That's because the EU is really an economic concern trying to masquerade as a country. It originally started as the European Coal and Steel Community. It has always been about economics. A handful of rich and powerful countries benefit from a common market and currency. Countries that would probably be better off outside of the Eurozone won't leave it because the rich and powerful therein benefit. Well monied interests calling the shots is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon.
Europe won't truly unite absent some sort of external and existential threat. It took such a threat to unify the United States back in the day and the American colonies had a shared culture, language, and no history of going to war with one another. Even at that there was a rather bloody Civil War and regional tensions that still simmer to this day...
Who ever made that claim and how is it even relevant?
The grandparent, in the stupid pissing contest EU vs. US thread. I really hate these threads; sure, we have quarrels, but we've also got a shared history, culture, and commitment to freedom. People would do well to remember that. They might also wish to remember that countries that share our values are most definitely in the minority on planet Earth; it's really fucking stupid to root for the EU to drag the US down or vice versa.
These idiots should get a bloody passport and go visit the "other side"; you'll find we're/they're not that much different from you.
The EU commision can't tell US companies to do anything but they can set conditions for allowing them to operate within the EU.
Devil's advocate, how do you stop Google from operating in the EU? Google does have a physical presence in the EU, data-centers and all that, but strictly speaking they could run the whole operation from outside the EU. What do you do then? Block them at the network edge? Hardly seems compatible with free speech.
Oh and btw, modding me a troll just because you disagree with my opinion makes you a bad mod.
The troll mods may have had something to do with these gems:
Not only that, but the EUSSR doesn't seem to understand that an American corporation has nothing to do with European communists.
They should go and re-read their history books and remember how close all of Europe was to speaking either German or Russian.
My point is that the EU is a bunch of arrogant idiots who have no business telling an American company to split up.
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"