Is the European Union Dead

The vast majority in Britain do not want to be a part of the United States of Europe wanted by the French and German leaders, i think they have to be replaced by people who want a Europe that can trade with each other but doesn't want political integration. Quite a few people in France and Italy want to go back to their old currency as the Euro has made life difficult for them.

Originally posted by Bulldog 52
The vast majority in Britain do not want to be a part of the United States of Europe wanted by the French and German leaders

- This is simply not a credible possibility.
Why are you still talking as if these "French and German leaders" could possibly act against the democratic desires of their people?

So what that some people day-dream out loud of a level of European coalescence that is deeply unlikely under any credible timescale?

Did you miss the votes showing that is not - and never has been - the Europe European people want?

This is a reality the anti-EU mob have to face up to; you guys really have been wasting decades watching out for a bogey-man that was never going to come.......and never could come no matter what an individual in the EU or French or German gov might say or speculate upon.

You might as well go on and on and on and on talking about how the "vast majority in Britain" don't want to see their first born ritually slaughtered by druids.
It's a pointless comment as it is never going to happen.
It's a false scare story and now it's a very obvious and completely exposed one at that.

i think they have to be replaced by people who want a Europe that can trade with each other but doesn't want political integration.

- We had a trade only organisation in EFTA (which the UK was a member of pre-EEC/EU); it failed us. I suggest you look it up.

We can converge politically in Europe, as we - like all 'western' countries - are, in large part, going to do anyway, without these ridiculous and utterly baseless scare stories of 'being taken over by a super-state'.

Quite a few people in France and Italy want to go back to their old currency as the Euro has made life difficult for them.

- "Quite a few"?
Nice and vague that, hmmmm?

Whatever.
No-one serious is proposing anything of the sort in Germany and only very minor political figures have said anything like that in Italy.

You could have claimed something similar after Britain went decimal 34yrs ago (plenty of people wanted to go back) but here we are, we didn't go back and IMO there's as much chance they will.
ie zero chance.


[edit on 20-6-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

Is the European Union Dead

God i hope so!

Mickey Dee I would detect somewhat of an anti-EU feeling from you.

Originally posted by the_oleneo
EU isn't dead. It's on the back-burner. There are still several other European countries, led by Germany, that approved and ratified the treaty for the EU constitution. Only France and the Netherlands opted out for awhile.

The EU advocates will try again, maybe next year.

I thought we got told, before France and the Netherlands rejected the EU Constitution, that if just ONE country rejected the Constitution it won't come into effect. So if the Eu decides that it will still try to bring in the Constitution after France and the Netherlands rejected it, it gives Britain another reason to leave the EU.

The undemocratic EU just can't seem to take "no" for an answer. When a country rejects something in a referendum, it makes them take the referendum again and again until they say "yes."

That's what happened when the Irish voted against the Treaty of Nice. The EU made them take the referendum again. The second time, the Irish voted "yes."

Originally posted by AdamB
I thought we got told, before France and the Netherlands rejected the EU Constitution, that if just ONE country rejected the Constitution it won't come into effect.

- It won't.
However parts of it may well as there are very sensible parts of it that should be introduced.
(especially the updating of treaties and provisions intended for an EEC/EU when it was far smaller with 7 or 9 or 12 countries as opposed to the current 25 countries).

if the Eu decides that it will still try to bring in the Constitution after France and the Netherlands rejected it, it gives Britain another reason to leave the EU.

- The 'constitution' will not be introduced.

The UK is not going to leave the EU.

The EU isn't dead.
Wise up.

The undemocratic EU just can't seem to take "no" for an answer. When a country rejects something in a referendum, it makes them take the referendum again and again until they say "yes."

That's what happened when the Irish voted against the Treaty of Nice. The EU made them take the referendum again. The second time, the Irish voted "yes."

- This is a simplistic distortion of the truth to the point of making a lie.

