Qualified by "EU". (I didn't exclude it specifically, I took it as read that all qualifiers were out.)

Hardly! The fact they use "EU Member State" twice in the quote before "EU state" makes this particularly weak...

----

Again, there is a qualifier. EU. And it is capitalised.

> It simply does not mean that in this context

Well, to help us establish what it DOES mean in this context, perhaps you could cite usage of the word "state", with reference to a country in the EU, uncapitalised and unmodified by the words "member", "sovereign" or "the", in EU documentation. Or anywhere else.

> Using the term "member state" does not mean that country is part of some United States of Europe in the same way that the State of California is part of the United States of America.

Very true! Nor have I ever suggested that it does. "Member state" is pretty innocuous I think.

But then "member state" was not the term I was objecting to. It no-where appears in the summary.

> Your euro-phobia is leading you to defend an untenable position, as you are simply wrong.

mmm - will leaving aside your sloppy mindedness in thinking you can derive a political position from anything I have in this thread - isn't this something you should take the trouble to demonstrate?

... "EU member state" was not the term employed!

So you are essentially changing the subject.

Had the summary referenced "member states" I doubt any of the people who have commented on the strange use of the word "state" in isolation, in this context, would have done so.

Interestingly enough, it is still the term "countries" that seems to be preferred.
http://europa.eu/about-eu/27-member-countries/index_en.htm ... although there is one reference to "member states" on the page.

If you can't defend the use of the word "state" in this context, unmodified by "member" or "sovereign", and uncapitalised, then you are effectively conceding the point.

> The difference between the US and the EU is the powers delegated to the States

Well - yes - as far as it goes - but obviously there are all sorts of powers held by countries in the EU that are NOT delegated to them by the EU.

oops - finger trouble...

"in this contact is revealing" should have been "in this context is revealing"

> As another poster in this sub-thread pointed out, you're not just wrong, you're stupid wrong.

Something that you have not yourself been able to demonstrate. Citing an ad-hominem by an anonymous coward is surely a little beneath you... Or perhaps not.

>I just knew as soon as I saw the summary that there'd be someone making a fool of himself by complaining about the use of the word "state" in this context, and congratulations, you didn't disappoint.

Excellent! Always nice to feel one has brought a little joy into the world! The fact that you too were struck by the inappropriateness of the word "state" in this contact is revealing.

>Declarative statements about the intent of the summary's author are necessarily outrageous fabrications when made by anyone but the original author.

Nonsense! We can state categorically, for example, that the summary did not intend to refer to green cheese.

Actually, I am a Brit - and it is the standard English English use of the term I am defending.

Note that you capitalised "States". You thus use it in a different sense to that to which I am objecting.

Which is this:

> Further, half of those in some of the southern and western states

note the lower case...

I suggest that in standard English English that is at best poorly expressed and confusing and at worst simply incorrect.

The term is not employed in the article linked to - only the submission. The common use of the term "states" in reference to the EU, without a modifier such as "Sovereign" or "Member" is in arguments about the precise political relationship of the 27 members to each other. To refer to them as "states" is to take a position in that political discussion.