EEC vs EU

[faust82]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23941315

So, how'd you think the economic agreement rather than the full-fat EU would work for Britain?

Oh, btw, the Ekornes Beds plant featured in the vid is a subsidiary of the company I work for. I was there a few weeks ago replacing their entire telephone system. Bitch of a job

[T-Bag]

Nope, it's a terrible idea. It's a stealthy way the government have of ignoring everything the public have said at the polls and joining the EU by default. In 20 years it'll just happen, the EU will stop being controversial in Norway and they'll join. It'll be sold as having more control etc etc.

People are scared of having the EU determine things they are and aren't allowed to do. If you're a fisherman, it's probably a very valid fear. However, if you're Joe Bloggs and your countries economy is strengthened by EU membership, then you gain as a result. Any company with ties in Europe is in some way better off having access to that market. For the UK most of our economy is tried to the European market (except for banking...), dropping back, having less of a say in what goes on probably wouldn't cost us much short term, could probably be done in a way that saves money but the freedom to trade goods, workers and other resources between one single market makes Europe robust. Stepping away could leave us out in the storm if our banking collapsed, or food prices started to escalate. It would be a very short term strategy. It's banded about by the current government just to win votes off UKIP, and to drag up any positive memories conservative voters may have about Margaret Thatcher...not because it's a sensible policy.

[TeaLeaf]

Stepping away could leave us out in the storm if our banking collapsed, or food prices started to escalate. It would be a very short term strategy.

Let's remember that our banks DID collapse and we paid our own bill - and then had to fight Brussels to NOT pay for their cockups too.    

The UK joined the EEC as it was then for a trading group benefits (like the food you mentioned), not to gradually become managed by a large central-european bureaucracy.   If we had the trading benefits but avoided the 'storm' that comes with being a full member then there might well be advantages.  

Let's also remember that we're already 'not in the club' as we do not have the Euro and do not get to vote on those issues.   So it's not a huge leap of imagination to have a treatise debate that allowed people to opt in for the trading benefits (or other optional packages) and only be in the club for those 'opted-in' elements.     That's just a slightly more organised version of what we already have, where we opted out of the Euro but are still full member of the EU (and would want to opt out of a few other elements of the current 'membership benefit package' too!)

When thinking about the EU I always come back to this question:

Q:  Can you manage, via a heavily centralised government structure & control system, a group of countries who all speak different languages, many of whom have been to war with each other in the past and who all still hold their own vested national interests ahead of the group's?

A: (insert your own answer)

But, this question might not necessarily apply to the EU as we've seen precisely this centralised governmental process before and we've watched it fail.    The system of heavily regulated and centrally-controlled rules, a group of disparate countries, languages and national interests - the all failed when the USSR broke up and the iron curtain collapsed.   So if we've seen it before and it did not work before then,why are we trying to recreate it now in the EU?  

That's the question I would like to see debated more - we signed up to a trading pact, not a merged countries pact and controlling the EU effectively becomes ever more impossible due to the dynamics of 'management by committee' - if the management group is too large then it becomes impossible to take sufficiently dynamic policy decisions which in turn means that management lose the ability to manage effectively (for example - everyone agrees that the Common Agricultural Policy needs major reform as it is not fit for purpose, but over the last 30 years they have singularly failed to make the changes needed).

Personally I'd like to see us 're-define our relationship with the EU'.    I'm still to be convinced that an exit from the EU would be more beneficial to the UK than remaining in it on revised terms, but if the revised terms are not forthcoming then the Exit campaign will gather momentum and votes.  

+1 for the trading pact please, that way we get the financials we wanted and originally joined for, but we then regain control over our regulation.

Final thought:
We managed to avoid paying for the Eurozone's foul ups, but let's remember what then happened.   The EC proposed (and France & Germany in particular pushed for) the implementation of a Financial Transaction Tax.   Ignoring Luxembourg (for historical reasons) and Ireland (for short-term statistical reasons), which country with the highest financial sector % compared to GDP would end up paying the most tax to bail out the Eurozone?
[spoiler=Country with highest financial sector revenue to GDP]United Kingdom[/spoiler]

Can you now guess which two countries have a well below the EU average % of financial sector revenue to GDP and who would pay less?
[spoiler=Countries who would not be impacted by an FTT as much as the UK]France & Germany[/spoiler]
The UK's financial sector (consolidated assets measure) is roughly the same size as France & Germany's combined, so the UK would end up paying more than most other countries combined for something that was not our fault!   The FTT is a great example of how such a 'Club' can work against you when you give up control of what were previously our elected Government's rights & responsibilities.

I'm not anti-european as such, I see a lot of good things it could do and some of which it does do, but I also do not believe the rhetoric that says we should just keeping auto-renewing our membership of a club that might no longer benefit us.      Change the rules or change the club.

:2cents:

[atomant]

Since Mark Carney left the Bank of Canada, our dollar has dropped off...be happy you have a non corrupt person like that working for Britain, we will want him back.

Ant

:eyebrow:

[Jamin]

.be happy you have a non corrupt person

Impossible to be non corrupt in our system, they are so crap at hiding it now that they don't bother as apathy allows them to get away with it.

[T-Bag]

The problem with Greece and Ireland were not fundamental problem with the EU, they're the core weaknesses in 1997-2008 banking. People with minimal oversight being left in control of vast sums of money and told "If you gamble and double it you get a huge bonus, if you gamble and lose it we'll give you a golden parachute and line you up in a new job" go big or go home. It was no secret that a country like Greece, given access to cheap money, would borrow lots and be unlikely to pay it back. Once that has happened, of course the countries aren't going to want to pay more than they have to. You need to prevent things like that happening in the first place. That can only be done with more centralisation of government and tax. It's not going to be popular in the UK, and that'll probably be the "In or Out vote" moment, where we'd have to join the Euro or leave, but when that moment comes as a country we'll be very unappealing to businesses. Geographically we're isolated and if it complicates taxes to set up in the UK, and then need to have an office in an Euro zone country too, having a UK branch would be expensive. It wouldn't even offer cheap manufacturing or resources in return. Things would have to be imported, assembled, exported...doesn't make a great deal of sense.

There are many, many problems with the UK economy. We're far far far too dependent on banking. Also, like many other European countries, we're going to have a huge problem with youth unemployment in a few years. With half the population holding degrees and large sums of student debt, the government needs to support jobs requiring higher eduction rapidly to stave off another recession in a decade when all estimates for student load repayments fall flat on their face. You're not going to pay off your £40k loan working minimum wage at Tesco.

Invest in next generation industries: Electric car design and manufacture, Renewable Energy, Recycling, Carbon Capture, Desalination, Public Transportation (Trams/Electric Buses/High Speed trains).

These are all exportable businesses. We're in a position to be the hub for electric cars in Europe. That industry alone could provide countless jobs for the young educated. However, these businesses hinge entirely out our tight integration with Europe for trade and tax reasons. That's why, big picture, we're better off in. If our politicians balls it up before we even get that far, we'd probably be better off leaving now. We'd eventually slowly fall down the ranks of credit ratings, and become a middling country with no real goal or purpose.