but it is a huge trap to describe it as though it were a country. The CIA entry falls into this trap. I am sure they know this, and don't care, because their article exists for completeness and specifically because they think the EU will become a country. We do not crystal ball gaze in this way, so it is not appropriate to write about the EU as if it were a country. Rather, we write about it as it is.

The EU glossary you quote says about supranational,"Many EU decisions are taken at 'supranational' level in the sense that they involve the EU institutions, to which EU countries have delegated some decision-making powers.", without explaining in what sense these decisions are non-supranational. About intergovernmental it says"This literally means 'between governments'. In the EU, some matters – such as security and defence issues – are decided purely by intergovernmental agreement (i.e. agreement between the governments of the EU countries), and not by the 'Community method' (see above). These intergovernmental decisions are taken by ministers meeting in the Council of the European Union, or at the highest level by the prime ministers and/or presidents of the EU countries, meeting as the European Council". ie, the official glossary states that meetings of the Council of the european union are intergovernmental in nature.

About the community method it says "This is the EU's usual method of decision-making, in which the Commission makes a proposal to the Council and Parliament who then debate it, propose amendments and eventually adopt it as EU law. In the process, they will often consult other bodies such as the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. ". ie it involves both supranational and intergovernmental elements. Since the European council is involved and has a veto on most issues, and is decribed by the EU as intergovernmental, I don't see how the process can be described as supranational. That would mean that matters can be decided without intergovernmantal decision, which they mostly are not. What we said in the article. Sandpiper (talk) 10:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I experienced a bit of Deja Vu there when I saw you just repeated your same argument again Lear. Its unfortunate since you might have a fair point in some respects but just argue it in such a bad way. The fact that it looks lonely, firstly, is your opinion. No other editor gave this opinion. I suggest therefore we take a straw poll on it. The second para (previously) may have looked a bit bulky, again that is open to interpretation, but again the editors and the FA reviewers did not seem to have a problem with it again.

Since you are trying to revisit consensus here the issue should really have been you trying to change everybodys mind rather than coming in and just trying to assert your view as the proper one. And no, it is not 'accepted' that the EU has mainly supranational institutions/features. How you can actually with a straight face then cite the CIA article (please get a new source by the way) and ignore the academic debate on the nature on the EU that is going on, I have absolutely no idea.

However it represents a serious point, that although I had no problem with the previous intergovernmental/supranational sentence, it is not 100% my view on how things stand. The issue is how the hell do we deal with the contentious issue as to what the EU is. Because of the nature of my studies at the moment I've been reading several articles where you hear views such as 'The EU is a federal state in its infancy', 'the EU is a confederation' (hope that 88 guy isnt around to hear me say that!), 'the EU has mainly supranational features', the 'EU still retains mainly intergovernmental features', 'the EU is just a contract between states' etc etc (the first two being claimed quite rarely it seems, more about the intergovernmental/supranational debate). How can we deal with the fact that there is no academic/political agreement on the issue, and summarise it in the introduction? Any thoughts?

Finally, I can't be sure because I speak little German, but the links to the French/German versions of the page highlight as far as I can see that no mention of the GDP is made in the first paragraph. Plus, the FA rated language versions of the page do not either. To me it is not what should be in the opening para. Something on the single market or currency would be far more fitting if you ask me, and would satisfy your concerns about the economic entity idea. --Simonski (talk) 10:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The intergovernmental vs supranational debate is of no relevance for further elaboration in the introduction. It is clear that both dimensions exist. The neutral phrase representing this reality is now included in the first para. This article is furthermore read around the world. The EU is primarily seen as major economic player, chief global regulator in terms of industrial standards and heavy weight in WTO talks. This status derives from it´s combined economic output- GDP. Nothing wrong to include this status in the first para. The French and the German version (yes it is only written and not in numbers) have included this fact at the top of their introduction. Lear 21 (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, you seem to be just denying the facts. The version you have reinserted persists in containing the incomprehensible words intergovernmental and supranational without explanation (a bad thing in any introduction), and now introduces another random claim that the EU is unprecedented in history. Hardly. Ever heard of the USA? The Roman Empire? Even Hitler's third reich, which was a coalition between Germany and Italy, indeed also Russia. That one turned out especially badly.

Returning to economics, well, no. The EU has little to do with the happy fact that the sum total of the economic output of all its members is what it is. In looking through the refs r4ecently I noticed a claim that Germany was the worlds largest exporter of goods. Not the EU. It has been said before, that the economic statistics, like sport, or the favourite religions of EU member states have hardly anything to do with the EU as an organisation. Sandpiper (talk) 11:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

There should be no problem to reintroduce the term sui generis instead of "without historical precedent". The term sui generis has been used for a very long time on this article before and is quite accurate. Plus: The Swedish article [17] has already successfully adapted the layout of this article and interpreted the EU in even broader dimensions. Lear 21 (talk) 11:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The term sui generis is totally incomprehensible and certainly does not belong in the intro. Consider what the intro is for. It should explain in a general way what the EU is/does. It should not be explaining abstruse aspects of international law. Sandpiper (talk) 12:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The term sui generis is of huge importance when trying to describe the EU. It sets the reader's understanding almost immediately, reminding them that it is unique, but nevertheless contains elements of other easily recognizable institutions. It's hardly a difficult concept, and a link to the relevant page should suffice. I'm sure that with a little creativity it can be weaved back in. Sephui (talk) 12:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it is a useful term, and one that probably best summarises the current position, regardless of whether your average reader will understand it. However that doesn't stop the fact that not all academics/politicians would agree with the statement that the EU is a sui generis entity. That was more what I was getting at. And Lear I'm not sure I agree with you that the intergovernmental-supranational dispute does not raise problems for the intro.

I don't mind mentioning suigeneris later in the article provided it is explained properly, if people insist. But the fact is, if you wanted to state 100 important facts about the EU which concern the average reader, this would not be one of them. It does not belong in the intro. In 30 years of listening to stories about the EU I never met this before coming to this article. Sandpiper (talk) 20:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

On the GDP point, like I have kept pointing out and you haven't yet really replied to is that the other FA language versions of the page don't seem to mention the GDP thing. ie. The Swedish page does not have the GDP discussion in the first paragraph. And no, the French version does not have it in the opening paragraph either. You don't even need to be fluent in French to see that. So why you are claiming it does is beyond me. --Simonski (talk) 14:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, I believe the French version actually sums it up perfectly. Here is a badly translated version of it-

"The European Union was established February 7 1992, as a result of the ratification of the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht by the twelve member states of the European Economic Community (CEE). This is an intergovernmental and supranational union composite of 27 States.

- to me that is just a short, succinct introduction which says all you need to know without going down any subjective route. I'd alter the first sentence slightly but I think its a good model to go from. --Simonski (talk) 14:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, this is clearly developing into two issues

-1) how should the intro deal with the supranational/intergovernmental/sui generis description issue and

-2) should the second part of the first paragraph in the intro mention the GDP?

- I would say for 1) the previous description (which I'll call the Sandpiper version) was actually fine and with a slight tweaking could do the job and 2) the opening paragraph should not provide such an economic statistic. Given your normal taste for following the structure of country pages Lear, I'm surprised you'd want to have it there. --Simonski (talk) 14:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, I see lear has made an amendemnet, stating the EU depends upon supranational bodies. This gives the impression the whole thing is supranational, which is plainly wrong, and if anything shifts the intro further away from the consensus. Sandpiper (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Consider it reverted. Lear its up to you if you want to play with fire here but I really would recommend discussion before changing. Not only are you jeopardising the ever-increasingly slight chance that this page will make it through FA review but you are just ignoring what everybody else has said. I was hoping you'd have learnt from your time off. If you're going to look for a middle road here then look back at the discussion that was had whilst you were away on the supranational-intergovernmental description... it is incredibly significant that come the end of the debate the version I have just reverted to was one that all editors at that time agreed on and one that was not criticised in any way by the FA reviewers.

Instead of just placing back in what you want to be in the intro, could you please discuss 1) and 2) above. Normally when somebody does not agree with you, you are supposed to try and convince them of your view. When that doesn't work, you're supposed to try and reach a compromise. Please do. --Simonski (talk) 15:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

One thing concerning FA review: These editors never judge the content! They control grammar and some rules enacted by Wikipedia. When it comes to issue like the EU, which is a highly contemporary, permanent evolving content it is no wonder that they have absolutely no opinion. They just don´t know what, where or how the EU is (even less like all the contributing experts ;) ). I have added the preliminary statement of CIA WFB: [18], which is an external non-European-source, and an internal EU-opinion-source [19] to verify the supranational-intergovernmental balance. This is without a doubt the accurate description of the reality. You should bring credible sources to continue claiming that: "Much of the EU's functioning depends on agreement between members". You won´t find them, because its wrong. Please stop citing consensus, which led to this biased statement. And Yes! still, the French and the German version have included the fact of the GDP at the top of their introduction. One last remark: The intro content in total hasn´t changed. The amended supranational-intergovernmental balance (that was needed) and the GDP went up to fill in the first paragraph. Nothing else of importance happened. It now looks again like an organized introduction. Lear 21 (talk) 15:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I could cite one academic article already suggesting something else and there are no doubt several more. Maybe we should just try and aim at a sentence which is neutral between to what extent supranational and intergovernmental aspects exist. Like just a statement just saying there exists both supranational and intergovernmental elements - full stop - (which I think was all that was said before the original changes that led to the earlier debate) like the current French version . I'll come back later but just as a quick point, no Lear, there is a BIG difference between the GDP comment being in the opening paragraph and being near the top of the introduction. I just posted above what the French opening paragraph says... did you not read it??!?

And also, appreciated there that you didn't revert and discussed instead. With this approach I'm sure an agreement will be easier to reach. On the FA review, indeed its been a bit dissappointing and indeed suggestive that the FA review scheme is flawed. But as for citing consensus, just going by the rules I'm afraid. Its your subjective opinion that its "biased", whereas ironically what you have intended to put in re: supranational aspects could also be argued as "biased" --Simonski (talk) 16:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

There is surely a middle-ground between the two views of intergov/supra. Whether the EU is intergovernmental or supranational largely depends on the policy area at issue. The 2nd and 3rd pillars are strongly intergovernmental, whereas elements of the Community pillar are supranational. Even this, however, is a crass generalisation.

Within the Community pillar both elements are present. Comitology, and the recognition of the European Council means that both the high level policy decisions and the minutae detail of technical legislation are affected by intergovernmental considerations. Equally the activist role of the ECJ, the growing strength of Parliament and the move towards QMV shows supranational tendencies. The bitter fights between the Commission and Council over environmental crime, for example, or the Pupino judgment shows that supranationalism in fields of third pillar should not be ignored. Saying that the EU contains both intergov and suprana qualities should be sufficient. To argue it exhibits one more than the other is more contentious and debatable Lwxrm (talk) 16:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

@Simonclamb/Lwxrm: I have never written or signalized that anything else than that BOTH dimensions exist and should be mentioned equally. The last version was rather neutral on that point @Simonclamb: Concering the GDP, you start arguing for micro-inches, like a lawyer, haha. The third sentence of the French article is about the GDP. The same is true for the new proposal here at the English version. Again, the EU has become a major economic factor in the globalized world [20], [21] (you only need to scan the captions). This is due to its combined economic output. To mention this is rather natural and explains the EU in the same manner like all other sentences in the introduction. Lear 21 (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

That is disputable, certainly your last version seemed as Sandpiper pointed out, to have a supranational-favoured description. I for one would favour not having the 'precedent' idea involved either and that the description should be as short as possible. And as for the micro-inches, first of all there IS a big difference between something being in the opening paragraph and being in the first sentence of the following paragraph. Second of all, I do not mean to imply that I would place the GDP sentence at the start of a second paragraph anyway. It is a bit odd mind you to have you now saying that the EU is primarily an economic entity when surely beforehand in the sports debate you were saying the opposite. I do think it is natural to mention the GDP thing in the intro, just not in the first sentence which should be a succinct description of the EU and its main features. To me the GDP issue would be a sub-feature flowing from the above.

Also, Lwxrm, that was a superb summary, amen. --Simonski (talk) 17:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I said "primarily" and "globally seen" (Non-EU-Member-perspective) as economic. This is not true for the internal (EU-member) perspective (us). Both perspectives need to be addressed in this article. Lear 21 (talk) 17:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, you started this debate arguing the format of the intro was unacceptable for a featured article. I requested you to show style/policy how this was so, but you have not. More recently above, you argue the FA assessors never judge content, merely style, yet not a peep from them suggesting the intro was badly organised with the wrong number of paragraphs, etc. Since you have not come back to this, I assume you accept your argument was invalid?

Further, you cited the CIA page, I am assuming with regard to mentioning economic statistics? Do you accept the view of the ref you cite, that such statistics should only be introduced later in the page, not in the intro, and only mentioned once in total? Sandpiper (talk) 20:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Please re-read 1. It said: "An article as comprehensive and an issue as broad as the European Union can´t be summarized in one sentence." It would pretend that this was possible. It is wrong and unprecedented in high quality articles within Wikipedia. Therefore every paragraph should at least aim to appear of equal size. Plus: It looks better. / CIA was mentioned to cite intergov/supranat balance. / And yes, still, the EU has become a major economic influence in the globalized world and is known for it (see the refs). This significant detail can and should be mentioned early in the introduction. This has already been done in 2 other major language Wikipedia articles. Nothing with it to do it here. Lear 21 (talk) 11:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Reaching a new agreement

Alright, so like I said, we have to somehow agree on the following

1) how should the intro deal with the supranational/intergovernmental/sui generis description issue and

2) should the second part of the first paragraph in the intro mention the GDP?

From what I see, there is a general preference for the intergovernmental/supranational aspects just to be mentioned objectively, in other words without a requirement to describe whether 'much of' the EU's functioning is supranational or intergovernmental. In practice, both aspects cross-fertilise in the existing pillar scheme anyway, so I dont think either side really wins out (I have to say that I read an article agreeing exactly with what Lwxrm said, in the period between the previous debate, which I'll call the Sandpiper intro debate and now, which can be called the Lear debate).

Therefore, as far as 1) goes, can we just say something like "The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe, possessing both intergovernmental and supranational features". Granted that may not be the best way of putting it but can we please have something like that as the opening sentence?

As far as number 2 goes, I just really don't think the GDP should be at the start, I think its position at the end of the second paragraph does not do it any injustice, it is still very clear for all to see. I don't think I'm afraid I'll be able to be convinced here so the best we're looking at it is having some sort of compromise where the French model is followed with the GDP sentence being at the top of the second para, but I doubt that this will appeal to others. As always, Consensus-1 can apply, which is worth bearing in mind for both sides. --Simonski (talk) 11:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree a more neutral mention of supranatio/intergovern is best. I also agree GDP is important, but not important enough to be dominant in the intro Lwxrm (talk) 11:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The most important sentences are almost settled now, I think. 1.sentence :like before. 2.sentence: neutral supranat/intergov sentence. I think we then need more content for a 3. and 4. sentence to make a complete paragraph. This can be GDP, which is also a kind of incompatible to the other paras and has a major relevance, OR, the inclusion of the historic development (like a month ago). In every case we need a mature paragraph and not only a single sentence. Lear 21 (talk) 11:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I should interject here that I find two possibilities acceptable. Either not mentioning the words supranational and intergovernmental at all, or mentioning together with an explanation of their meaning. I do not consider it at all acceptable just to drop them into the intro without explanation, because they will not be understood. This was the reason for expanding their mention in the first place. Also, they are much better placed further down the intro, for exactly the same reason that the economic data is aonly acceptable further down. This is not the core summary information about the EU. Think about it, it just isn't. A summary is the most important things. Neither of these really qualifies. Frankly, they are both footnotes! Sandpiper (talk) 12:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

To Lear - I would prefer a sentence on the historic development ie. the French way. To me that would read/look much better than the GDP thing and would also serve the purpose of thinning down the second paragraph. Like I said, I think the GDP sentence has an important enough place as it is.

To Sandpiper - man I'm afraid this is where I have to disagree. I don't think, as long as the individual can click on the link to the page on supranational and the page to intergovernmental, that we need to explain at the start what they are. At the same time I also think it is key to explain that it is a mixture of both and not just any old international organisation.

One example that might be relevant - the USA page describes in the opening paragraph the USA as a "federal constitutional republic", without going on to discuss what that means. The UN, African Union pages etc simply use the term 'international organisation' though in the opening paragraph interestingly, particularly given that the AU wishes to adopt a single currency eventually too etc.. hmm. The ASEAN page at the same time describes the organisation there as a 'geo-political and economic community of states'. Tough call actually. Personally I don't think we need to explain what we mean by supranational and intergovernmental, but I'm open to reasons why we should? You don't think its enough that people can just go and then find out what both mean? I don't think they're particularly complicated terms, unlike say, sui generis might be argued to be. --Simonski (talk) 13:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, I repeat for the third time of asking, do you agree that the example you cited of the CIA page suggests we should not mention the economy at all in the introduction, and should mention it only once in the article anywhere? Sandpiper (talk) 13:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, the first sentence should stand alone as a definition of what the article is about, in a paragraph by itself. It should not mention SN, IG or the economy which are not the most important issues in any way. Sandpiper (talk) 13:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I addressed most of proposals and trimmed some elements. It could be fine for everybody now... Lear 21 (talk) 13:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, do you accept that on a purely technical level, SA, IG and the economy are hardly mentioned in the body of the article at all, and so do not deserve any mention in the intro on this basis, the intro being a summary of the article? The thrust of your edit is to increase the importance of these points by placing them right at the start of the intro, where they have no right to be by any criteria. Their existence here in any position is already a compromise. Sandpiper (talk) 13:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Simonski, what I think is that there are different ways of writing an introduction. I think it a cardinal sin to include things which will confuse the reader, or which will not be understood. This should be explained when something is first introduced. It need not be explained completely (ie have a link, etc for further info), but must be explained sufficiently so the reader has an idea what is being talked about. Thus I am happy to mention these words provided they have attached mini explanations. It is not acceptable to start an article with a first sentence which is baffling. This is a point about good writing.

