Talk:Western Europe

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What is Western Europe, anyway?[change source]

I think if you look at either the English Wikipedia version or the French Wikipedia version (or others, as far as it goes), you'll see that there are several different ways to define this. So I think that trying to enforce a single definition here just makes no sense. I could start taking a crack at this in about a week (not sooner). I think it needs to resemble the enwiki article to some extent, at least in scope.

Note that the article as it sits now makes no sense. Some of its language is more consistent with the 11-nation "Western Europe" that was in the version that was active on December 31, 2015. Now it's bouncing between 18 and 23. I strongly suggest that we discuss this here for a week or so, and then let me work on the article after that. Semiprotect if necessary to slow down edit wars. StevenJ81 (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Malta is not in Western Europe and the list says there is 23 not 24 countries 99.194.52.254 (talk) 19:21, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
According to at least some approaches, Malta could be considered Western. In particular, in the years before the end of the Cold War, even though Malta was politically neutral, it had fair and open elections and an open economy. In that framework, it would be considered Western (as was Austria, for example). But it would be my job to find a reliable source that supports that position. On a pure geographic basis, it's certainly not, but neither is Greece. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:49, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Once we get into this, we have to accept that no one simple solution is possible.

  • Treaty of Brussels leading to the Western European Union: UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg. Later, Spain, Portugal and Greece were added. Observer countries (members of the EU but not of NATO) were Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Sweden. Associate members (members of NATO but not of the EU) were Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland and Turkey. This seems a bit chaotic.
  • A second approach is to draw a line roughly N/S on a map, including in some countries which were on the western edges of the old Eastern block, such as Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.
  • A third approach is to decide what we mean by "Central Europe" and use that list to be the eastern edge of Western Europe. Include in Central Europe these: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and states of former Yugoslavia. Then we'ld have to decide where Central Europe ended... Although this still has problems, it allows us to have a separate list for Scandinavia, and to put Greece into Central Europe.
    At the moment, I favour the last idea, but sources do tend to include Germany in Central Europe, which it was historically, since the old Prussian state included much of northern Poland. The present economy and politics of Germany are much more western. Also, textbook Central Europe leaves out the countries of old Yugoslavia, which were included in yet another area, namely the Balkans. I see En wiki's Central Europe is a mine of information on how the term has been used over the ages.
    Of course, we don't have to come down on one solution. We can always list several solutions, and point out the difficulties in each. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]