Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Is Poland Ditching the Visegrad Group for France and Germany?" video.

  1. I think further integration on military and foreign policy matters is going to be a matter of need and not want in the next decade or more, and most because of the changing landscape of the world, especially with the likes of Putin and Trump around, the EU countries need a much stronger voice to defend there interest and that can be a lot more effective at an EU level than national level. Poland is a rising star on the EU stage, but to turn that into political clout, it will need good relations with Germany and France, the reason I say that is because when the UK were in the EU, they got sidelined a lot because the UK were obstructive a lot of the times, the UK is much bigger than Poland is, so for Poland to bigger player in the EU arena, it has to be constructive and not obstructive by making friends in the EU to turn that into political clout, Germany and France are good at doing that, Poland could be, especially with close relations with the other big players in the EU, whereas Hungary are slowly being pushed aside and marginalised because of the current government, which we saw happen to the UK because they were not on the same page as most EU members, the same is happening to Hungary and could have happened to Poland under the old PIS government. Honestly, when it comes to core groups in the EU, I think they are Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, these are the key players then can make real change in the direction of the EU, that isn't to say the other smaller members are not important in steering the direction of the EU because all the voices are, but it's clear there's a core group that can get things done.
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  2. Geographic and Poland's size gives it importance, its population size is around the same as Spain but its location gives it more power because of everything that's going on with Russia. So yeah, Poland could be a key player under this new government, but then, so could Italy or Spain, it really all depends on how constructive a country is over being obstructive, the UK for example when in the EU were an obstructive country and got sidelined a lot by a lot of the other EU members, Germany and France know that you need friends to get things done in the EU, Poland could be heading in the same direction by repairing ties with Germany and France, which should give Poland more clout in directing the EU path and honestly, I think Poland could be a good key core member in helping to shape the EU. We should also remember that with the departure of the UK, there was a vacuum to be filled by another country or two, that opening was there for Italy, Spain and Poland to fill and it's still open, after all, it doesn't have to be 3 countries in that group, it could be 4 or 5, but the countries in it need to be constructive in moving the EU forward, hence why the UK was left on the sideline, because it opposed almost everything, which is ironic, because the same thing is happening to Hungary with them being marginalised, and the key to power in the EU is having friends and being constructive, that rules Hungary out on both accounts but Poland under the new government has a big opening here.
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  3. The people took it away from themselves, the Tories just latched onto it with all the lies. I'm British and I thought Brexit was crazy and I voted to remain in the EU, but at the end of the day, governments in democracy are a reflection of the people, so the people are to blame, and in the case of the UK, Brexiteers were fed a lot of lies, but remainders didn't do enough over the decades to counter those lies, the Eurosceptics in the UK have had almost a free hand to say anything negative on the EU for decades and they ran with it, knowing there wasn't much of a movement to counter those arguments, the end result is that Brits kept hearing constant bashing on the EU with little in the way of a counterargument, so my point is, even thought the Eurosceptics got it wrong, the pro EU lots didn't do enough to fight for the EU cause and let the Eurosceptics own the stage, that eventually led to Brexit, so there's a lot of blame to go around, but we are all to blame to some degree or another. On the plus side, public views on the EU are starting to change in favour of the EU in the UK, so much so that I've not seen such pro EU sentiment in the UK for decades like we are seeing now, but the UK still has a long way to go before it can even think about rejoining, assuming that's a goal at all.
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