I also have a problem because an intro is supposed to be a summary of an article. Obviously, a summary must leave out most things, and only include the most essential. The points Lear is seeking to promote to the top of the intro are not the most essential things about the EU, so simply should not be there for that reason. The nature of the EU is difficult in this respect, because while mentioning it at all (SN IG SUG) overrepresents its importance in the body of the article, i agree it is a fundamentally important point. Thus I arrive at my position of placing it, with essential explanation, lower in the intro. I think it works well talking about the nature of the EU and its institutions in one paragraph. However, I also feel that mentioning it as we do is another potential fail point in the FA debate. The issue of whether the intro accurately represents the article was brought up by a peer reviewer previously, and even Lear has sought to argue it. This is a point about intro content. Sandpiper (talk) 13:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, I just read your last suggestion. Lewis Carol comes to mind. How does it make sense to talk about the history of something before explaining what it is we are talking about? Sandpiper (talk) 14:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

@Sandpiper: Uncorrect observation. The 1. para includes the current state (Maastricht), still active

parts(Rome-EEC), and most recent, almost future developments (Lisbon) ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lear 21 (talk • contribs) 15:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

People don't want to start with a history lesson list when changes happened to the Eu, they first need a description of what it is and does, but I just said that. Clearly it was not convincing. Sandpiper (talk) 15:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Sandpiper here, the history of EU is very technical and may scare away readers. The introduction should not open with that section.

In any case a (large) consensus was achieved (in a debate that took more then a week) for the current version (see the logs) and it has been stable in that version for over a week. Therefore the current version can only be changed (besided some minor editing - let's say spelling mistakes) after the consensus is changed. That Lear21 did not take part of achieving this consensus is his own fault as he got himself blocked for edit warring on this article; the consensus is here nevertheless. Arnoutf (talk) 16:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, intergovernmentalism and supranationalism do not need explanations of those terms, they can click on the links to look into that and the article should speak for itself on detail. GDP should be mentioned as it reflects its importance and clout in the world - to change any misconceptions about its importance. Don't care much where it comes in though. Some history could be good but kept brief as it can easily get long winded with the different treaties - maybe just that it has its roots in the ECSC founded in 1952? History is a good context to start talking about something, the era of establishment -and age- reflects its nature and so on. On the established consensus, that should be stuck to till a new one is formed, all parties should refrain from amending the text without getting support here or we just decent into the edit wars which stop this page progressing.- J Logan ^t: 20:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would just add here as well that Arnoutf is right to emphasise that the previous debate did involve a lot of discussion and can't just be skated over. Doing so could end up with the odd situation where the intro keeps getting changed depending on what editors are active/inactive per week. There's a couple of people who contributed to the previous debate who haven't given their two cents here, maybe they'll pop up at some point.

Anyway, I think there would seem to be at least agreement (and correct me if I'm wrong please) that the explanation of what degree of supranational/intergovernmentalism is involved re: the EU can be shortened to just a statement that these elements exist. Or maybe nobody agreed that. I have no idea. My position basically involves 3 things - 1) I would happily see it just say there are intergovernmental and supranational features, without going any further than just a plain statement saying that. 2) I don't think the 2 terms need described, for the reasons I gave above, and 3) I would rather anything in the opening paragraph other than a percentage GDP quote/statement about GDP. I am not too bothered about whether it has anything else tacked onto it, but if I had a gun to my head I'd say I preferred just the single sentence that we have at the moment (at the time of writing).

And it may also be worth thinking ahead here too as this is the type of thing that people are always going to come along and comment on, much like the 'why is there no criticism section' question (haha, see the FA current review actually) --Simonski (talk) 23:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

One NO GO has to be avoided, a single sentence in the lead [22].

Er, no. (I am assuming that was posted by Lear?) That ref links to a section describing how the body of the text should be written. It does not even ban single sentence paragraphs in the body text. The correct guideline for how to write a lead is Wikipedia:Layout#Lead section, and in greater detail Wikipedia:Lead_section. Please take more care with the refs you quote: the last three have all said something other than you have claimed. Sandpiper (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Because of the already stated incorrect claims and insufficiencies, I put up the following proposal to amend the so called "consensus-version" :

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. It has been established under that name by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and is governed by supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies. With almost 500 million citizens the EU member states are generating a combined estimated 30% share of the world's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) (US$16.6 trillion) in 2007.

The EU comprises a single market created by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. Passport control between many members has been abolished under the Schengen Agreement. Fifteen member states have adopted a common currency, the euro. The EU maintains common trade and agricultural policies, and a regional development policy. It has developed a role in foreign policy, and in justice and home affairs.

Important institutions and bodies of the EU include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. A European Parliament is elected by EU citizens every five years. The EU represents its members in the World Trade Organization and observes at G8 summits and at the United Nations. Twenty-one EU countries are members of NATO.

Predecessor entities of the EU trace its origins back to the Treaties of Paris signed in 1951 by six countries, and the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Since then the community has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 is intended to replace the existing treaties and initiated a ratification process in 2008. {presumably added byUser:lear 21)

Intro, failure of new proposal to comply with style guide

As to what the guideline actually says about the intro:The appropriate lead length depends on the length of the article, but should be no longer than four paragraphs...The subject of the article should be mentioned in bold text (subject) at a natural place, preferably in the first sentence.....Normally, the first paragraph summarizes the most important points of the article. It should clearly explain the subject so that the reader is prepared for the greater level of detail and the qualifications and nuances that follow. If further introductory material is needed before the first section, this can be covered in subsequent paragraphs....Keep in mind that sometimes this is all that is read, so the most important information should be included.

Directly relevant to my own arguments, the longer guideline says: The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article. (See news style and summary style.)

So the intro must contain the essential points leaving out, eg, legalistic minutiae or economic statistics, which are not central to explaining what it is.

In general, specialized terminology should be avoided in an introduction. Where uncommon terms are essential to describing the subject, they should be placed in context, briefly defined, and linked. The subject should be placed in a context with which many readers could be expected to be familiar. For example, rather than giving the latitude and longitude of a town, it is better to state that it is the suburb of some city, or perhaps that it provides services for the farm country of xyz county. Readers should not be dropped into the middle of the subject from the first word; they should be eased into it.

So if we use SN, IG etc, we must briefly define them as well as link them.

An interesting footnote in the lead guideline says, For the planned Wikipedia 1.0 — a static version of Wikipedia distributed on CD, DVD, or paper — one recommendation, not currently implemented, is that the articles will consist of just the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help create a concise intro that works as a stand-alone article.

So basically, does the intro contain those points most important to explain the EU, assuming nothing else will be read?

My own view on the reason for having a one sentence opening paragraph is that in effect the article becomes a threee-level definition. The single sentence as a simple definition. The intro as a whole as a very short summary of the most essential and informative information. The entire article for detail.

As to your suggestion. The opening sentence is fine: How the EU came by its name is not essential, nor is the name of the latest founding treaty. The treaty of Rome is at least as relevant, but nothing about how it came to exist is more important than what it is, and what it does. Whether it is supranational or intergovernmetal also tells the reader absolutely nothing about what it is or does. The words also break the guideline, because they are not explained. How big it is is arguably more relevant than the last lot, but remains minor information, less important than what the EU does or is, or how it works. Yor next para is the info which previously came immediately after the first sentence, because this is info which actually does describe the EU. Unfortunately you have hacked at it to remove some of the detail of what the EU does, thereby making it wholly worse. You have committed another sin, that of muddling up information, by dividing the historical information into two places, some in the first and some in the forth paragraph. The history section is the least essential and thus comes last, all together. Similarly, the consensus version places IG and SN together with the names of the institutions we are talking about, and adds the brief explanation of those terms as required by the guideline. Sandpiper (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Just one comment about the sentence "It has been established under that name by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and is governed by supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies.": the 'it has been established' needs rewording. Perhaps 'it was established' instead? =) Rossenglish (talk) 13:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Sandpipers analysis. The proposed intro now has Economic information in the first and second paragraph, and historical information in the first and fourth. That is bad style whatever guideline you adopt and should be avoided at all costs (even at the cost of violating all other Wiki guidelines, and ideas about 1 line opening paragraphs). Arnoutf (talk) 18:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think perhaps I should add a point. There is a good case to be made for never using the words SN and IG at all in the intro, on the basis that they are a legalistic complication. However, I think it quite important to mention the issue behind them, that some matters are decided by meetings of representatives of governments, and others by semi-independent bodies with an overaching loyalty to the EU as a whole. So if the words are used, as in the current consensus version, slipped into an explanation of how the things work, then I am happy to use them. In fact, I like it, because we are getting a bonus of teaching the meaning of those words while doing the important thing, explaining the concept and its importance for the EU. But this whole business, how it works, remains a step down in importance from what it does. Thus I am quite happy with it in para 3, but not at the very start. Now, I wonder if it is snowing chocolate frogs?Sandpiper (talk) 20:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I am okay with the intro posted above, but a few comments on it: Listing the European Parliament in the following sentence makes it sound like it is not important, I think its remit and powers would exceed that of the ECB for instance. It is on the whole very choppy, lots of short statements rather than a flowing text. Do we need the NATO mention? Rather than something on ESDP? On the G8, I think "observe" would be misleading, it has the status of all the others except it does not host/preside (no votes take place so its not even non-voting, they just talk and the EU is allowed to talk, not just observe). Perhaps just "attend"? World Trade Organisation with a S maybe? Treaty of Lisbon line needs a copyedit and its facts fixed - it says it replaces all existing treaties, I know it's basically the same as the constitution but that is one of its few differences so get it right! :).- J Logan ^t: 20:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Preliminary conclusion: By scanning through the 7 major EU language-Wiki-articles some results can be stated: 1. The Maastricht treaty is high priority (@Arnoutf & others: It is not history it is reality) 2. supranational/intergovernmental balance incl. a sentence of the unique character is high priority 3. French/German article rank Economic status (GDP) at the top of the introduction. These 3 essentials should be in the first para as proposed.

Comment:A reader who approaches the introduction will most likely read all paragraphs. Because the crucial content as it was, is not changed, nobody can claim something went wrong, compared to the last version. Instead the intergov/supranat sentence has been corrected, decent paragraph layout is introduced, minor trimming (WTO & UN in brackets deleted) and even the Lisbon treaty sentence(FA -review complaints) has been facilitated. I personally have no problems to elaborate on intergov/supranat in order to explain what it means, but tend to keep the very short version as proposed. It can be concluded, that there are no other proposals made to solve the problems.By further scanning some suggestions, I´ll introduce now the proposed new version with some amendments. Further improvements to enhance the flow of reading can be made. Of course. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 10:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As I've said, I actually have no problem with your recent edit (the version Lear has just changed to) EXCEPT the GDP sentence being in the opening paragraph. And yes, like I have said it makes a major difference whether it is in the first or second paragraph. I can't support your change Lear until you sort out the GDP issue and move it again. --Simonski (talk) 10:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, you referenced the style guide on introductions (well, strictly you referenced the wrong section, but nevertheless). Your version does not correspond to that outlined in the style guide. Are you now saying the guide which you earlier insisted should be followed, should be ignored? Sandpiper (talk) 10:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The latest new version has now four paragraphs almost equal in size and almost coherent in content. This is recommended and quite frankly, very obviously, an organized appearance. As long as there no other proposals, this is going to be the new version. Text flow can be improved though. Please do not reintroduce false claims and bad layout style to the introduction anymore, PLEASE! Lear 21 (talk) 11:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC) Have to say that made me laugh, did the fuhrer of the third reich just decree it? I don't see any points raised here saying there is anything wrong with the current intro, whereas I for one have pointed out several problems with your proposal. I don't see why it needs to be changed from the consensus arrived at above. The points you have not addressed are:

• You use the words supranational and intergovernmental, in contravention of the style guide you yourself quoted, which says any use of technical words muct also provide an explanation of them as used in context.
• You split information, eg so that the history information is no longer in one pargraph about history, but broken into first and last. Similrly, you split the description of the institutions as sSN and IG into a different paragraph from where they are listed. You split mention of the foreign policy into a different paragraph than where you say the EU belongs to the G8 and has an interest in nato. In short, you muddle up all the information in a way which makes it harder to understand, a clear contravention of both the style quide and common sense.
• You promote the technical information that it is SN and IG to the second sentence: this is technical, meaningless (unless explained) jargon which is not central information about the EU, and arguably should be dropped from the intro entirely. Similarly, the maastrict treaty, the size of the notional economy are not the most vital things to say about the EU. The style guide states that the most vital information should be in the first paragraph, on the assumption this may be the only part of the article which is read. This again contravenes the guide. You even manage to misrepresent the maastricht treaty, implying that the only important thing about it was that it changed the name.

In summary, you have mixed up the information and made it harder to understand. You seem determined to place SN, IG and the trade figures right at the very start. I think this is consistent with your past editing history, but baffles me. Why do you want to place this stuff right at the start, where it plainly does not belong? Why are you determined to insist it is a supranational organisation (see also your other proposed versions), when it plainly isn't? Sandpiper (talk) 11:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yet newer proposal

I really agree with Sandpiper that the text gets twisted by Lears proposal. In my opinion the first paragraph there becomes the summary of the lead (i.e. the summary of the summary), I think that is just too much. A suggestion. Put history towards first section and merge economy back into second. It would look something like the following, although the explanation of the difficult words issue is not solved.
(Para 1) intro, treaties and history (Para 2) Economy, market and citizenship (Para 3) Institutions and international cooperation.

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. It was established under that name by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. Predecessor entities of the EU trace its origins back to the Treaties of Paris signed in 1951 by six countries, and the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Since then the community has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. The Treaty of Lisbon signed in December 2007 is intended to replace the existing treaties and initiated a ratification process in 2008.

With almost 500 million citizens the EU member states are generating a combined estimated 30% share of the world's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) (US$16.6 trillion) in 2007.[2] The EU comprises a single market created by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital.[3] Passport control between many members has been abolished under the Schengen Agreement.[4][5] Fifteen member states have adopted a common currency, the euro. The EU maintains common trade and agricultural policies, and a regional development policy. It has developed a role in foreign policy, and in justice and home affairs.

The EU is governed by supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies. Important institutions and bodies of the EU include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. A European Parliament is elected by EU citizens every five years. The EU represents its members in the World Trade Organization and attends at G8 summits and at the United Nations. Twenty-one EU countries are members of NATO. Arnoutf (talk) 12:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If you do that arnoutf, then what you are saying, by your own logic regarding the importance of the first paragraph, and leaving out the first sentence which we all just about agree on, is that the essential information someone needs to konow about the EU is: it was named in 1993 by the Maastright treaty, it was founded in 1951 with 6 members, it is more powerful than it was, it is about to change.

Did that really really sum up what is important about it? If you do agree with me, then why change what is there now? We are not here to make compromises between opposing wild ideas, but to figure out how the intro works best.Sandpiper (talk) 13:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Since I have no preference for either the Arnoutf proposal or the current new 4-para version, the Arnoutf proposal is also possible. Lear 21 (talk) 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Then I put the same question to you Lear, are the most important facts about the EU that; it was named in 1993 by the Maastright treaty, it was founded in 1951 with 6 members, it is more powerful than it was, it is about to change?Sandpiper (talk) 14:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If I can answer that question, I would say yes. However I would change "powers" to "areas of activity" maybe. "Increased its powers" is a troublesome phrase I think. Discussion of the treaties in the first sentence lays down from the outset that the EU is a Treaty based entity as well as a community, which I think is pretty important actually. --Simonski (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

So, it is more important it was named in 1995 then that it creates a single market. It is more important that it had 6 members when it started than that it creates 4 freedoms of movement of goods, capital, people and services? It is more important that it is more powerfull than previously, than that it has a security role, agricultural policy,fisheries, development? It is more important that it is about to change than to say it currently has a commission, council, parliament? You think someone reading just this paragraph would want to read the first list, not the alternative one from the 'consensus' version? The issue is mostly not what the whole intro content should be, but which elements are greatest importance and thus come first.

