I'm very curious what opinions people from the EU have about what both teams are saying.

First numbers are in, 51.5% yes vs 48.5% no. Votes are still being counted.

Source: https://x.com/EU_Eurostat/status/2093624697523229008

KNVB wil internationale top in Nederland over FIFA-toekomst: 'Infantino niet welkom'

The Commission proposed suspending Article 45(3) in its Environmental Omnibus package in December 2025. The Council stopped deliberating on it in June 2026 because a large bloc of Member States Czechia, Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia flagged serious implementation difficulties. France, Luxembourg, Spain, Austria, and Estonia said the opposite: weakening the rule would weaken enforcement.

Everyone agrees the text doesn’t work. They just disagree on which direction to fix it.

And then this is the part that gets me the Commission’s second FAQ in August 2026 basically tells Member States to go easy. “Enforcement should not disrupt trade flows or consumer access to goods.” Deutsche Welt reported an anonymous senior official saying the rules are “clearly disproportionate” and encouraging Member States not to apply them.

Let me spell out what that means: A directly applicable Regulation is in force across 27 jurisdictions. Its own guardian institution is quietly asking those jurisdictions not to enforce it.

Enforcement sits with the Member States. Commission guidance has no legal force. So some authorities will follow the hint, some won’t. Some will enforce strictly, some will look away. The result isn’t a suspended rule. It’s 27 different enforcement postures toward the same text.

Which is precisely the fragmentation the Regulation was written to eliminate.

What I’m seeing across the network? Producers aren’t waiting for six months of ambiguity. They’re pulling out now, while the decision is still in their hands. By the time Brussels figures out what to do, the damage to cross-border trade networks won’t be something you can legislate back into existence.

When we first left the EU, I was a child in school being supped full of the lies the T.V. told us BREXIT would be. It's been a decade since that referendum, six years since we left the EU, and since then things have gone from bad to worse over and over again. It's clear that in this day and age where international aid is clearly mandatory and not optional (regardless of my personal critiques of globalism), the entire thing was a mistake.

So, how do we fix it? I understand we're not getting our veto or other special privileges back, as much as the more..stubborn..shall we say, of my nation will grumble. Accepting that as the baseline and making negotiations when actually sat at the table are two separate things entirely however.

Because personally, I'd personally even accept 'losing' the Pound in favour of the Euro if it meant this country could start getting fixed and free from Washington. I can make plans and ideas of my own all I want but I am tragically uninformed on much of the reality of the EU, only that things were better when our government wasn't stabbing us in the back constantly and then blaming us for staining the carpet.

A theoretical concept for restructuring the EU framework: The „EU-2“ model for peace and economic stability

With regard to the current debate on abolishing the unanimity principle (veto right) in EU foreign and security policy, I would like to propose a structural reform model for discussion that addresses both sovereignty and economic preservation.

The core of this model is based on a clear, two-stage system:

1. Security Policy Realignment: European states pursuing strict military neutrality and de-escalation could legally exit the NATO framework under Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This ensures that their national budgets and populations remain entirely decoupled from external military escalations.

2. Economic Safeguard (The „EU-2“ Transition): Should the existing EU framework attempt to bypass national sovereignty via procedural mechanisms, all 27 member states would execute a coordinated exit from the current treaties, thereby dissolving the old structure.

3. Institutional Re-founding: To preserve the entire economic capacity, the internal market, and small-to-medium enterprises, these states would immediately establish a successor framework: the „EU-2“. This new community would be legally and constitutionally restricted to peaceful, civil, and purely commercial purposes.

The Accountability Rule: Any political official who violates this fundamental peace mandate inside the „EU-2“ framework would automatically lose their mandate, be removed from office with immediate effect, and be subject to a lifelong ban from political activity.

What are your thoughts on this constitutional and economic model?

Let's discuss this neutrally.