Adieu, Union.

[Bogdan]

For those of you who by any chance don't know yet, Great Britain hold a referendum asking it's population whenether or not they wish to remain in the European Union. The referendum, held yesterday, 23 June concluded that the majority decided to leave the EU, making it the first country to leave the union, or potential country, as they have a two year period to negotiate their withdrawal.

Source
The prime-minister, David Cameron announced he will quit the position in the light of today's results.
In other news, Scotland, whose majority voted to remain in the Union, is planning a second independence referendum, trying once again to break from the United Kingdom in order to keep it's membership in the European Union. Source

Any thoughts? Will this be the decay of the Union or Great Britain? Or both? Personally, I'm relatively happy about this, sure the departure of UK and the potential break of EU may have negative effects on both sides, but honestly, in the long term I want the Union gone for a variety of reason. While true that we do have benefits from the Union (european funds), they weren't used in the best benefit of the population (which is the fault of our politicians actually), but breaking free means we will have more power on our economy. The downside is that we shall still make several agreements with other states, but Norway and Switzerland seem to be doing fine on their own.
And let's face it, if any country, no matter how stubborn, xenophobic, undeveloped or dumb it's population or politicians might be, want to leave the union, it means that something might really stink around here.

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

I really disagree with the result but unlike a lot of remainers, I don't disagree with the leave campaign (completely). I just disagree with what it represents now and the fact that there is no-one truly competent enough in our country who's leading the leave campaign.

[Kimonio]

(Swear to god, Bog, I thought this was a farewell post and I was about to flip out)

I personally never saw a purpose to the Union. I mean, after all, wasn't it FDR who founded that ♥♥♥♥ in the beginning? And now nations are beginning to see just how useless it can be, how corruption can weasel its way inside the walls and root themselves amongst the members, and to me, just how little anything would get done. Now that Britain has left, if I'm correct, it means they don't have to get permission from the EU about what they do....they act as their own entity, as they did long before WWII.

[Bogdan]

I personally never saw a purpose to the Union.

The Union does have a few perks. Except they are quite picky and pricky about it, at least when you ask someone from the former "second-world countries". Although there are success stories like Poland, others didn't really benefit from it.

For example the Schengen Area. All countries in the treaty have open borders with each other, so there is no actual pain when going from Netherlands to Belgium, Germany to France and so on and it can actually be in the benefit of the population (think about businessmen for instance). However, despite continious negotiations, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia were not admitted into Schengen yet and we are still "in queue", but the refugee crysis came and spit in our face as more and more countries started enforcing the borders again.

There are also funds that every country can receive in order to develop infrastructure for it's own. In Romania it was mostly not the case, since incompenent politicians invest in ♥♥♥♥ rather than actually useful facilities. But here is also the problem of the Union, at some point (for us I think it's 2020 or so), we will no longer be eligible for funds and so we will bite our asses. Our problem are the EU laws and regulations, probably what UK may be complaining about. I agree, the Union has it's perks and our politicians may be incompenent or simply serving their own interest, but if we, as a country, actually have more control over our economy and politics, have the possibility to make everything working again. Right now some people may argue that our entrance in EU was forced and the terms were not wisely negociated.