I'm not sure why the treaty point is in fact at all important. How else could it have been created? Is it more important to explain that a group of countries came together to creat an international organistion, or to say there exists an international organisation which does this... and this...? What I mean is, is the essential thing to mention in the header the point of international law, or the reality of what it does? The wording proposed by lear, however, suggests only that the maastricht treaty changed the name. It does not otherwise indicate that treaty had any significance whatsoever. Sandpiper (talk) 15:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You have a point Sandpiper, I think the economic community is more important then trivial facts as years. What I tried to do with the (hastily put together) version was to try and find a way out of the mess created by Lear where the introduction is hampered by redundancies and circularities. Arnoutf (talk) 18:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

What topics and information should the intro contain

I notice that the intro does not contain the number of members (27). I think this should be included; I would tend to put it in the first paragraph.

On a more general note, I think the first paragraph should include the information that identifies the subject, and the most salient information that distinguishes it from other entities and makes it important, while the remaining three paragraphs summarize the article, omitting things already included in the first paragraph. So, to identify the EU and distinguish it from other entities, I would move the first sentence of paragraph 2 (about size and importance) into paragraph 1.

I also notice that defence spending and military capabilities are not mentioned in the intro (or in the relevant section). Although defence is less important for the EU as an organization, I think we need something more to indicate the size and importance of the EU as a group of countries. In the debate about the EU being an organization rather than a country, we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water. --Boson (talk) 07:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The EU as an organisation has essentially no role in defence. With regard to what the EU has accomplished as an organisation, I have to say its military role in world affairs has been negligible. I also think its economic role has been pretty much negligible too, so it is difficult to see why economic statistics are important. Its role has always been the integration of its member states, specifically with regard to the single market. This is the information which should come directly after the first sentence, because it is its greatest and most important achievement. However, the previous consensus version of the intro did have the economic info at the end of the second paragrah (assuming the first sentence standing by itself was counted as para 1), which was the one describing its accomplishments and activities. The next para described a bit about how it worked, and the last its history, how it came to be. Sandpiper (talk) 10:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think to be honest at this moment in time I'd avoid saying anything about defence as well. --Simonski (talk) 13:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the caption of this section. Perhaps this maybe the way out. I agree the number of members is core information. I think defense is largely irrelevant, if we add that we also have other issues of similar importance, which IMHO would result in an introduction of many, many more, content.

I would say the intro should be something like the following (which would summarise the whole article)

• Definition; who is members-demographics, what kind of union is it (economic and political) (summary of sections 2, 8, 9, 10, 11)
• History (summary section 1)
• All the treaties, about supranationalism etc., something about foreign policy (summarise 3,4)
• Bodies and foreign relations (summary 5,6,7)

Would this be an idea? OR do others think an alternative is better / do you think putting sections to paragraphs is a good way forward? Arnoutf (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the number of sections is currently bouncing about again, so I am not certain which your numbering refers to. It is a bit hard to assess anything on the statement 'a summary of....'. because your list itself is long enough to have taken up one paragraph of the four available for the intro. Thats about one sentence per section. Or, put another way, it is unrealistic to summarise any section properly, the best we can do is mention highlights. It is also the case that the sections in this article are not all of equal importance. Some should quite properly be completely ignored when summarising, to allow more room for the important points. If you add a sentence to the current intro, then one must also be removed. People here are not good at choosing stuff to leave out, by rights half this article ought to go because it is too long. I would suggest we delete the sports section, for starters. Sandpiper (talk) 23:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

My intention was to try to categorise the article (which can only be done from the sections). My intention is not that all sections should be in the introduction, only that some core idea underlying each section should be in (e.g. the much debated culture section should not be mentioned, but its larger concept: EU citizenship should be and would be by mentioning Schengen). I hope this clarifies? Arnoutf (talk) 23:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well we did mention schengen, I don't think we mentioned citizenship. There is no room to explain either at any length, so I guess that is why we did not mention citizenship. It is still somewhat nebulous, after all. We had a consensus version until Lear came along and shuffled it again, pushing his favourite sections to the start and screwing up the rest in the process. I still don't know whether he did this for a content reason (because if he did, he has never explained it), or just to be difficult after having been banned. The only major change to overall content Lear saw fit to make was to remove the explanation of SN and IG, which I consider vital if the words are to be used at all. The important thing to tell readers is the concept behind those words, not the words themselves. I wasn't quibbling by the way, about the numbering. Someone has reinserted legislation as a section, which has pushed up following section numbers by one. Then someone took it out again, etc. I do not think we should name all the members in the intro, that would be a big waste of the valuable space. That is the sort of information someone will be seeking and they will hunt it out, not something essential which they must be told. There is no room to mention all the treaties (we don't, even in the article). Lear has introduced the most peculiar distinction between supranational institutions and integovernmental bodies. what? The intergovernmental council is also an institution. History is not really important enough to merit inclusion on that basis. I would leave it in because I thnk, as the end of the intro, it gives a flavour of the subject. We can't describe the subject in any real way, so just have to give a suggestion of it and a bare mention of the most important points for a reader to find out about. Sandpiper (talk) 00:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Latin added to infobox

I see an IP address has added the EU's Latin name to the infobox. I'm noting the edit because it might go unnoticed: I'm pretty sure that the consensus was not to include it, but I can't remember so I didn't revert. Should it be there? Rossenglish (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Latin isn't an official EU language. It really shouldn't be.- J Logan ^t: 08:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Dollars?

Why are the outmoded dollars used for valuations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.134.184 (talk) 06:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly because the US dollar is still the worlds favourite currency? Sandpiper (talk)

Euros surpassed the usd as the world's 'favourite' currency over a year ago.

"With more than €610 billion in circulation as of December 2006 (equivalent to US$802 billion at the exchange rates at the time), the euro is the currency with the highest combined value of cash in circulation in the world, having surpassed the U.S. dollar.[3]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro

I propose the euro become the new wikipedia currency standard, especially now that the usd is falling in value. Vlad Dracula (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree.--Dima1 (talk) 07:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be taken to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style as a suggested amendment to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Currencies.--Boson (talk) 18:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyway MOS as you cite it suggests to use Euro in this case. Actually it suggests to use national currency, and Euro is the national currency of most EU countries (and the US$ of none); but I think in this case the EU has country like properties (it own currency) and should be dealt with accordingly. Arnoutf (talk) 19:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer it use euros, for the logical reason that eu readers would understand it. Trying to keep both is a whole can of worms with exchange raates bouncing about. Also, though I think the euro has a great future, just having the largest quantity in circulation is not entirely the issue, It depends on what international organisations are choosing to quote figures in. This becomes an issue with sourcing, too. Sandpiper (talk) 20:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

picture nuclear power station vs oil pipelines

Someone replaced the oil pipelines image with one of a nuclear power station. I always though the pipeline picture was interesting, because it makes a ppoint about dependence of EU fuel supplies on external sources, particulalry russia. Thus I replaced it, but Lear took it out again with the comment "the Power plant image has changed because it is of higher relevance how the energy is generated inside the EU)". Now, I'm not convinced that nuclear is the method used to generate most power in europe. I think the image just comes across as a pretty image of a power station without making a useful contribution to the article. Comments? Sandpiper (talk) 08:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Oil pipelines outside the EU were interesting, yes. But the more relevant question is, how energy is produced inside the EU. Nuclear energy is obviously a key source of the major countries and the majority of EU members states. Lear 21 (talk) 09:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it? it is only about 10% and falling in the UK. By that logic we should have a picture of a coal powered station, or maybe oil. Sandpiper (talk) 09:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[23] 30% in the EU Lear 21 (talk) 10:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

So what produces the remaining 70%? Which do you consider is the most strategically important and of most immediate concern, (and, of course, can you explain why?) Sandpiper (talk) 10:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

There are certainly several other sources of energy. But as long there are no other references proofing that one of these other sources are dominating in many EU countries we have no choice of keeping the Nuclear Power Image (incl. caption plus ref). I´m not arguing against other sources, instead I have argued to replace the oilpipeline map. By the way, in the Education/Research section there is an example of important other energy sources. That should complete the picture. Lear 21 (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Your 30% claim is a little misleading, Lear. That is 30% of the EU's electricity not energy. Energy produced by nuclear is 15%. [24] Lwxrm (talk) 11:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

It´s amended now. Lear 21 (talk) 11:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

er, also all you have proved is that 70% of electricity/85% of energy does not come from nuclear power. I am sure we would miss it if it suddenly disappeared, but you still need to demonstrate its greater importantance than the other 85%. Sandpiper (talk) 11:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, I´m not arguing against other sources, instead I have argued to replace the oil because it is produced outside the EU. I transferred the map to the main article Energy policy of the European Union Lear 21 (talk) 11:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I thinkyou will find that the most important energy sources are those dependant on materials from outside the Eu, not those produced within. But off hand I don't know where uranium fuel comes from? Sandpiper (talk) 12:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Europe is not known for its Uranium export either, we have to import that, just like oil. Arnoutf (talk) 14:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder, why the fiercest "The-EU-IS-ONLY-Like-THE-UN" advocates supporting an even more peripheral aspect. The Pipeline map included a caption with unreferenced claims and weasel words. Furthermore is Russia one of many suppliers of oil and gas. The main argument for the new image is still eminent, The energy is produced! and not imported within EU member states. That is of higher relevance. Following the other logic would start inserting a picture of Hollywood in the Culture section. Lear 21 (talk) 15:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Electricity is normally produced in power stations near where it is needed, whether this is by nuclear, coal, oil or any other means. If hollywood produces most films watched in the EU (which it well might), then an article on EU culture might well say it is heavily influenced by holywood productions, yes. This is probably the case. Something which has been complained about over the years. If a dedicated editor finds an image caption which he thinks needs improving, then I expect he would improve it. I did notice that there is a whole paragraph in the energy section talking about imports of oil and gas, which specifically relates to the pipeline diagram and has references. Sandpiper (talk) 15:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say oil. Oil is a common factor for all states (Nuclear only in some), and it provides a massive chunk of energy needs in numerous sectors (not only electricity, but fuel for road transportation). We depend a lot on imported energy, that does not mean we should focus on how it is done here as the very fact we import so much is a telling aspect of how our economies are run, who is of geo-strategic importance, who we have economic relationships with, the dependency on certain fuels and so on. Plus, as Sandpiper says, the section actually talks more about it than nuclear, hence the image is more relevant than that of a nuclear station (image is informative, not just illustrative).- J Logan ^t: 10:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree fully with JLogans analysis and comments above. Arnoutf (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

G8 and NATO

The FA review suggeted that G8 and NATO acronyms should on first instance have their full meaning written out. I have expande a couple of these, but really can't quite bring myself to do so for these two, because they just arent ever used in full. Perhaps others can chip in? Sandpiper (talk) 15:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I know, its an insane request to expand these two. I was absolutely shocked to see an FA reviewer claim this was an issue (and also about the not using the EU site as a source - wtf). Seems like nonsense to me. I really dont think we need to expand G8 or NATO. --Simonski (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, utterly pointless. In fact if you expanded G8 then it might actually make it worse considering everyone recognises it as "G8" not "Group of 8". NATO likewise.- J Logan ^t: 10:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Largest cities

The largest city table has been tag as unsourced by an editor involved in many FA candidacies but not in this article. I tend to agree. I think the table is illustrative and not essential (but I know this is sensitive to some). If the table is deemed important a good reference has to be provided. If this is not done by Sunday, I will boldly assume nobody thinks the table should be in and I will throw it out. Arnoutf (talk) 19:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The reference has been provided. Thanks Arnoutf (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

While talking about the largeswt cities table, I noticed that at least on my browser the heading line overlaps the start of the table, so you can't read it. I fixed this up by increasing the line height. Lear has reverted me on this twice, restoring the unreadable top line. I don't think the body needs taller columns, but I think the table is a lot better with taller columns than an illegible heading. Anyone who knows how to make just the top line taller, please have a go. Lear, in the meanwhile, please stop reinserting an illegible header. Sandpiper (talk) 13:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

sui generis supernationalism

I just noticed that the government of the EU is described in the infobox as sui generis supranationalism. On investigation i see this once said intergovernmentalism. This was changed by an anon to intergovernmental suprantionalism, and later to sui generis supranationalism by ssolbergj. I have to say I don't see any reason to believe the government is in fact sui generis supranationalism, which would appear to mean it is an innovative way of ceding control entirely to the EU. Even if we restrict ourselves to those areas of EU competence, this is far from the truth. My own reading would suggest that if only one adjective is to be picked, then it should be intergovernmentalism, rather then supranationalism. The reality seems to lie in the middle somewhere. Anyway, it seems to me this current statement is incorrect and we need to fix it. Suggestions? Sandpiper (talk)

Why not to include both words? Intergovernmentalism and supranationalism? Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 01:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Since the infobox designation is a classification, and sui generis basically means that it does not fit any pre-existing classification, I would suggest just writing Sui generis. If people don't understand it, they would also misunderstand any combination, and it is linked to an explanation. Alternatively, something like "not classifiable". --Boson (talk) 07:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Boson. Certainly SSJs edit there seems to have been quite sneaky. With all due respect Solberg sometimes your edits remind me of the Commission and competence creep. Blink for one second and you'll miss "sovereign independent countries" changed to "states" or "regions". --Simonski (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that might work. No one will understand sui generis, but the linked article does have a section about the EU and its odd position. We could link it directly to the relevant section of that article. Sandpiper (talk) 11:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

To me sui generis on its own is the best solution to prevent descending back into the inter/supra argument. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwxrm (talk • contribs) 14:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Is sui generis union ok? Surely the European Union can be described as a Union? - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 21:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

get out the logic chopper: surely it could be described as a union. But then the impression a reader would get would be that it was a union. Whereas just 'sui generis says we don't know what it is. Now, I had some idea of what those words meant, if not their implications in law, so it was a puzzle but not utterly baffling. Completely baffling readers is a bad thing. So I have nearly talked myself into saying yes, on the grounds it might be incomprehensible to many, but not quite. In the context of the table, I don't mind being baffling if the alternative is to be potentially wrong, because there is no short easy explanation. Why do you feel it would be better? Sandpiper (talk) 19:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think sui generis by itself is fine. (Yes, its rather incomprehensible, but supranational and intergovernmental are incomprehensible to the uninitiated as well.) I think a neutral account of the EU has to recognize that it has evolved as a compromise between the proponents of the supranational and intergovernmental approaches, and as such can't coherently be said to be a pure version of either, but rather as acting in a more supranational manner in certain areas and in a more intergovernmental manner in other areas. --SJK (talk) 06:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There has been complaints about supranational and intergovernmental without explanations as well. I think the aim should be to communicate content to the uninitiated, hence we should try to use language actual people use. So no, I do not think Sui Generic without immediate explanation is fine Arnoutf (talk) 16:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the European Union is such a unique historical entity, that it is impossible to describe accurately in language that the uninitiated would find comprehensible. However, the advantage of sui generis is that it is in fact ordinary English (yes, its a Latin phrase, but its one of those Latin phrases used so frequently as to have become a part of the English language), instead of political science jargon -- albeit, one needs to have a pretty good vocabulary to know what it means. One might calque it as "of its own kind", or "constituting a class of its own", but neither of these are as succinct as "sui generis", and in infoboxes succinctness is important. --SJK (talk) 11:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Passport Image

Lear I appreciate the idea but I have to oppose this. I just think it looks a bit ugly and second of all, looking at both my Italian and UK passports, is clearly misleading. Neither of them (and they've both been issued recently) have the EU stars in the middle. And having seen friends' German and Polish passports I am almost certain that it is not the standard design. The standard design is instead clearly red background (about the only thing that is correct in your image), a line saying 'European Union', the name of the Member State, in the middle that countries' symbol, and then Passport/Reispass or whatever its called in German. --Simonski (talk) 10:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I´ll changed it. Lear 21 (talk) 11:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeh, thats better. My ideal image would be two/three passports in a pile showing the standard layout but on google imaging 'EU Passport' I got as one of the results a rather disturbing image of some bald naked woman. Wtf (and yes safesearch was on). Interesting choice of country as well - there are a couple of others which maybe have the passport title a bit larger/easier to see. But I think, um, I'm not going to search for images for a while now. --Simonski (talk) 11:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[25] There are others available, but the Lithuanian is the best image quality, I think. Lear 21 (talk) 11:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Addition of the passport cover seems a reasonable idea. However, I think adding both a passport AND a drivers license is over the top. They are both personal documents; so adding them both does not seem to add much (if anything) over adding only one of them; even worse by being the two only pictures on the single market session (and mind you two is the max for a section of this length not to clutter the article) it gives the impression the single market is exclusively about identity papers of EU citizens. I think one of them has to go (I would lose the drivers license). Arnoutf (talk) 12:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Have to agree there. The drivers licence should go. Really doesn't seem to relate well to the text. Before you know it we'll be putting pictures of every single harmonised thing under the single market on the page. I think the passport picture is sufficient! --Simonski (talk) 13:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What is that massive image which just appeared in the missle of single market? On my screen it is pink with gold stars. While the idea is not quite so daft, that particular image looks like noddy in toyland and looks nothing like my passport, which I rather think has a lion and unicorn? Sandpiper (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The national emblem at the center is different in every country. At my screen the passport is burgundy. Lear 21 (talk) 14:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I can only assume that Sandpiper you had a previous version of the page on your screen at the time of commenting. If you click refresh hopefully it'll update to what the current picture is which is a picture of the Lithuanian passport. The layout of all the member state passports follows the same layout like I said above: Burgundy background, "European Union", then the Member State name, then the relevant national emblem in the middle (ie. the Lion and the Unicorn) and then it just says Passport. What you'll notice though is that some countries have opted to craftily make the European Union line smaller in writing than their nation's own title! --Simonski (talk) 14:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The lithuanian one which has popped up now is a much better colour, at least on my screen, and looks like a passport. Was the one saying European Union just a drawing? This may be an issue of my own preference settings, but it still appears rather big for such a blank block of colour. Sandpiper (talk) 14:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No no, basically the issue was the original one was like a Bitmap/paint file and was not actually representative of any design actually used - it may just have been a picture of a one time proposed passport design which was discussed ages ago or something - either way it is not of relevance to us as if thats the case it certainly was never used. The new one is an actual photo of an actual member state passport, in this case Lithuania. I wouldn't worry about the previous image anymore. --Simonski (talk) 14:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What happened to legislation?

