The UK already enjoyed a large amount of concessions as a full member. The rest of the EU was right not to give in. Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. No such problem in negotiating tighter integration with nonmembers (and in retrospect, many of the old WP countries should've joined as something like associate members at first…)

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fidotron 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future?

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rsynnott a minute ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe, and that might actually be okay from the EC’s pov. There’s a fairly old proposal for a ‘two speed EU’; a core that accelerates towards near-federalism with a more eurosceptic periphery.

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johannes1234321 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is always the debate around "Europe of two speeds" - where there is a deeply integrated core of nations, maybe even going towards "United States of Europe" and the others tightly associated, but not fully integrated.

Of course the set of countries and level of integration depends on whom you ask

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Sharlin 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

>> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative.

Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than full integration if you're eligible to both. Indeed from the UK's perspective it would be exactly the opposite to what they wanted: free labor and movement but no representation.

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fidotron 36 minutes ago | parent [-]

This makes being involved as little as possible but no more far more attractive than being bound too tightly together though.

Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.

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Sharlin 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

How so? Many EU states have benefited enormously from being on the receiving side of EU subsidies, which obviously would be out of the question without full integration. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have rejected membership, which essentially means that as EEA members they have to observe all the EU regulations and agreements when it comes to trade, without having any say about them. They have their reasons, but those reasons don't apply generally.

"Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.

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fidotron 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside.

Which many people inside the EU would observe seems completely consistent with EU behaviour.

Edit to add: "Being misled" would refer to the way the EU was sold to many participants in earlier decades as an economic union, and not an all encompassing political one, with it simply ratcheting that way. Whenever objections occurred referenda would simply be repeated until the populations complied. It's far from the exercise in democracy that proponents promote. (This is distinct from saying it is _all bad_).

	▲	Sharlin 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Your position seems so astonishingly alien that I don't even know how to start replying. It seems biased against the entire concept of how human cooperation works.