Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
I think they can just claim Russia improved because there is hardly going to be a huge uproar trying to prove them wrong. Statements like "We think that we can say the Russians are showing good fairth and that we are moving into a good direction since our latest talks, so the sanctions can be lifted to reward the promises."
Moving into a good direction presupposes some steps amounting to fulfulling Minsk agreements. None of those were taken, starting with point 1 - ceasefire. So they will have to invent something more credible - or disregard possible uproar completely. Especially if uproar is going to be small as you expect.

Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
Whether governments just do what corporations tell them, well, that is my point and also isn't. Because what I think is that the smaller the government and the bigger the corporation, the more likely that the corporation has more control over the government than vice versa. That is because the EU politicians represent a market of say 400 million relatively rich potential customers, the politicians of say, Luxembourg on the other hand...
Take the following quote about a from Rupert Murdoch: http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/co...-a3189151.html

This exemplifies exactly what I mean. Congrats for being "sovereign"!
The problem with such governments as the EU has is that they take all decisions by consensus. Having politically diverse members with historically different ties makes the whole machinery very unwieldy and easily subject to outward influences piecemeal. As a result, decisions favored by most (but not all) are harder to take and easier to botch. Corporations, on the other hand, are under one hand, so their decision taking process isn't that complicated. Thus, it is hard for corporations to influence the EU government as a whole (which isn't true of national governments), but they can prevent some steps they don't like by working with national factions within the united goverment.

Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
The UNO is a bad example, it was not created with the aim of actually governing anything, it was just meant to provide alternative means of conflict resolution and conflict prevention.
Since they aren't good at either of those, the example is good - just think how an organization this big and clumsy would govern anything.