Why was this cut? Any particular reason? Lwxrm (talk) 19:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC) ?

It wasn't cut, the content is still there. It was reorganised as per outline posted under governance, in discussion with yourself, amongst others. You did not raise any objections. The initial reason was to rearrange the material so that all discussion of parliamentary procedure was in one place, as mentioned in that discussion. Sandpiper (talk) 23:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

FA nomination

I noticed we have been arguing heavily the last few days, but have NOT BEEN SERIOUSLY ADDRESSING FA REVIEWER CONCERNS (yes I am shouting). I think that to have any chance at passing FA review we have to go back to the nominated version and seriously work to solve the issues raised. Future (non minor - ie spelling, and style type) changes that are not indicated in FA review should only be initiated after the review is concluded.
If editors think the version originally entered the FAR is not good enough yet (note though that a non-editor of this page nominated that version) I would strongly suggest to withdraw it from nomination as I think it is a waste of time of effort of everyone otherwise. I will revert it to the version of the FA nomination tomorrow unless you guys say it would be better to withdraw from the nomination procedure. Arnoutf (talk) 22:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what to say to this. Personally, I would not have nominated the article, but I don't object to its nomination, and have read through the comments. My own position is I don't agree with FA and GA criteria, so tend to let them get on with what they want to do. One particular consideration I have is that I do not believe there is any such thing as a finished article. Certainly this one is never likely to be finished, even with complete cooperation between editors, because the subject keeps changing. It also has a number of editors who are knowledgeable rather than brilliant writers, and of course those who like to dominate by stubbornness. Myself, I think there are two responses to this. Either walk away, or respond in kind. We could leave Lear to get on with writing the article as he sees fit, or make clear that we do, or do not, agree with his points. This article suffers from too much compromise and not enough position taking. Taking a clear position does not mean warring about it, but there is hardly a contentious issue which has come and gone where everyones view was clearly stated. Too much fudging just confuses everyone.

Now returning to the issue you raise, the FA process has encourged some attention to the article and some ongoing changes. We are once again arguing about the intro, I personally think Lear's version would be unacceptable for FA, though he does not seem to be the only person who does not see what is wrong with it. If people want to pass a certain set of criteria, then they need to research them carefully. I feel the FA reviewers started by raising the objections easiest to spot. Though it may be many articles pass on a cursory look. From my own point of view, if improvements are suggested during the process, I will insert them. If improvements appear afterwards, I will put them in also. The FA process should not halt progress on an article.

The thing is, I think it is a good article, an important one, and maybe even an exceptional one. It is certainly a very ambitious one. But all that might make it eternally unsuitable to qualify under FA criteria. Which maybe is why I don't like the system? As a mini example, you didn't post on my query re whether we should expand G8 and NATO into words on first occurence in the intro, which at least one assesor has mentioned twice. The two responders so far think this is nonsense, and I am inclined to agree. So where does that leave us? Sandpiper (talk) 00:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Responding to Arnoutf - You know, I was thinking the same today. I think rather than add new images etc we should concentrate on getting through FA. The problem is the non-editor who nominated it did so at a time when clearly most of us were a bit busy and didn't have the energy/time to go through every minute thing the reviewers point out. For those who are active enough (and though I appear active I can't get fully involved in FA at this moment in time) it may be worthwhile just stopping tweaking the page and answering the FA concerns. Hopefully once this intro malarky is sorted then that will be that. Lear your comments such as "the Single Market section MUST be shortened" etc just are really not useful right now, and its the sort of thing that I will listen to the FA reviwers over, not just one single editor in the minority. And I might add that although I'm not going to report it, you clearly violated the 24hr 3RR rule again the other day in reverting the intro.

However, Arnoutf I don't think its worth reverting back to the FA nominated style. Unless you meant the intro, I could live with that. Also, I slightly regret my structure change in restoring the Legal System bit, that was unnecessary. Somebody can undo that as well. But other than that the majority of the edits since the FA, with the exception of the intro bit, they've been useful I'd say. --Simonski (talk) 00:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The quality of the current article has achieved GA status and that is well deserved because of number of reasons. FA status on the other hand must fulfill the highest expectations and standards. Keep in mind that less than 00.1 % of all Wikipedia entries achieved this. I reckon that in many respects the EU article fulfills the criteria (ref, intro, layout, comprehensiveness, data). The major insufficiency is the quality of writing (I won´t be able to provide it either). It is the reason why I personally didn´t got involved in the process of FA nomination. I anticipated most of the concerns and will stay neutral during the procedure in the future. In my experience an FA candidacy needs motivated, capable editors to adapt to the demands. Nevertheless, the candidacy already brought some improvements and new external insights (not all of them useful, of course). So yes, I´m sympathetic to the candidacy, but won´t start whining in case of withdrawal or failure. The quality, size and importance (among the 200 most read articles out of 2 million) is already exceptional. With or without an official honor. Lear 21 (talk) 09:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

My main point is that we should not be doing two things at the same time: Adressing explicit comments by FA reviewers; and working on further evolution of the article in an even better article. We just don't have enough motivated and skilled editors to both at the same time, let alone the fact that further evolving sections like intro may undo work undertaken to solve FA review comments (ie creating double work). My point is that we should choose, I can live with both, but if we choose the normal changes in the article we should notify FAR that too much is going on and that tracking it at this stage is only waste of their time; ie be gracious enough to withdraw from FAR. Arnoutf (talk) 11:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, can we have some sort of agreement to just leave the page alone and address FA concerns at the moment? Its almost guaranteed that we aren't going to get FA this time around (let alone ever) but with some objective eyes looking at the page its clear we can get some improvements made via-FA.

On that note, I have brought up the introduction on the FA page after the guy was criticising it - its giving a good idea of where we're going wrong - one of them thought that the EU had just had its name changed in 1993 - when this is of course complete BS and the EU itself was established. I think maybe we need to change it to something like the EU was established in 1993 on top of the already existing EC. Also, Sandpiper, in advance, if these guys say we don't have to explain supranational/intergovernmental, pleeeeeeease accept their views - I'm expecting to click back there later and find an A4 page of why average joe wouldn't understand the terms :P --Simonski (talk) 11:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone here believe the average reader would understand them just appearing on the page without explanation?

Lear, the page was doing reasonably badly with Fa before you started screwing with the introduction, frankly making it a lot harder to understand. Why did you do this?

It also does not help that you have amused yourself since returning changing as many pictures as you can. Why? if you prefer sorting pictures, why noy go and work on that on wiki commons instead of eternally changing them here? Sandpiper (talk) 13:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and Simonski, the version of the article submitted to FA indeed included the explanation of supranational and intergovernmental, so people would hardly have complained of the lack of it. Sandpiper (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, before you resumed editing the page, the concerns of FA reviewers were about references and stylistic details. Recently, one poster expressed himself bemused by the current introduction, which is a mess compared to the previous version. Whatever faults that may have had, it is now much worse. There is only one person responsible for instigating these changes. Much of this would likely go away if the introduction is returned to its state pre your return. Why exactly do you wish to change it? You have never explained this. Sandpiper (talk) 14:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[26] Lear 21 (talk) 15:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That is nonsense; besides being not a sentence and as such offensive to editors willing to explain themselves.

Anyway, no FA reviewer had made that comment at that time, so bascially it is your point of view not that of FA review. Basically what you say is that you are not willing to submit it to FA review in its current form. Ok, if you think so say that. If you think it is (almost) ready for FA review, as a frequent editor you should have stayed out of the debate; as you (and me, or any other frequent editor) cannot have an unbiased POV. So again; either we go on with FAR and stop discussions (including those about our own interpretations of FA guidelines) while FAR is going on, or we withdraw. Arnoutf (talk) 16:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I would not advocate reverting the whole article. It contained some highly questionable statements/issues. If it were reverted I think I would have to turn my uncertain Approval to an Oppose on FA candidacy. In particular some of the older statements in the Legislation section (now integrated into the governance section) and the slightly inaccurate and underdeveloped single market section were not factually correct. Lwxrm (talk) 09:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Intro (again)

Has anybody ever read Encarta articles? Enyclopedia Britannica? Has anybody ever read newspaper articles, books? Several Hundreds Wikipedia GA / FA articles? NO? I recommend it! None of these texts starts with a single sentence! Sorry to mention it, but a decent paragraph structure, also supported by Wikipedia guidelines, is a must! The wording can be adapted. The lead should have 1. Location/community 2.Maastricht 3. intergov/supranat balance (I can live with a short & a long version) And Preferably 4. Economic status (mostly because of layout reasons) Lear 21 (talk) 12:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps traditional encyclopedias do not start articles that way because it would mean leaving one extra blank line at the start of each article. So, 1,000,000 articles would be 1,000,000, blank lines being printed, 1000 blank pages(?), at a cost of ,say, £20 per edition. We do not have any problem leaving space for effect, they do. You had three objections to the previous introduction. Were you really unhappy with a one sentence opening, then the obvious thing to do is simply to combine it with the following para. But no, you had to rearrange everything. Mentioning the fisheries policy took 4 words. We can afford that. People here are still taking petitions to parliament about the fishing policy. You didn't like the explanation of Supranational, and intergovernmental features. So you rewrote that section to make it not ubderstabdable to the average reader, changed its meaning from the consensus view, and stuck it right at the very start. Oh, closely followed by economic statistics, without giving rerasons for the move when it was challenged. There was much more wrong after you had muddled everything up. Why do you want to claim at the very start the EU is supranational, and imply it is a real state by quoting economic statistics about it? Sandpiper (talk) 20:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Preliminary statement of CIA World Fact Book 1. sentence/ An external view: [27]

The evolution of the European Union (EU) from a regional economic agreement among six neighboring states in 1951 to today's supranational organization of 27 countries across the European continent stands as an unprecedented phenomenon in the annals of history.

Intergovernmental vs Supranational at Eurojargon/ An internal view: [28]

In the EU, some matters – such as security and defence issues – are decided purely by intergovernmental agreement (i.e. agreement between the governments of the EU countries), and not by the Community method

Many EU decisions are taken at 'supranational' level in the sense that they involve the EU institutions, to which EU countries have delegated some decision-making powers.

I discussed my responses to these refs at length above, at Talk:European Union#intergovernmentl v supranational, refs analysis Sandpiper (talk) 12:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Some remarks: 1. This is now the third time, these credible references have been presented 2. References claiming that intergovermental decisions dominate have not been provided after more than 5 requests. 3. Proofs that single sentences are supported by any Wikipedia policy have not been provided. 4. Apart from fishery policy no content has been removed, most of the paragraphs have stayed the same. 5. @User:Sandpiper: Please, find somebody to advocate your proposals, if you want to answer, or as usual, ask questions. 6. The next revert to the old version, can be considered a vandalism act. Lear 21 (talk) 09:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear you know fine well that Sandpiper reverting can not be counted as vandalism any more than your reverts can. For the record, either version suits me (ie. the version at the time of typing and the Sandpiper version) to a degree but I still don't like either 100%.

The CIA article (as always arguably) is not convincing here I'm afraid. This year in particular I've had to read plenty of articles stating different things and the "mainly supranational" is a view that comes up far less than sui generis or "hybrid" between intergovernmental and supranational. As Lwxrm said, with the current structure there is a mixture of both - the 1st pillar having mainly supranational with a bit of IG, with the 2nd and 3rd pillar containing mainly intergovernmental with a little bit of SN.

Why you may ask - well for the 1st pillar, whilst the Council ultimately has the final say don't forget that the Commission can sue the Council if it believes the Council is using the (ie to try and avoid the parliament getting a say) incorrect legal basis for an act, OR the Council under the treaties has failed to produce a policy on a certain issue (ie. imagine Article XYZ says "The Council will implement a working policy on Cheese" - if it doesnt by a certain period then the Commission can sue it).

For the 2nd and 3rd - there is mainly IG because of the lack of jurisdiction of the ECJ (in most respects) and the fact that it really is just the Member States acting at an intergovernmental level. Because the 1st, 2nd and 3rd pillar all overlap to an extent, there has been cross-fertilisation of IG and SN elements. Hopefully that clears matters up.

However, even saying all that, that does not solve the argument that is going on. Lear don't forget Sandpiper is not the only holding the view that the previous intro was better. I would urge a compromise and if I get the chance later I'll maybe come up with a compromise intro. Maybe the first step would be to say "Ok, so we disagree on the first paragraph, lets compromise at two short sentences". Other language versions seem to have done that relatively easily. Personally for me I'd have the 1st sentence followed quite simply by something like "It was established in 1993 under the Treaty of Maastricht, creating a new body on top of the existing European Communities." --Simonski (talk) 10:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Simonski, did I read somewhere that the council has a reserve power to dismiss the council and take over its role directly? If so, then surely the commission could only act in opposition to the council at risk of dismissal and replacement by a council more agreeable to the council? In any case, all the commissioners are hand picked by member states to safely represent them. This seriously limits the supranationality and independence of the commission. Sandpiper (talk)

Perhaps, I can't say for sure, wouldn't surprise me if there was. But surely with the Qualified Majority Voting in the Council being more common these days it seems to me that a Member State can find itself in the minority and not be able to do anything about it directly (maybe they could take it to the courts re: incorrect legal basis/no competence etc)... to me that also suggests a significant degree of supranationalism. I dunno, maybe Lwxrm could answer that point better. --Simonski (talk) 12:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

@Sandpiper: I am pretty convinced the Council has no such power, well at least i haven't come accross it yet. I see no reason for it doctrinally nor practically. It would compromise the Commission position. Closest it can come, as far as i can see, to that is that it can take implementing measures itself in certain cases (not very often nor in a general sense). The Parliamnet, however, can require the resignation of the Commission. Given this power is with a directly elected parliament I doubt the Council would have a similar power. Some of the comments have come out of sequence, which is a little confusing Lwxrm (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

will have to think where I read this. I doubt very much the issue of democratic election would be relevant. The EU has become much more independant with time, but it was created as a servant of the member states. Logically, the commission would have been created firmly under the control of the council, as a civil service to draft legislation on its behalf. I thought the reference was something about the commission only having powers which are delegated to it by the council of ministers. The position of the commission never has been wholly independent, it is only supposed to be impartial as between one country and another. Ah, see wikipedia's view, European Commission#Executive power The current european community treaty says the council can vary the number of commissioners, or alter their wages, so they could appoint 20 extra commissioners of their choice, and reduce all their wages and pensions to zero. That might affect their view on matters? I dont know what happens if they choose to reduce the number of commissioners below the current number in office, or to zero? Amazing what can be done by creative use of rules. EC treaty articles 210 onwards, and othersSandpiper (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree and i have yet to see a serious academic arguing such things in a coherent way. The Commission's independence from the Member States is enshrined in the Treaty. It is NOT just between "one country and another" but towards the interests of the Community. The Commission must act in fidelity towards the EU. The changing of numbers would need unanimty in Council. It isn't going to happen other than for administrative reasons. Can we get back to the serious question of the intro and not sidetracked into legal possibilities that in reality are not going to happen. Any hostile act by the Council would soon come before the ECJ who would not hestitate to grant an anulment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwxrm (talk • contribs) 15:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly Sandpiper, again its like the courts, particularly in the UK - the executive/legislature can turn around and say "ok, no more courts", just like the Member States could do with the Commission or ECJ. But both systems are based on the rule of law, and nobody would accept such a move politically. I agree though, the consensus in Europe (or the World even) is that it is a hybrid organisation, surely that should do for the purposes of the article even if there are people out there who will argue there is more SN or more IG. --Simonski (talk) 16:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The original point was whether the council or the commission has the last say. This has perhaps veered away from whether this is a supranational decision, because individual members of the council only have a veto, or qualified veto. If two or three countries had an entrenched opposition to something, they could not by themselves instigate action against the commission to prevent it. However, if the whole or a majority of the council firmly opposed an action by the commission, then the council could take action as I suggest. This would clearly be politically acceptable, because it could only happen in circumstances where countries were taking a position supported by their voters back home. The major difference between the EU and most countries legal systems, is that it was created by the countries, who firmly retain the powers to change it. They do so regularly. It is entirely possible for them to exercise this power, and I think this has been mentioned from time to time in references. Now, if it came to a showdown using EU processes to defy the commission, again, this could only happen in an extreme situation where countries had clear support. In such a situation it seems to me the duty of commissioners (under the treaty) is 1) to seek consensus, 2) to act in the best interests of the EU, and on either ground they should back down and withdraw whatever is objectionable. The duty laid upon them ex-officio is not to attempt to exercise power against the wishes of the council. Thus also, the whole question of whether the commission is supranational is raised. In theory it may have powers over the countries, but its duty may be to refrain to use them unless the countries wish it. Sandpiper (talk) 08:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, I am bemused. Below you state that the EU is an intergovernmental organisation. I don't understand how you can in good faith claim opposing views in different debates about the same thing? Sandpiper (talk) 10:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Simonski, I could maybe go with that: half my opposition to the reorganisation is to do with the loss of meaning in the poor choice of wording. Explaining maastricht better makes using it second sentence rather more acceptable. The next para would then start straight into describing what it does, as per the original version, and third explain properly about SN/IG and bodies. Sandpiper (talk) 11:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The EU (and academics) have moved away from the debate on whether intergovernmentalim/supra is more prevelant in the EU for the reasons I have outlined elsewhere. It is a redundant question. Both are present and there is little point in arguing which is more prevelant. Indeed multi-level governance and "soft law" don't particularly fall into either definition. I have pointed to the Comitology procedure (even though parts of Comitology could be regarded as supranational!) and the policy setting by the European Council as examples of how intergovernmentalism 'infects' the "Communtiy method" decision making procedure mentioned above. I am uncertain it adds anything to the debate, is a legal technicality only really interesting to political theorists and lawyers. It could easily not feature in the intro. I also think some people are arguing at cross-purposes. One version of the intro talks of the difference in intergovernmentalism/supra in regard to the institutions/bodies (the classification of which i would take issue with) whilst the other talks of them in regard to decision making procedures. These are two different arguments.

