That reminds me, there sometimes is some chatter amongst the Badenser that they should form a separate state again, as they have some reservations about being lumped together with the Swabians. (Don’t refer to a Badenser as a Swabian. See also: Franconia / Bavaria.)
Fun fact: quite a lot of Swiss will refer to anyone from Germany as a Swabian, even if they are from somewhere as far from Switzerland as, say, someone who is a member of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein.
Bonus fun fact: some sources suggest that the Scots can actually be traced back to a small Swabian tribe that had been forcibly expelled from Swabia on grounds of their sumptuous and wasteful lifestyle.
I think Ireland is a pretty good example of the short comings of his methods over all. He used an average of polls? But only used three polls?. And he lists one of those twice (I’m assuming that’s a mistake). But both the cited polls seem to be news polls with small samples sizes. They are polls taken one year apart, one on either side of Brexit. He doesn’t cite how he averaged the polls. Or whether there was any attempt to aggregate the data from the polls together. And if he wasn’t searching in the native languages of these places it may explain his inability to find more than 1 or 2 recent polls. And since we’re talking reuinification rather than seperatism it forgets half the equation. Support for reunification within The Republic of Ireland is much higher than in the North (where its been on a steady up swing over the last few years).
So he isn’t exactly figuring the whole picture particularly well. He’d have been better off keeping it simple and sticking with the most recent large well regarded poll. Or actual vote where they’ve taken place. Instead of creating a veneer of comprehensive data by averaging things.
Meh… modern continents are a social construct meant to separate the east from the west. A roman province isn’t quite the same as the modern divisions, because it was still part of the same empire.
Personally, I do agree with you. Dutch is just a German dialect. However, prepare to receive death threats from Dutch people if you dare suggest this to them.
A newly independent state will have to apply for EU membership again, which takes years, so that’s a problem. There is no automatic admission/rejection mechanism, basically just the consensus of the member states.
As for representation: The EU has three pillars: Commission, parliament and council. Each member state sends one commissioner, so there e.g. Germany is equal to Austria. The parliament is elected by a more or less representative vote, so there population comes into play. The council is comprised of the heads of government of the member states, so again there the states are equal.
However, like in any such system, states with high population and economic power have naturally larger influence, see the franco-german axis. Also, your influence depends on how actively you engage in moving the union forward, like again DE/FR or the Benelux states. As opposed to the UK, which never wanted to play along anyway and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the slightest compromise.
Having lived in Bayreuth for over two decades and now in Munich, I would say it’s partially true. Franconia being a part of Bavaria has passed the 200 year mark, and happened when Bavaria became a kingdom as a reward for helping Napoleon. Land swap, it wasn’t conquered as such and there never was a revolt. Franconians have never really mounted any effort to break free, but talk about it as a way to take pride in their unique identity. It helps to unite Bierfranken with Weinfranken, as 2/3rds of Franconia is not wine country but known for its huge number of breweries. Also of note is that Franconia was never united until Munich took over.
Franconian drive for independence is more along the lines of wanting to be their own state in the German federal republic, and is little more than a few cranks.