As to the CIA source further down it seems to become a little confused now claiming the EU is a hybrid intergov/supranational. It also states the main decision making body is the Council (almost undeniably an intergovernmental institution). It fails to mention the Commission as a "legislative body" and this is a mistake in fact and law. This undermines its use as a credible source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwxrm (talk • contribs) 10:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think therer was/is a similar mistake in the article where it describes the council as half the legislature, and the parliament as the other half. I never liked that, but hadn't worried about it. There was a previous discussion about institutions and bodies, which was why two words were used. Unfortunately recent editing has completely muddled up the reasoning behind the use of the two words. Sandpiper (talk) 11:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, you introduced these same refs above. I demonstrated above how the second ref, as you quote, describes the EU as either intergovernmental or operating by 'community method'. It describes 'community method as:

This is the EU's usual method of decision-making, in which the Commission makes a proposal to the Council and Parliament who then debate it, propose amendments and eventually adopt it as EU law. In the process, they will often consult other bodies such as the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.

So we either have intergovernmental decision, or have decision made by the institutions together, the council at least being essentially intergovernmental. Thus very little is decided except by agreement in an intergovernmental way.

As to the other ref, previously you did not make it clear that this ref was not supposed to support your other change to the intro, placing economic info at the front. I argued then, and still do, that the example given by the CIA ref shows that no mention of economic data should be made in the introduction. As to the point about supranationalism, simonski has beaten me to it. The CIA article starts by stating the EU is supranational, but then rolls back this statement by saying it is more than a free trade association, but less than a federation. They also comment that the member states have ceded some of the their sovereignty, thus not all or even most.

Lear, I don't see how it is sensible to even attempt to understand how you feel the intro ought to be worded when the argument you post below is that the EU is essentially intergovernmental. The only way I can reconcile that with your statements here is if you are arguing merely for the sake of defending a position, and withought thought for the truth of the situation which ought to be expressed in the article. If that is the case, then the best course of the remaining editors would be to ignore your postings. Sandpiper (talk) 12:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I have NEVER promoted supranational domination. I ALWAYS stressed both spheres of procedures are existing. I have NEVER even started a discussion what kind of sphere is superior. Neither will I ever take part of such a discussion. It is one user, I´m not mentioning anymore, who brings up irrelevant, unfocused topics on and on again. Lear 21 (talk) 15:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That is not necessarily true. Back when you first started changing the intro post-your 3 week cool off, you did at one point put in "most" or "mainly" supranational elements. I can't be bothered trapsing through constant reverts to find it but anybody patient enough will see it. However the fact is that the "mainly SN" view, whilst put in once, hasn't been put back in since and so it doesnt seem to be an issue anymore. In that respect Lear it might have been better not to quote the CIA article earlier as it just confused people as to your stance. --Simonski (talk) 16:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, then I don't know what you are asking for, just continuously messing about with the intro. Above you say: Some remarks: 1. This is now the third time, these credible references have been presented 2. References claiming that intergovermental decisions dominate have not been provided after more than 5 requests. I fail to understand why you require proof that intergovernmental decisions dominate, if you feel that this is correct. If you don't think it is correct, that seems to have led everyone to believe that you believe supranational decisions dominate. You then produced a ref, seemingly intended to demonstrate that someone believes the EU is a suprnational institution. What do you imagine people will believe to be your position?

In your first intro edit you placed the economic info second sentence. This was reverted by simonski. you then repeated this, together with inserting unexplained the term 'sui generis',and reducing the explanations of supranational, intergovernmental, and exactly how they applied to the EU.[[29]]. This was reverted by Arnoutf. Next time, you promoted SN, IG to second sentence, without any explanations, together with a claim the EU was without historical precedent. In what way, it did not say. You placed the economic info 3rd sentence. You tacked the remainder of the paragraph explaining bodies onto the end of the paragraph about history. This was reverted by me. Is there a pattern here? You reinserted this version a number of times.

You made a distinction between supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies. If anything, the discussion earlier here seemed to feel the institutions tended to be more intergovernmental and the bodies supranational, but dumping these two things into the intro without explanation is simply confusing readers. It is this confusion which is most objectionable about the changes. If you in fact believe the EU is a mixture, then why did you delete the longer explanation which attempted to make this clear? The previous version saying 'mostly by agreement' was, as far as I can see, entirely correct. Even those bodies which may be considered supranational, still make decisions by first seeking agreement. This is required under the treaties. It is also false to make a clearcut distinction some things SN, some IG. There is a big overlap. All this stuff is important, but it can not be placed in the intro in a way which is confusing. Either do it properly, or not at all. The main difficulty with placing it second, or third, sentence is that this is essentially a legal technicality of how it works. But also, placing it later means we have a little more leeway for taking a couple of sentences to explain it. Indeed, we can make a whole paragraph about it, also mentioning the institutions which are being discussed.

You then reinserted the version with economics second sentence, and the abbreviated, sui generis, description, which was less understandable than the original, though at least still in the third para. Next, you insert a version claiming the EU created a sui generis organisation. No, it is the sui generis organisation. Next version, the historical description was promoted to the lead paragraph. The economic statistics was promoted to the head of the paragraph describing what the EU does, and again a truncated description of SN and IG institutions was given which implied the two types are distinct and operate separately. Next version, we have 2nd sentence a muddled statement that the EU got its name from the maastricht treaty, followed by the confused claims about SN and IG bodies, followed by the economic statistics, Then belatedly, we start talking about what it actually is and does. The info about what the EU does at G8, WTO and nato has been separated from the paragraph describing what the EU does, and plonked into the one describing what bodies it has, muddling things again.

It seems there are two things you have been editiing to achieve:

• Why do you want to place the economic information at the very head of the article? It is barely relevant, frankly has no impact on what the eu is or does, only gives an idea of its scale. This has more impact at the end of the paragraph describing what the EU does.
• Why do you not want to explain SN and IG? Failing to do so frankly misleads the reader, as well as contravening the style guide, which you were the first to quote. Why do you think this confusing statement (or even the expanded one) should go right at the start of the article? Sandpiper (talk) 22:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Intro (new dawn again)

just another edit break and a note that I have become bored supporting the consensus version, so have edited it more to my liking. I have inserted the mastricht treaty second sentence as suggested, and tidied up the description of what it does. I have also relegated the economic statistics to the history section. It seems at home there, and also helps equalise the paragraph lengths, which some feel is important. I also quite like it as 'the last word' of the intro. Sandpiper (talk) 09:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sandpiper, re: your recent intro change - I like what you've done with the first sentence and we're on the right track there but on further reflection, I think we should remove the "much of" re: IG elements. As it is a hotly debated issue, I think surely we should be making SN/IG neutral statements. --Simonski (talk) 11:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you? I think that as a hotly debated issue the only solution is to resolve it and decide what is correct. Attempting to be vague thus far has led to constant wrangling. The sentence does not say the EU is intergovernmental. it says much of its operation relies upon agreement, which happens to be a feature of intergovernmental organisations. Do you agree/disagree that much of its functioning depends upon agreement? Do you agree/disagree that this is a feature of integovernmentnal organisations? do you feel that there is an inference from this that the EU is therefore intergovernmental, and if you do, this inference is unwarranted? If you want to attack the sentence, then pick the point where it departs from your view of the correct situation. Sandpiper (talk) 12:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If I were to be honest, my gut feeling and my knowledge of this subject tell me that much of its functioning does not depend on intergovernmental. To me qualified majority voting leads me down the path of sui generis. Wherever there is supranationalism in the EU, there is always a hint of IG present. The same goes the other way, there are SN elements lurking in every area covered by IG. They are cross fertilising constantly. Its just the nature of the EU, the way I see it. --Simonski (talk) 12:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That however was not one of the questions, or possibly just the last one. Do you feel the EU depends upon agreement between states, leaving aside whether it is intergovernmental, which is not the same thing? As lwxrm posted, this is becoming hung up on the definition of those words, not on what happens in the EU.Sandpiper (talk) 12:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

So anyway, I've tried editing the Intro myself - thoughts? Why by the way should fisheries be removed/kept? To me its pretty significant (and just one of the reasons that Norway is a bit worried about joining?)? --Simonski (talk) 12:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

since you ask, I used created rather than established, because it is clearer and seems to imply an instant change. The debate seemed to agree that the EU, tchnically, did not exist before the maastricht treaty. Previously there was something else called the EC, which did most of the same things. However, this article is called the EU, and has to take a view whether it means by this the thing created in 1993, or the whole thing since 1951. If the latter, then there probably should not be mention of maastrict second sentence at all, because a name change is relatively minor. Maastrict should then be relegated to the history section. What would you say is the reason for placing it 2nd sentence?

As to you revised SN, IG explanation. No, I don't like it. The previous compromise says the EU works by agreement, something people can easily understand, then explains that a lot of intergovernmental things work that way. Also easy to understand. Then it says there are supranational things able to overrule governments (though we might work on the binding upon bit some more). Your version plonks 4 big words into one sentence. Someone reading it will say, what?????? The objective is to avoid baffling people, even temporarily. Your version says the important thing is the concept of suprantionality and intergovernmentalism, mine says the important thing is most people agree on things, sometimes they are overruled. Sandpiper (talk) 12:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I realise the wording I put in isn't perfect, in one sense I was hoping somebody else would take it and build upon the idea I was putting down. There is absolutely no way, in my opinion, to describe the EU accurately without confusing Average Joe. But I don't care about Average Joe and none of us should, as I have said!

well then consider me. I'm as bright as they come. I find it confusing and annoying. And because I'm clever I understand that others also find it annoying when sentences are not as well organised as they could be, and that it unnecessarily makes articles that little bit harder to understand. Sandpiper (talk) 13:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

On the first point, agreed, thats why a pillars diagram might also be useful. I was just going by the Treaty on European Union wording that "the High Contracting parties hereby Establish the European Union". If there had been no Maastricht however, and it was just an article on the EC, then many of the current sections on the page inc. military etc would not be there. In this sense, Maastricht is incredibly important and it is important to try and tell the reader hello, well look there was this thing called the EC which was mainly economic but then they decided to add a few other things and call it the European Union, and that was done with this Maastricht Treaty. --Simonski (talk) 12:57, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

well, either maastrict is a defining point for the EU and created it, or it didn't. I am not too worried about this specific word,'established', earlier versions of this sentence had much bigger problems. If we use established in sentence 2, we need a different word for sentence 3.

As afar as I am concerned, fisheries is in.

Taking your version of SN/IG, I would reorganise it. It is overly complex because it mentions both Sn and Ig, then has to refer back to them using 'the former' and 'the latter'. Thereby making the structure more difficult to understand. Thus taking your version The EU's functioning depends on a hybrid of intergovernmentalism and supranationalism. The former feature, common to most international organisations, exists in areas requiring agreement between the Member States, whilst the latter is present through the existence of institutions acting independent of the Member States. I would do:

EU functioning depends upon agreement between the member states, an intergovernmental feature common to most international organisations, but also upon suprantional institutions acting independently of member states. Or I might expand it into two sentences, such as Much of the EU's functioning depends on agreement between members, an intergovernmental feature it shares with most international organisations. However, it also has supranational bodies, able to make decisions binding upon member states. Sandpiper (talk) 13:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Leaving out the historical development is finally seems a useful trimming. The concentration on the state of being is most important in the end. When I look at other languages the history is hardly mentioned as well. Lear 21 (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - the History section seems to adequately explain things. I mean otherwise you'd have people easily being able to argue "include Amsterdam!" or "include Nice!". Once Lisbon comes into force it could be added to the first paragraph easily but in the meantime that seems to do it I'd say. So, what issues remain?

The only issue I can see remaining is that I am almost certain that somebody is going to come along and say "hmmmmm I don't like the wording of the IG/SN bit" - the FA reviewers being just one example. I think what we should do here is pause and ask for other opinions from the other editors. --Simonski (talk) 14:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Much as i hate to break up the party, it is necessary to ask whether this intro now fairly represents the article as a whole. It should be remembered that the intro is supposed to be a complete mini-article by itself. Without the history section it arguably has room for a little more. Which is not necessarily to mean that I agree there should not be a history paragraph. I was previously of two minds about it. How the thing came about did not seem to me the most important thing, but it is not negligible. The treaty of Rome and founding date set the thing in context as having existed for 50 years. Mention of lisbon was originally included by those who thought it necessary to make a note there is about to be a modest shake up. This has also left out the bit that the EU has steadily enlarged and grown into new areas, which is quite important. This is a history section, but the specific information does more than list dates and places. Sandpiper (talk) 22:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, I see you made further changes to the intro, reintroducing your favourite edits.

Why do you want to place the economic information at the very head of the article? This is incidental information which really only gives us an idea of the scale of the EU but does not tell us anything about what it is or does.

Why do you favour, despite your protests to the contrary, describing the EU as supranational? Sandpiper (talk) 08:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the current starting sentences now look good. I don't think GDP should be the lead of the second paragraph. I also think the current IG/SN structure is ok with one major caveat. The words institutions and bodies used in these ways is not accurate for reasons raised elsewhere. Lwxrm (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I notice the intro was changed and then reverted once again. The edit comment claimed to be returning to "factually accurate". Once again I raise my objection to the phrases "supranational instutions" and "intergovernmental bodies" as they are factually inaccurate. The Council is an institution that is largely regarded as intergovern and the ECB is a body that is largely regarded as supranational. I still do not see the need/point of mentioning the GDP in the lead of the second paragraph, it adds nothing and it not as relevant as the part mentioning the single market. Also the edit comment used suggested mere wordin changes, not (once again) the changing of the consensus structure. Lwxrm (talk) 14:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Please stop referring to a consensus intro, which has introduced wrong claims and weak, unprecedented layout. Please NEVER,EVER AGAIN! thank you Lear 21 (talk) 14:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

and yet you still do not deal with the institutions issue raised? Is that not 'introducing wrong claims'? Lwxrm (talk) 09:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

debate on commission v council for supremacy, moved from intro debate

@Sandpiper "The duty laid upon them ex-officio is not to attempt to exercise power against the wishes of the council." This is not true or accurate. Look at the "environmental crimes" cases as just one recent example. The Commission opposed the adoption of criminal sanctions under a Framework Decision (Third Pillar) by the Council. They argued that they themselves had the competence to bring forward legislation under the Community Pillar. Despite objection from the majority of the Member States the ECJ found in favour of the Commission and annulled the Decision. Under your model the Commission were duty bound to restrain from acting in this way that was clearly against the wishes of Council. In the sphere of capital also look at the Commission's dogged persistence in brining enforcement actions against the majority of Member States for their golden shares schemes. The Commission is not duty bound to the Member States. Quite the opposite, it is duty bound to the EU as a whole. Can you also try and keep your comments in order, it took me a while to find your edit and it skews the responses made by others, who responded to your original statements and not to the "edited" versions Lwxrm (talk) 11:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It also took me a little while to become accustomed to the wiki habit of injecting comments into a debate wheere they apply, rather than in strict order of writing. It has the merit of keeping material together and preventing the main debate becoming sidetracked. Sandpiper (talk)

That is pretty much the best example you're going to get. That was kinda my point earlier Sandpiper, that the Commission does really (at times unfortunately) have a mind of its own. You'll see them challenging for example the fact that the Council used a certain legal basis for an act, because if they can get the Council to adopt an act under a legal basis that involves the Commission, then the Commission can bring enforcement proceedings against Member States to make sure that they live up to their promises. If the Commission weren't complete scum, then of course, the system could work quite well - the whole way the EC/EU is setup is so that countries such as Greece and France don't fail to implement legislation at the national level. In setting up the Commission the Member States were saying (though of course to what degree is debatable) right we're going to have this set of rules, and we're going to make this body that will try to make sure that everybody is living up to their obligations.

Imagine it like a group of friends wanting to stop smoking - they say to another friend look we want you to make sure none of us smoke ok, so stop us whenever we try.

You could make the same MS=one member point about the ECJ, it doesnt affect the fact that when they are appointed to the post they are to put aside national interest and act in the EC/EU interest. --Simonski (talk) 11:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree the point of the commission is to enforce rules on member countries which they dont particulalry like, and might well oppose. That is not at all the same as taking a fundamentally opposed view to the direction the commission is going. It has been suggested before that the EU hierachy is running ahead attempting to expand the EU competences, way ahead of the populations. Logically, if that continues, the national governments will eventually also have to come round to the same view as their electors. At that point, the commission is out of luck. Either it accepts the situation and backs down, in the interests of the EU, or it gets sat upon. All this debate is looking at the issue from inside the box. The members, if pushed sufficiently, will sit back from outside the box and get what they want. This is the heart of the supranationality issue. The question of sovereignty is very hard to define, and boiuls down in the end to what people agree is the reality. If the member states agree to follow the rules, they will. If they find them excessive, they will change them. Sandpiper (talk) 12:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, and excuse my language, that the Commission is a bunch of bastards - each Commissioner is just looking to advance their political career. But either way, its a supranational body I would say. They do some good in some areas but most of them are dislikable. But this is getting slightly off topic now. --Simonski (talk) 12:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

screwed up largest city table

Lear, will you please sort out the largest city table. I editied it so that the title does not overlap the body of the table. You reverted it back to the original. It is not acceptable to leave it in this mess. Please either restore my fixup, or sort it properly. Sandpiper (talk) 13:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I use Firefox on XP and everything is fine with the old version. There are other editors who created the table and seem to have no problems as well. The only thing I can see is an unnecessarily blown up table after your edits. Lear 21 (talk) 14:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Then I understand why you do not see there is a problem, but not your zealous attitude ptresuming that others edits are acting in bad faith. I am telling you now, that using windows explorer 7 with whatever options it might be set to, the title line overlaps the box. Please fix it since you don't like my repairs. Sandpiper (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No, no, there is a problem, just other editors obviously thought that if Sandpiper was fixing it that there would be nobody quite frankly stupid enough to revert what were necessary changes. Evidently that is not the case. I use internet explorer on Vista, and it is screwed there, and it was screwed earlier when I viewed it via internet explorer on XP. The title line clearly is overlapped by the box. You know I'm also starting to get the impression that your 500 or whatever edits of this page Lear have just been you reverting/altering other peoples changes because you don't like them. Get a grip. --Simonski (talk) 15:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Ssolberj might be the specialist to answer this. Lear 21 (talk) 12:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Recent image changes

Lear, why have you set about a program of changing all the pictures in the article upon your return. I don't recall they changed much while you were away, why suddenly rush about changing them now? Is there any reason for this? Sandpiper (talk) 15:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

To improve the quality of visual content. Lear 21 (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see replacing images as being a major issue compared to the other matters discussed at the moment - with the exception of 2 or something (which have both gone) the rest seemed to be fine. However hopefully now thats all the images changed that need to be changed so we can concentrate on other things. --Simonski (talk) 17:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

From my point of view all relevant issues/sections are addressed by now. Lear 21 (talk) 12:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Euro image in history section

File:Jacques Santer and Yves-Thibault de Silguy presenting the euro.jpg

The euro was introduced as common currency in most member states. (De Silguy and Santer displaying the €1 coin in 1998)

In 2002, a new currency, the euro, has been issued the first time and replaced several national currencies. Fifteen member states representing 310 million people have adopted the euro by 2008.

Some days ago, the image of the euro banknotes was inserted in the history section. Then I thought that it would be better to have an historical image in the history section, so I replaced the 'flat and ad-like' banknotes with a 'real' image from the euro's presentation in 1998 (with president Santer). I was reverted some hours later by Lear 21, who said in his edit summary that "The currency itself including the caption is of higher value than the inaugural act". I reinserted the santer image, arguing that it would be more approperiate to have an historical image in the history section. Again I was reverted by Lair who wrote an identical summary as last time.

Do we need an image relating to the euro in the history section (is there enough space?), and if so; which one should we use? - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 11:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think a picture in the history section does no harm. Whilst the Ssolbergj is an historical image, it is confusing in the context of the article. In the history section the fixing of exchange rates and the transfer of the ECU (the correct term for the currency, the 'euro' not appearing anywhere in the Treaty) as the official currency in 1997 does not appear. A reader may be confused as to why the article says 2002 for the currency but the picture is some years earlier. If the history section is to remain unaltered the Lear picture makes more sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lwxrm (talk • contribs) 11:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be good to have the historical image if it wasn't copyright, we really should avoid using such images if it isn't necessary. Better justification for that image might be in the introduction of the euro page but not here. I do think we can do better than the notes though.- J Logan ^t: 11:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The euro image belongs in the section on monetary union, if anywhere, where it used to be? This is once again addiong content twice to an already lengthy article. The specific info should only be given in one place, and that is in the 'monetary union' section. Sandpiper (talk)

There is probably no doubt that the introduction of the new currency is a historic event. Looking at the official EU History at glance website supports this view [30]. The reasons supporting an introduction of an image of the currency itself are: 1. It is the physical banknotes and coins that are of daily importance and not the inaugural act 2. The inaugural act does not cover all countries which have joined after 2002. 3. The mentioned official EU website can work as a model how to present the currency/ historic event. 4. The history section includes already 2 images of officials/politicians and does not need another. 5. My personal sense of aesthetics tells me, that the 2 guys presenting the oversize coin are not made for cameras (Don´t tell them) Lear 21 (talk) 15:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This article cannot afford to go over the same information twice. Information must be presented once only, in one place. My vote is that the correct way to do it is a bare mention in the history section, and a detailed description in the monetary union section. As things stand, we are getting the history told twice, with the history section listing each country joining the euro. This should be removed. Joining or not joining the euro is an ongoing argument in a lot of countries, so ought to be discussed in the context of the euro as a whole. Alternatively, expand the history section and slash all info about staged joining from the monetary union section. Sandpiper (talk) 09:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The ECB/Frankfurt image represents the Monetary Government and is now correctly placed in the respective section. The banknote/image represents the new peoples currency and therefore the historic shift replacing the old national currencies. It is not a double information! Because of the historic significance the banknote image is needed. I will slightly expand the History section in order to create more space and address some under represented issues. Lear 21 (talk) 14:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the historic is much better than the banknote image. I've already explained why a 'real' image would be better. If there's enough space for any image in the history section, at least the caption below the banknote image is way too long. Can we get a consensus here in order to stop Lear from undiplomaticly "reestablising" the banknote image yet another time. It is a flat and ad-like piece of graphic, with an ugly white background and a horrible lack of crop margin. When I uploaded it, it was intended for the euro's infobox. The image shouldn't be placed as a normal thumb image alongside text in articles. Lear should notice that 'other' countries' articles don't display each and every currency denomination, and nor should this article. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 15:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

There should be no problem to trim the long text at the EURO image. @Ssolbergj: You have long reputation of installing high quality visual content. That is very much appreciated. The proposed Santer/Euro image is on the other hand not convincing. Neither are the two officials important to represent the new currency, nor is one oversized coin a useful representation of a new currency. I also wonder, why displaying the banknote image should suddenly be a problem. It has been on the article for almost a year now. The major message to be transported by the image is, that a new CURRENCY has been introduced. That is of major significance for EU history. I have no problem with other convincing proposals showing the currency itself. Expanding the section´s written content should´nt be a problem either. Hope you can support this view. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 16:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You don't know how many times I have searched after good and free euro images on Flickr. I've never found any, but I seriously think it would be better not to have a dedicated euro image if the banknotes are the best we've got. If consensus is to use the little space that is left in the history section, I think we should insert a highly relevant, high quality image related to the euro. - And it should have historcal qualities, and not just be current and static like the banknotes. It's not crucial to say how many people who use euro, and how the Eurozone has enlarged since 2002.

Commission President Jacques Santer and Yves-Thibault de Silguy, Member of the EC in charge of Economic and Financial Affairs, were probably the most relevant EU faces when it comes to the euro's introduction. Aesthetics is subjective of course, but I don't think the image of Santer and Silguy holding the original euro coin at the news conference in 1998 (very relavent and historical) image is that bad. And the fair-use rational should be sufficient. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 17:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

From my perspective we have the following situation: There is (hopefully) an agreement that the EURO currency deserves representation. The Euro-Currency image has been already at the article for almost a year without being questioned. The new Santer/image is for a number of stated reasons, unacceptable from my perspective. Conclusions: Either we have new proposals or we rather keep the established image. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 14:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That is your conclusion. It's also possible not to have a euro image. Your main argument is that President Santer and Silguy, Member of the EC in charge of Economic and Financial Affairs, are unrelevant and unphotogenic. My main argument is that if we are to insert a euro image, it should be authentic and have historical qualities, - like all the other images in the history section. The image of the Rome Treaty being signed in 1957 is more exciting than a static image of what might be a copy (a la banknotes) of the book, taken in 2007 with an ugly background. I've allways hated the use of the banknote image in this article, but we haven't had a better image before, so I let it remain in the article. But when it got placed in the history section, and the article was nominated for FA, quality suddenly became more important. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 14:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The order and importance of arguments (as already stated): 1. The historic event is that physical banknotes and coins replacing national currencies and not the inaugural act 2. The inaugural act does not cover all countries which have joined after 2002. 3. The official EU website can work as a model how to present the currency/ historic event. [31] 4. The history section includes already 2 images of officials/politicians and does not need another, a little variation is no harm 5. My personal sense of aesthetics is the last! important of all arguments Lear 21 (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I just think there should be historical images in the history section and that the banknotes look ugly for this purpose. We need a consensus by more editors here; its hopeless for us to try to indoctrinate eachother like this. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 16:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

File:Ecofin euro presentation.jpg

The Ecofin presenting the euro denominations 22 September 2001

This is an alternative image. Less easy to understand tho. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 16:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

For more than 300 million EU citizens the historical event is the replacement of their old currency. That makes 300 million historic events, IT´S THE CURRENCY! Anyway, this has become arguing around circles. I see the following question: The image of the Euro currency is indispensable for this article. Because, the ECB image is indispensable as well, I ask you what or where are the alternative solutions? And what about this [32] Lear 21 (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't euro notes copyright? if so, isn't taking a photo of them breech of copyright? just a thought. Sandpiper (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The old €1 coin is also the currency! The fact that the old design isn't produced anymore makes it even more worthy for the history section, if anything. I still think an historical image would be best. We need more editors' opinion. If we were to have timeless images of the banknotes in this article, this would be ten times better than the PNG, IMHO, but displaying individual banknotes is not the purpose for this article, no matter how many million people are use the currency. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 17:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There are three history images right now. Which one is coming out to make space for the euro? And... write something more so as to make space for another picture????????????? Sandpiper (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There is some space beneath the Berlin Wall image, but should we use it? - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 01:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

On my screen rightnow there is about half a pictures height below the berlin wall image before the next section. Pictures do not appear the same size on different peoples screens, depending upon their default preferences, and their native screen size. This means it easy for someone with default small pictures to accidentally produce a page which looks crowded to others. (well, I expect you know that, but it is easy to forget and some people don't seem bothered by this general problem of presentation) Sandpiper (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Giant Empire

Talk:List_of_largest_empires#EU can you provide something to state that EU is now an Empire? AtomAtom (talk) 19:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No because I don't think it is. It is too little a single country to be an empire.Arnoutf (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No. You don't understand. From many points of view EU can be defined as being an Empire. AtomAtom (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes and from many points of view it cannot (not least of all the issue that there is no clear definition of empire). Arnoutf (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It does not called and label as Empire, while it sure acts like one. Look at EU and Africa. Look about EU and China or India. Even in relations with United States, EU looks and plays hard like an Empire. --AtomAtom (talk) 20:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Even Barasso said is an Empire . .--AtomAtom (talk) 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Empires are vast areas or countries ruled by one country. The EU is a vast area run by 27 countries and several institutions. If one EU country held control of it, then it would be an empire, but not when all states are equal. Although.... Jose Manuel Barroso did talk about the EU as a kind of 'empire'..... 86.166.227.112 (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

From the empire article: After its origins as a Western European trade bloc, the Post-Cold War era European Union has since issued its own currency, formed its own military, and exercised its hegemony in Eastern European Nations and abroad. As a consequence, political scientist, Jan Zielonka, has argued that the EU has transformed itself into an empire by coercing its neighbours into adopting economic, legal and political patterns in its own image'

One scholar has argued this as far as I can see, but that does not make it the mainstream view; which is what we should be reporting in Wikipedia.

I agree it acts a bit imperial towards Africa. China and India is a bit different, let alone US. It seems as if your definition of empire would say that every entity large enough to have global influence is an empire, in which case the Opec is an empire too. We have to be very very careful not to get into original research here.

"Non-imperial empire."? sounds a bit contradictory and therefore not very well usable in the context. I would say that Barroso meant it has some properties of an empire (ie political and economical power), but not all (military coercion, centralised government etc.) ; or something similarArnoutf (talk) 20:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

“ What we have is the first non-imperial empire...We have twenty-seven countries that fully decided to work together and to pool their sovereignty. I believe it is a great construction and we should be proud of it. ” — José Manuel Barroso, 2007

Global power, global influence, how can you define it? Yes, you know that when you act like one you're like one. If you play like an Empire you're an Empire. The shape and the form does not count. AtomAtom (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Without a definition you cannot say how an empire acts; and thus we cannot say the EU is one. A definition could for example include it is a state (which would exclude EU) has a military power that is important in comparison with its neighbours (that too would exclude EU), that has a central government exerting power (excluding EU), has a major economic power (that is EU), has a large political power (mmm sometimes EU does that, but as often not because everybody disagree. See the Kosovo affair). In any case, EU as an empire is not a clear cut case, whatever Barroso says. Arnoutf (talk) 22:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Barroso stated that the EU has dimensions like an Empire but acts politically non-imperial. It´s a catchy phrase but nothing more. An Empire projects imperial power from a center. The EU is the opposite, 27 countries pooled their souvereignity and are still enacting legislation by intergovernmental, unanimous procedures. Secondly, the power of the respective EU countries has still a high degree of independence. Lear 21 (talk) 09:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm glad it was you Lear who posted that. I would not wish to be accused again of arguing the EU was purely intergovernmental in character, and not suprantional. Now, can we please restore the introduction to a version which properly explains the situation? Sandpiper (talk) 10:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Barroso can claim all he likes, I have yet to see a mainstream academic support to justify the claim. As such I think it is silly to include it here. The EU may have empire-like qualities but it also contains international organisation and state qualities, this doesn't mean it is either of those things either. On a side-note I don't think this will go any further as it appears Atom Atom has been blocked.Lwxrm (talk) 14:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be atom atom as in explosive editing then? I don't think this is going anywhere as far as this article is concerned, but the EU is intent on building up both its membership and its authority. Such behviour would generally be described as empire building. Sandpiper (talk) 08:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

EU map

I dont know how it appears on others screens, but on mine the EU map is really a little too big. I'm not sure how to fix this, but do others have views on this? My screen size is 1150x864. Sandpiper (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That image is a GIF; Hell will appear (at least it gets really blurry) if it is resized and my copy of photoshop doesn't work. It also takes time to adjust all the text lables. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 21:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Is that because it is a gif, or because of rescaling the text? Whether it would be worth the effort would depend on what people think. does the size seem ok to you? it looks a bit big to me, but some people must be using smaller screens than me so it must dominate the page even more. Sandpiper (talk) 21:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying that a brand new gif file must be produced, because resized GIFs are always very blurry. It takes time to relocate the different text labels. The text can't be any smaller in browsers like Opera. When the map gets smaller, abbreviations are needed for Balkan countries and Swtizerland. We used this SVG before, but since seeing the enlargements is desirable, it had to be GIF. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 22:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

GA status challenged

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Because of the highly instable character of the articles introduction the GA status should be questioned. Stability is one of the preconditions to uphold this status. This is not the case for more than a week now. Lear 21 (talk) 11:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear there is one major reason for instability. YOU. If you did not put in the considerable effort destroying the article you do, the article would be much more stable. Anyway, while much editing is going on, the actual content changes are minor. Arnoutf (talk) 11:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Arnoutf. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 15:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The article would be more stable if we tried to come to some sort-of agreement on the intro, instead of the constant cross changing/reverting currently going on. Lwxrm (talk) 14:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

well, we had one, but then lear came back and decided he did not like it. Not that it was necessarily perfect, but we all managed to agree about it in discussion without this fuss. Sandpiper (talk)

User Lear 21 has been, among others, a central part to the EU article for more than a year. The user ensured major waves of improvements in all aspects of the article. The user itself ensured a stable quality to the article, which has become a model for other EU Wiki languages. The work of User Lear 21 notably in 2 other of the most-read Wikipedia articles has been as well copied in several other languages and respective categories. This record can not be claimed by several new editors. User Lear 21 is certainly not impeccable but has proven an adaptability in all stages of the article´s development. This can not be claimed by notably one new editor. Regards Lear 21 (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

User Lear21 talks in third person! User Lear21 is da LOLZ~!!!1. Seriously, wtf. User Simonski says user Lear has been actually negative to the EU page in many respects in the last 6 months. User Simonski thinks things aside from putting some nice shiny images on the page, User Lear21 in recent times has become damaging to the page.

Breaking the third person party apart for a second (OMGZ HE DID WAT?), Lear you do contribute usefully sometimes but in the last 6 months you've caused far more trouble than good. When you're the only person arguing something (or one of 2), which has been quite common in the last 6 months, you need to take a step back and think about why that is happening. --Simonski (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

User Lear 21 has been, among others, a central part to the EU article for more than a year.. I would not doubt it for a moment. Definitely central to all disagreements I have seen. How many editors have you chased away from this page? The user ensured major waves of improvements in all aspects of the article. since I first edited this page, this has not been the case. Since I have been here, Lear has mostly been defending his entrenched views against attempted alterations by others. It may be that previously he made important improvements, but new editors arrive with new ideas. The user itself ensured a stable quality to the article, Yes, constantly suffering reversions and changes. which has become a model for other EU Wiki languages. I have noticed that frequently other language articles are simply translations of the english ones, whether good or bad. This record can not be claimed by several new editors. Personally, my favourite moment was finding that a picture I had uploaded to wiki had been moved to commons by someone who thought so well of it that he copied it there because he wanted to use it in a different language.User Lear 21 is certainly not impeccable but has proven an adaptability in all stages of the article´s development.. In my experience, Lears adaptability is only in producing alternative versions of a text which still maintain the edits he wishes to make. This can not be claimed by notably one new editor. Is that me? I do not give in to bullies, in fact they tend to make me stubborn. The article was going swimmingly with good debate and consensus article writing in the absence of the one editor who had been banned, Lear.

The FA review noted the main page editors, Lear being top with about 800 edits. Someone else observed, just how many of these were new contributionss, and how many were edits made during content wars? Sandpiper (talk) 16:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, as a case in point you are now arguing that the article is unsuitable for FA (you posted this on the FA review) and should not have GA, because of the multiple reversions you have made to the introduction??? Had you not returned to editing this page after your ban, there would be no problem about the intro or its stability. Can you deny this? Sandpiper (talk)

In any case Wikiguidelines say that nobody should own an article, so if someone has been central, for the good of the article stepping back would be good. Also, number of edits shows effort at best (but not even that always: some editors carefully consider their edits and then make a single one; some others tweak their own edits repeatedly immediately after their main page edit). In any case number of edits does not reflect quality of input. Being blocked for edit warring on the other hand does imply something. Arnoutf (talk) 18:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way Lear, your behaviour both in this discussion and on the FA-candidacy page do make me think about a 4-year old boy. If I can't have it my way, I 'd rather destroy the sand-castle than letting others play with it. Can you honestly and truly deny such sentiments? (no answer expected, but think about it) Arnoutf (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Usually I don´t take part in discussions dealing with user behaviour or questions about who said what, when! But because I started it we can go on with this fun.

The only principle which drives me in Wikipedia is to ensure high quality, factual accuracy and an up to date comprehensive presentation of 3 articles. One of them EU. To understand what quality standards are set in Wikipedia I have read and even more important compared Hundreds of articles in terms of content, wording and layout. In the majority city- country- politics related articles many with FA status as well. I also read more than 10 newspapers online every day for more or less 10 years now. Among them FT, New York Times, L.A. Times, BBC Europe frequently. To a very high degree I very much know the most present issues, attitudes and images towards, for instance, The European Union. The internal European view as well as the global external view.

The only indication about the attitudes, intentions, interests and the quality of work I have from other editors is their edit record. Namely user Sandpiper has left no evidence in providing convincing argumentation, proposals or quality of prose to Wikipedia in general and the EU article specifically. It might sound undiplomatic, but the unique desire of any user changing and participating is just not enough. Especially not when it comes to one of the most read and already highly developed articles at Wikipedia. I have to reject Arnoutf accusations concerning FA candidacy in all terms .

The content and appearance of the engl. EU article established a comprehensiveness and standards unimaginable before(look at December 2006, only 15 months ago)! There is no doubt that a quantum leap has happened in several aspects. It is also clear that this new standard has been already copied. Therefore it must be uphold. Because of the progressing character of the EU itself, the absence of mainstream attitudes, mainstream-knowledge (specifically engl. speaking UK) and the lack of independent sources the EU article is under constant crossfire. This is also reflected in the media, and among member countries.

Finally, I can only insist on : concentrating on content, taking a clear stance on what is In & what is Out, presenting highly reliable sources or comparisons, avoiding lengthy argumentation (see my bad example) while developing a clear cut pro contra discussion culture. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 13:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

If I interpret what you just state is that you consider yourself a good editor.

Well I tend to agree you have some good ideas, and are involved in the topic. However, that does not mean you should participate in any way in discussions about the judgement of the status of an article you are personally heavily involved in. Even, or especially if, you are such a good editor as you say you are you should leave judgments (i.e. opposing, or challenging status) of both FA and GA reviews to editors who are utterly un-involved in the writing of the article itself. This is the whole idea behind peer-review in science. If you have been involved, or have personal relations (either positive or negative) with the authors or their topic of a submitted paper you should stay far, far, far away from judgements about their work. So how do your recent action align with your self-stated good editorship? Arnoutf (talk) 15:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

@Arnoutf: I absolutely agree on the necessary preconditions of an external peer-review without evolved editors. You are correct about that and I previously aimed to stay neutral during the procedure. But I consider myself also as an Wikipedian who cares about accuracy and style in all articles. The minor 2 points I raised during the candidacy were plainly wrong with or without my editorship. I could easily raise a number of insufficiencies and weak wording, but I won´t. The introduction should at least maintain " an almost accurate " part of the article. By the time the 2 points are addressed, they will be de-listed immediately. Lear 21 (talk) 16:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have said this before as to why your line of thinking is flawed. Going by what you're saying if Barroso himself got an account tomorrow and brought knowledge/expertise to the table you'd be trying to ignore it and undermine his edits if they did not agree with yours. Thats why, in my eyes, you are contrary to what you claim, a bad editor. You are a stubborn editor who does not take other people's views into account and thus for every decent change you make to the page, there are around 5 examples of negative edits/behaviour. Reading 10 newspapers a day does not change this. Tony Blair was a good Prime Minister in 1997. Come 2001 he was not, arguably instead being one of the worst PMs of all time. See where I'm going with this one?

I stand by what I said also about you being negative to the page overall in the last 6 months. Only at times where you seemed briefly willing to cooperate were you worth having around here. Hopefully the above 'explanation' on your part is a suggestion that your attitude will improve. Whether you like to admit it or not, in the last six months with a batch of new editors bringing new views to the table, this page has further improved - to the extent that somebody noticed it and nominated it for FA. An edit war over the intro changes nothing in this respect. --Simonski (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear, thank you for agreeing with the necessity of staying neutral for involved editors. Sadly you didn't stay neutral by starting this GA challenge section. I would say that you are perfectly allowed to challenge GA status of articles, but not those you are involved in. Saying that you felt the need to do so is an insult to the whole Wikipedia system of peer review, as you imply that there is nobody concerned about the quality of this article besides you. We simply have to separate the tasks of reviewing and writing to prevent bias. Even, or especially, if one disagrees with the outcome of an article close to ones heart. There is in my opinion absolutely no reason for breaking this rule without undermining the whole system. Arnoutf (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

From now on, I will NEVER, I promise, NEVER EVER comment any behaviour or useless chatting anymore. I expect that from every other user as well, and please tell every other user...@Simonski: What is your stance towards a history para in the introduction? Where is your stance?? Where is your stance on "much of the EU functioning, bla,bla,bla" Where is your stance?? Are you defending this shit? What have you done to improve the very obvious misguided statements? You can go on accusing, whining, misinterpreting. You can go on with superfluous palaver or you can involve yourself with short pro/contra statements. There will be always transformation to this article, but it should be well argued. The funny thing is, I hate being the housekeeper. The funny thing is, that I am a happy person knowing that with my help 3 major articles have improved massively. But the unfunny thing is that good things have to be kept up. It is very easy to convince me, with quality or a good faith edit record in respective articles. Starting your edits with: "Fuck section this", "Fuck section that", "Fuck supranational", "Fuck all images", "Fuck all layout rules", "EU is only UN", etc., etc., etc. ... these kind of edits right at the beginning does not raise my trust in good faith or good knowledge either. Lear 21 (talk) 18:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lear, I don't know how the article was when you found it, or exactly how much you contributed to rescuing it. It is hard to read through the very long edit history, and ultimately not much to be gained by doing so. I am entirely happy to accept that you have done what you claim, and that you are capable of creating a good article about the EU all by yourself. However....that is not the situation now. When I came to this page I found a most interesting and informative article, but one having significant mistakes which I knew were wrong. I started off having an argument with Blue haired lawyer about agricultural policy. It happens I had been interested in that page, being a farmer of sorts. It was clear to me BHL was supporting an incorrect description in the article, and that my position was supported by the refs already in the article. This is just an example. No one here has spotted all the mistakes in this article, I am certain. As an article becomes better it becomes much harder to make it better still. The other editors here now are also capable of writing perfectly good EU articles all by themselves. I would not like such a situation. It is much harder to do such a thing all by yourself. Each of us would create a good aricle, but one emphasising different things. The whole intro argument is about emphasis, not facts. It is a different situation than taking a bad article and making it better. Sandpiper (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I cant imagine why someone wanted to archive that for posterity.

You are not necessarily the most difficult editor on this page to come to an agreement with, but you are certainly the most frequent. It is absolutely not acceptable to conduct an edit war by persistently reverting a page many times a day. The 3RR rule is there to contain our squabbles to a manageable level. You have been warned about it in the past, banned for it in the past, yet still managed to get banned again, having apparently learnt nothing from your experience. I have to say your behaviour suggests an attempt to game the system. You will war when it suits you and accuse others of doing so, quote rules when it suits you yet ignore rules quoted back at you, claim the article should be down rated because of your own actions disrupting it. Do you yet admit that you yourself have created the situation you claim should cause the article to be downgraded? Generally, attempt to wear out other editors so that you can write the article the way you want.

I think i should comment on a point touched on above. While editors here may be good with facts, they are not necessarily good with the english language. It is easier to understand a language perfectly than to write it perfectly. An unrelated editor this morning changed the intro to say Currently in vigour is the treaty of maastricht . He did not see fit to change this when I discussed his edits on his page. Ok, maybe I do not come across very friendly sometimes, but I try not to be too blunt. Some edits on this page have been terrible from the language point of view. I still think that half my disagreements are about exact meaning, where the editors concerned get a completely different impression of the meaning of sentences than I do. This is particularly important as an article becomes better. These style issues matter more. Sandpiper (talk) 20:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the reason to archive this was to close this discussion, which is not going anywhere. I respect that idea and suggest this section/discussion is to be discontinued. Arnoutf (talk) 21:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

An anon did that? curious. rather depends though, considering how this section started? In fact, though lear decided he didn't want to talk any more, I thought some more understanding between editors might be a good thing. Assuming good faith. Sandpiper (talk) 21:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Lear your point to me only serves to underline the fact that you clearly don't actually read the points of others. I made clear my position several times, you could argue well it wasnt clear but that might have been because I was doing what you're supposed to goddamn do and find a compromise between the two sides of the spectrum, most recently yourself and Sandpiper. And your "f this section, f that section", yes of course I was saying that for all of, what, one section, the sports section. So stop talking complete nonsense. And housekeeper? Try more like the kid who draws on the walls of the house with his crayons and throws his toys out of the pram whenever he doesnt get his way. You need to learn what a guideline is by the way - not a binding rule. --Simonski (talk) 14:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

We may seek compromises, but I sometimes find it difficult here to be sure how various people would choose the page to be written, rather than what they are willing to accept. Sandpiper (talk) 18:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, that might flow from the fact that many of the disputes are incredibly difficult to follow, producing pages and pages of text and tending not to get anywhere because neither side will give any ground and just repeat arguments. Lear in particular is incredibly guilty of this. When somebody does that, it goes without saying that people lose the will to get involved. Its no surprise that Logan, Arnoutf, Solberg and the other regulars have for the large part just steered clear from almost all of the recent debate, debate which unsurprisingly has really got us nowhere.

Infact I find Lear's comment to me absolutely ridiculous the more I think about it, given that throughout the intro debate I would keep bringing it back to a comprehensible point - highlighting the 1 or 2 issues that were clearly causing problems, and then giving my view on them. (Examples = [[33]], [[34]]). Like I said, it suggests to me that Lear doesn't actually pay attention to what others are saying most of the time. --Simonski (talk) 18:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

history section

I noticed someone just added a sentence to the history section about the parliament elections, half of which repeated the sentence before, but half of which ws a new point. Lear has also made some recent additions, and others have. The history section is creeping bigger all the time. Is this desireable, or even permissable given the existence of a perfectly good history article, and the excessive length of this one?Sandpiper (talk)

I'll refer to the Euro image in history section discussion above, where Lair talked about expanding the history section in order the make room for a euro image. The section worked perfectly well before when it was shorter. But I'm in favour of improvement as long as the quality is maintained and less important things are left out. The question of whether we should enlarge it in order to make space for a euro image, and which one it should be, I think we should discuss in the section above.

But how did the section get sub-sections? I proposed that a couple of months ago but it was turned because nobody wanted to enlarge the section. And I think my sub-section names were better, or what? Is 'Pax Europea' too pompous? - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 11:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone added them....Lear. It is a bit of a circular argument. Add more content and then it suggests having sections. less content, no need for sections. So I havn't worried about it just at the moment, but thought we needed to address the growth issue. Would you suggest we delete sports and have the extra paras on history? I am rather inclined to think this article does not need more history, and definitely does need pruning. The problem has always been that no one agrees where. Sandpiper (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favour of keeping the sport section, and please don't reopen that consensus. If you search for the word "sport" in the Lisbon Treaty pdf, you'll find much. Fractured of course. The Commission won't release the consolidated versions before 2009. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 14:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned thats bs, its probably mentioned just as much as many other areas as transport, tourism etc which don't get their own section on this page (and instead just form a smaller part of a larger section). In practice the EU's involvement in sport is incredibly minor, as was highlighted time and time again in the debate. And he's entirely entitled to open that consensus. As it is, Sandpiper if Solberg still wants the pointless section kept, then immediately you have 2 editors in favour of keeping it and thus there is absolutely no point in going there. --Simonski (talk) 16:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

And wow, after actually searching the Lisbon treaty I wasn't surprised to find far from "much". Instead you find 2 measly paragraphs and a sentence elsewhere. But right, I'm not going there, won't say any more on this. No point in going through the whole discussion again, neither side will change its mind. --Simonski (talk) 16:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Solberg, really I was thinking of your comment, But I'm in favour of improvement as long as the quality is maintained and less important things are left out. Which are the less important things you are thinking of deleting to make room for new things? Is listing countries joining the euro in the history section, when this is already done in the euro section, more or less important than including sport (mentioned once)? I use the sport example because it is a bit of a running target. Please suggest which bits of the article you feel are expendable to make new room. My own view is that the second time about of mentioning anything is more expendable than something mentioned only once, but it seems other editors don't agree with this. Sandpiper (talk) 19:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That sentence was solely about about the size of the history section. The full list of countries that joined the Eurozone should obviously not be duplicated. In the article as a whole, the most obvious thing that should be deleted is the passport image; I think it's very far-fetched and irrelevant to note that national passports have a strictly standardised design. Unless someone provides a reference, it's just as unfounded as saying that EU number plates are standardised, which is not entirely true. Denmark hasn't got any starry plates. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 20:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The passport is not a very exciting image. I just don't think it worth arguing about unless pressed (like sport). I think virtually all world passports are standardised, aren't they? The EU ones just use burgundy colour and mention EU as extra standardisation. Does that need a reference? It is nice touch for creating a state without too much fuss (though there was fuss, when the traditional navy blue british one was changed). My main objection to pictures is that they become a nuisance if too close together in the text. The passport image is a little dull, but ...oops, went to look at it again and it had gone...but it has a clever point behind using it re back door superstate europe. The one I like least is the one too many in geography. But what text would you consider could be cut?

The history section says In 2002 euro notes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 of the member states. In 2004 ten new countries (eight of which had formerly been Eastern Bloc countries) joined the EU.[16] At the start of 2007 Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU and the euro was adopted by Slovenia. On 1st January 2008, Malta and Cyprus joined the Eurozone.[16]

The monetary union section says at more lengthNine years later the euro was launched in eleven of the then fifteen member states as an accounting currency, meaning that national currencies remained in use but with exchange rates locked to the euro. On 1 January 2002, euro notes and coins were issued and the national currencies were phased out. Membership increased to twelve in 2002 and now fifteen countries belong to the Eurozone using the euro as their sole official currency. All other EU members except Denmark and the United Kingdom have agreed to join as a condition of being members of the EU. Slovenia adopted the Euro on the 1 January 2007, Cyprus and Malta on the 1 January 2008. Dates for others will be set when economic conditions have been met.

So basically history repeats what is in monetary union. how to reduce this reptition? Sandpiper (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so here's my proposed rewrite for that part of the history section:

In 2002, twelve member states adopted the euro as a single currency. Since then, the Eurozone has increased to encompassing fifteen countries. In 2004 the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when ten new countries, most of which former parts of the Eastern Bloc, joined the Union.[16] Three years later, two more joined.[16]

- $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 22:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I commend you for knocking out 10 words, but we have also lost some names of the countries concerned. This may not mater as the next section lists all the members. Is there anything we could reasonably do to only mention members once, so either historically naming them as they join, or just in the list? The trouble with just scrapping the list is that it then becomes difficult to find the members in this history speel where they would only be mentioned as they join. On the other hand, people may be interested to read when their particular country joined. They are all on the map of EU members. Would that do so we could scrap listing them? Or is this info so essential it needs to be re-atated? Sandpiper (talk)

If there's a Wikilink to the Eurozone page then surely we can assume that readers would go there to see the list of countries who are members of it? Thats the advantage that an electronic encyclopedia has over a paper one. --Simonski (talk) 18:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I think that was my argument for shortening the history section quite a bit, and others too. This article is supposed to be a summary, so is the question of who are members top-grade info which should be mentioned here, or a minor point which can be left to elsewhere? It has to be here somewhere at least once. I mean, we could assume readers can go down to their library and find a book, the point of having articles here at all is that they give you the info directly without faff. Central information should be here explicitly. I think we could relegate virtually the entire history section to a sub-article. The history of the institution is separate thing to the current operation of the thing, which is what we mostly write about here. Yes, as I think about it I am certain. If I have to choose, I would keep the member states section with its list, maybe split it a bit into bunches and dates for accession of each set of countries. Then remove a lot more from history. History would become something between the previous intro summary and the piece it is now. Is it really central information for this article that norway negotiated to join, then changed its mind and did not? Sandpiper (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe that sort of thing isn't necessary yeh, though I do think a History section is important to explain to the reader a bit how the organisation developed as in my view it gives them a better idea about what the EU is now. Without a brief overview of the history, I don't think the rest makes as much sense. --Simonski (talk) 11:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

But when there are so many words on this one page that the whole thing starts to get unmanageable, what do we shift to somewhere else? When I first read this page it was weeks, even months before I read through it completely and understood this stuff. It is huge for a general introduction to the subject. While I think about it, a number of sub articles have text almost identical to this one. They must have been cut and pasted originally. I don't think this issue of what info goes where has been sorted out properly yet. Sandpiper (talk) 12:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the section that really stands out as having NO connecting factor to the EU whatsoever and thus could be removed, is the religion section. Saying that, at FA review nobody brought up the length of the article so I don't think its necessarily a problem. --Simonski (talk) 13:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Why Sweden hasn't joined the monetary union.

Monetary union Further information: Euro and Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union

"All other EU members except Denmark and the United Kingdom have agreed to join as a condition of being members of the EU and dates for this will be set when economic conditions have been met. Public opinion in Denmark currently favours joining. Sweden has pointedly failed to take necessary economic steps."

I would say that this is not only misleading but a strange lie. Even more so since the reason Sweden hasn't joined is duly covered in other articles on Wikipedia. Namely that there was a ballot on whether to join or not. (nevermind the specifics around that.) "The necessary economic steps" has never been an issue.

Or am I wrong? Then someone put a reference there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.243.229.224 (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, at last an easy one to deal with. The end of that paragraph has a ref which links to an EU page about the currency and covers much of the material in the paragraph (no. 88, the euro our currency). This states that it is a condition of being part of the EU that you use the euro. When this was introduced, the UK and Denmark refused to join, so were granted the right not to. Whatever the reality in any member country, the others have all said they will join once economic conditions are right. Some are working harder at making conditions right than are others. At least in theory, those not trying very hard may be subject to some sort of punishment eventually. Or maybe not. The only legal reason Sweden could give for not joining would be incorrect economic conditions. Legally, whether the people want to join or not, is irrelevant. (though we might mention it here) Sandpiper (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As regards treaty obligations, Sweden merely has a derogation, not an opt-out or exemption.--Boson (talk) 21:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Does it have a formal derogation, or just a vague time limit for doing what it has said (or is that the same thing?) Sandpiper (talk) 12:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

As I understand the term, it means that they have been formally given more time to implement something (as opposed to "special arrangements). It is refered to as a derogation, for instance, here: Convergence Report 2002 — Sweden. I don't think it means that they can choose the timing, but I think there are later statements to the effect that nobody will put undue pressure on Sweden to fulfil its obligations within a particular time frame. --Boson (talk) 14:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Made me laugh, an official way for the commission to side step making waves over unfulfilled obligations. I think though that in principle a derogation may be indefinite. IE the uk has derogations over VAT rates which are not going anywhere unless the UK government changes its policy. Sandpiper (talk)

"Governance" and "Politics" separate sections?

The section for the Commission is shockingly small. For example its role of being the motor of integration and the EU POV (as opposed to intergovernmental 'nationalism' in the council) isn't mentioned as far as I can see. And that the number of commissioners will be dramatically reduced after 2014 isn't mentioned either. Could it be a good solution to merge the "Politics" section (which is rather small also) into the "Governance" section, in order to provide more 'meat on the bones' of the different institutions and prevent duplication of information? Barroso's image would certainly not be misplaced had it been in the commission section. - --$\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 01:31, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added some text, but still, the politics section is only about:

• European Integration, what sceptics fear and enlargement: would suit the commission's section perfectly.
• When national interests crash with that of the EU: would suit the commission's section perfectly
• Treaty reform and new council voting rules: suitable for the intro of the governance section, and the council section, respectively.

- $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 04:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I get that feeling again, which bits do you recommend we delete to make up for the extra length of the bits you have added? Personally, I would probably consider the commission more important than a history lesson, so some bits from history could go? Geography certainly. The soft stuff about religion? Fundamentally though, if we have three paragraphs on environment, we ought to have as much about the commission. (assuming people have good points to make). This artticles has serious issues about the relative amoiunt of space spent on what. Sandpiper (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

That was only half an answer. Adding politics back into governance would simply make a long section even longer. There probably ought to be more about politics and topical debate regarding the EU and its future. But... Sandpiper (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

My proposal is not just a measure to reduce the size of the article! Not that the governance section is currently very long, but I thought you as an 'intergovernmentalist' would like the governance section to be the biggest part of the article since the EU is just a number of faceless institutions.

Anyway; The point is that all the information in the politics section could be inserted various places in the governance section; hence the politics section is redundant. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 17:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The dissolution of the single Politics section seems reasonable. After trimming the content of the section it could be merged into other sections. Especially the second para seems weak and could be dissolved. Personally, I could even do without all paras. The Barroso image should be kept though. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 12:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Economic Community sub-section under History

1. I can see the logic in a way, but I don't like the heading Economic Community (particularly capitalized), because the section is actually about the "European Communities".
2. It may also cause confusion to write that the European Communities were commonly referred to collectively as the "European Community" without some indication that this later became the official name after Maastricht. In fact, in the English speaking part of Europe they were probably referred to by the man on the Clapham omnibus as the EEC or Common Market, without any regard for what was included, so perhaps we should omit that.
3. The phrase about the "single set of institutions" rather goes under. It may also give the impression that the single set of institutions was created in 1967. I think we should correct this to indicate that some common institutions (e.g. courts) existed from the beginning but that the Merger Treaty most importantly created the single commission (under Hallstein). In view of the political significance, the heated debate (to put it diplomatically) about supranationality, De Gaulle's resistance, etc.,I would even consider mentioning de Gaulle and Hallstein by name.--Boson (talk) 10:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a weekend article

International Herald Tribune about Key EU accomplishments over the past 50 years Lear 21 (talk) 13:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is from March 2007, when I think the EU was doing publicity on the 50th anniversary of the Rome treaty. Did they do the same thing for the 50th anniversary of the Paris treaty? I see that the paragraph about agriculture is a bit out of date, we are heading towards shortages again. Sandpiper (talk) 12:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

FA Review update

Right, I was thinking - it seems to be going incredibly slow, and the feedback from the reviewers quite frankly has been, well, crap (though it has pointed out a few things we had missed) - it has seemed almost half-assed and I don't think they seem to have any intention of granting the page FA at the moment. On top of that, surely we can't possibly expect them to even consider FA when we haven't even got a consensus-based intro at the moment. So, what do you guys think, should we not just leave FA review for just now, iron out the last few things and then try again later this year? --Simonski (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think if it isn't done now it won't be done. However it looks like it won't be done now. I wish I had the time to go through each response and sort it out but everyone is throwing so much work at me right now I have to go as soon as I've logged on - which is the case right now - so I think this choice to withdraw or not is something left to those sticking around here. I can't even make a solid judgement on what to do as I've been so detached recently.- J Logan ^t: 10:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite follow the process involved, but gimmebot seems to have put the review out of its misery. I have looked into FA review a bit. The conclusion i have come to is that the people there are justifiably pisssed off with others nominating articles which are not going to pass. There seem to be some editors who like collecting FA nominations, and are persistently nominating unacceptable articles, which all need work. They do not have time to go through and fix up articles, just assess if they will pass. They do not have enough people to do assessments and do not see it as their job to do RFC or peer review. I was also initially a bit peeved at some of the very blunt, arbitrary and unhelpfull comments, but now I can see they don't have much choice if they are to keep the system running.

In our case, I think the EU review started badly, and ultimately fell apart because we do not have a consensus, not even a consensus of all against one. The article was nominated by a stranger probably unfamiliar with the issues and who did not stay around to work on problems. This did not help. No one here was especially keen to deal with even those issues which assesors did throw up. Admittedly, we were all enjoying a bit of a rest at the time and not set up to deal with this.

Editors here do not even agree with the criteria being used to pass an article. Including me, but I was of that view and knew it before this started. For example the debate above, where we all agree the EU is an excellent unimpeachable source, and not to write in long style G8 and NATO. These might be enough for fails by themselves. Even the FA people are upset about some style guide issues, and have been debating the problem of ongoing style guide wars, where effectively the criteria they work to are being changed all the time.

Some of the prose here is terrible. The criteria of what a FA is are extremely vague and open to interpretation, but it says eg "Well-written" means that the prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of professional standard. . No, much of this is not. Made me laugh when I read that at the start of the FA. Many rules on wiki are quite stern, but in practice are often applied quite lightly, so it is very hard to look at FA rules such as that one and say, yes or no, this article would be good enough.

From the comments above by Lear, it seems to me this article had been heading towards his view of how it should be. Others active here now have different views. The upshot is that there is considerable disagreement here on detail and presentaion, certainly sufficient to upset the prose. Possibly enough to touch on other criteria about accurate content, fair representation of the range of views, most important issues, etc. New editors happening by have pointed out areas that as new people they can see have problems. I think people tried to get this article reviewed before. I suspect the difficulty is that people knowledgeable about the content just aren't available on demand.

Perhaps the final decision was due to niggling difficulties on just about every front. FA review is almost certainly dominated by regular contributors good at spotting detailed problems, and lacking in people just saying they think overall it is good or bad. The FA people have a request for article nominators to please pick a different article and give it a review, to try to get some involvement. However, I think it would be a mistake for anyone attempting again to FA this article to ignore any point raised in this debate, at least they need a good explanation ready about why such a point should not apply here. This FA was much better and more informative than the last whne it was de-FA'ed.

Sandpiper (talk) 11:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup it is closed the article was not promoted. My take on why we failed:

• The article wasc not quite ready, and a round of copy-edit should have taken place prior to nomination. That the article was nominated by a non-regular prevented this. Next time we should make sure this is done before nomination, or immediately withdraw if we are not ready.
• Several active editors (myself included) did not have time to respond adequately to the FAC. In the future we should make sure we have the person power to respond.
• During the FAR some response to FA comments were made, but the majority of effort was spent in the re-emerging debates about the introduction. In future reviews we should freeze such debates for the duration of the review. A version of the article was nominated and it is that version that should stay up, and be corrected according to reviewers. Once a review has been failed or passed normal evolution can continue. (If I were reviewing this article, all the changes that were not indicated in any way in the procedure would make me very angry, as I basically would have to re-review halfway in the procedure).

If we are not willing / able to these 3 conditions, I think this article going through future FA reviews is not only useless, but a waste of the, already overstretched, time of the FA candidacy reviewers. Arnoutf (talk) 14:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

European Council decides details of agricultural subsidy schemes?

I have in my hand received today the Single payment scheme handbook and guidance for England 2008, published by the RPA, for DEFRA, for the government. From it i quote, The european council has set a 0% rate of compulsory set-aside for the 2008 scheme year....

Do readers get the impression from this article that the European council, composed of heads of government and meeting four times a year would be the body which decided this? Right now I don't know if this is true or not, but I suspect it isn't. Sandpiper (talk) 12:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Another example. Here is a EU paper talking about CAP regulations[35]. It refers to decisions of the Council of the European Union. I point it out because it is referred to in this other document from hmso of the UK government [36]. That document refers to the first one, talking about European council regulations.

I conclude from this that the article is incorrect. The EU may consider that the European council is simply the heads of state, but UK government seems to think the European council is the same thing as the council of the European union. This makes a nonsense of the distinction between the names being made in the article. ANyone seeing a UK government publication referring to the the european council, checking it on wiki, would be misled. Now, any of you lawyer types have a view on this? It seems as though we need to return to the common sense view that the names are in practice used interchangeably. http://www.england-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/em2005/uksiem_20053460_en.pdfSandpiper (talk) 09:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is wrong. The European Council does not enact legislation. The Regulations referred to are "Council Regulations". This indicates where the Regulation came from. I don't really see a convincing argument for Wiki adopting an incorrect practice, simply because a member state over simplifies matters (to the degree of being wrong). Lwxrm (talk) 10:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless, if the british government is using the term 'european council' with what some here would consider the wrong meaning, we need to say that. Otherwise people would understandably be confused. It is the same situation as a dictionary definion refusing to mention that a word is normally used with a different meaning from its original. Probably only needs a tweak. Sandpiper (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

By that logic wouldn't you need to check what every Member State uses? Does the British government ALWAYS make this mistake? I think not. If you check the FCO http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1138870963214 it clearly makes a disctinction between the two, signalling (as I have said all along) the European Council has no legislative function. The FCO is the "home" to the Minister for Europe, and so I think their view is more telling. Lwxrm (talk) 11:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

EU Tube

What about adding some info and link about EU Tube???--Kozuch (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia guidelines say that articles shouldn't link to YouTube. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 19:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thats a pitty, because the EU Tube is an official EU media channel and is much better than the video section on the europa.int site.--Kozuch (talk) 20:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, WP:EL#Linking to YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites says:

"There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page (which would be infrequent)." Tactically, one should consider how reviewers interpret the guidelines (and how well they know them). --Boson (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that the YouTube guideline isn't that rigid, and I argued that after a random editor noted that "YouTube links are forbidden, hence EUtube shouldn't be in the article" in the FA nomination. I rewrote the external links, and removed EU tube. Anyway I'm not sure if EUtube is important enough to be included here. - $\mathrm {S}$ $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$ 22:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Because of the official character of EU Tube, I think it is credible & relevant enough to be re-integrated here. Lear 21 (talk) 15:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Bundesrat of Germany

It should be mentioned somewhere(the intro?) that the bundesrat is similar to the council of ministers.Is my understanding that people consider a structure like the council exclusively a international organization thing,but we have exactly that in Germany,apparently it's unique.--88.82.47.84 (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is this relevant, firstly all federal states have something like this. Secondly it is quite different from the Bundesrat has different powers etc. And even if it were similar, why does it merit mentioning? Arnoutf (talk) 16:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

All? The members of the bundesrat are the governments of the landers.I guess you didn't read carefully,it's not like the US senat.This is unique as far as i know.The council and bundesrat are indetical in the areas with QMV.It merit mentioning because people consider the council as a "international organization" thing,simply because it represents the governments of the member states.--88.82.47.84 (talk) 19:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I mean that all federal systems have some kind of "state" representatives, not only EU, Germany or US but also Belgium, Switserland, Austria, Russia, etc etc etc. The German system has some similarities to the EU system but also differences (e.g. the US senate is closer to EU council system as all states have the same number (2) of representatives, regardless of size, while the bundesrat has different numbers of seats relative to size of state). As there are after all only so many ways to organise a federal community, similarities are to be expected. I think the similarities are not strong enough to spend attention to this specific case here. Also the mandatesof the council and the bundesrat are very different. Arnoutf (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you please read ALL the text of sections "Composition" and "Voting" in the article "Bundesrat of Germany".Then reanser.I'll just repeat again,that in the bundesrat,it's the landers governments that are voting,directly,this is unique on the hole planet.--88.82.47.84 (talk) 19:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok I should have said votes instead of seats. Anyway, I agree the Bundesrat is unique and still argue it is not all that similar to the EU council of ministers; so I still do not see why it should be mentioned. Arnoutf (talk) 20:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• "all states have the same number (2) of representatives votes, regardless of size".Germany has 28 votes,malta has 4 votes(i think)
• "Also the mandates of the council and the bundesrat are very different."In legislation with QMV it's the same.--88.82.47.84 (talk) 20:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)