Ireland rejected the original Nice Treaty.
The EU (ie the Prime Ministers and the various national gov Ministers and the representitives) reflected upon Ireland's initial rejection of the original Nice treaty.
The EU then responded to the Irish concerns over the Nice treaty with the EU then amending the Nice treaty.

In a subsequent referendum a higher turnout of Irish people voted 'yes' to the new revised Nice treaty.

That is perfectly acceptable and completely 'normal'.
The EU forced nothing on anyone.
They listened, changed the treaty and let the Irish people themselves decide.

(and the proof of the reasonable-ness of this entiore episode was proved in the fact that the second referendum had a greater trunout than the first).

What on earth have you got to complain about with that?

Britain should leave the EU, and one day it will.


Reasons why Britain should leave the EU.


Britain and the Single Currency

"[the euro project] is of course, an intensely political act…the euro cannot be conceived of except politically"

Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, statement to the House of Commons on EMU, 23rd February, 1999 (Hansard col. 181)



What is the Single Currency for?



The Single Currency is a political project designed to hasten the creation of a Single European State in which nation-states like Britain would be provinces. Helmut Kohl and Jacques Delors have been saying so for years; Chancellor Schröder's new Government has now confirmed that to be the goal.1

In joining the Single Currency, a nation hands over control of its interest rate, exchange rate and gold and currency reserves, as well as control over tax and spending, to Brussels and Frankfurt. All of this is set out in the Maastricht Treaty which Britain signed in 1992, and in the Stability Pact which she signed in 1996.

The Single Currency is not about economics, though its economic consequences will be profound.



Britain in the Global Economy



There are over 200 nation-states in the world, almost all of them with their own currencies. Although 11 European Union countries ("Euroland") joined the "single" European currency on 1st January 1999, no nation-state anywhere else in the world plans to join any single currency.2

There are 43 nation-states in Europe, of which only 11 have joined the "single" European currency. Those 11 countries, unlike Britain, are in varying degrees economic satellites of Germany and France.

Of the world's 200-plus nation-states, only three - the USA, Japan and Germany - have economies that are significantly bigger than Britain's.

British exports to Euroland account for less than a fifth of British GDP. In other words, more than four-fifths of the British economy is not involved in trade with Euroland.3


British exports outside the EU continue to grow, but British exports to the EU are falling in absolute terms.4


Globally, British exports to English-speaking countries are growing almost twice as fast as her exports to non-English-speaking countries.4


More British exports (54% of all her visible and invisible exports) go outside the EU than to the EU, and the proportion going outside the EU is growing. Only 46% of British exports go to the EU; only 43% of British exports go to Euroland.4


The proportion of worldwide British exports (46%) going to the EU in 1997 was smaller than in 1992, the year before the Single Market came into operation.4


Britain has an on-going structural trade surplus with every continent on the planet, except one: Europe. She has an on-going structural trade surplus with the world’s two biggest and technologically most advanced countries, the USA and Japan.4


Within Europe, British exports to non-EU countries are growing significantly faster than her exports to the EU.4


Less than one-fifth of inward investment from overseas comes from the EU, and less than one-fifth of British investment overseas goes to the EU.5


80% of the world's financial transactions and close on 60% of the world's commercial transactions are denominated in US Dollars.6


The British economy, and British interest rates and exchange rates, move in step with those of the US, our largest trading and investment partner, and not with those of the Continent.8



The Single Currency and Economics



The Single Currency is not an economic project. However, joining it would have profound consequences for British jobs, tax rates, growth, investment, mortgages, welfare and NHS spending.

The Removal of Safety Valves

A single currency eliminates the interest rate and exchange rate safety valves, which allow changing national economies to adjust to each other.

A single currency does not eliminate the need for adjustment. Instead, the strain has to be taken by the unemployment level - as can be seen in Germany and France, which have voluntarily locked their currencies together for the last 12 years.

Preparations for the "single" currency have already helped to cause mass unemployment in Germany, France and Italy, where real jobless rates are at least three times as high as in Britain. Many, including the CBI, the Bank of England and the Bundesbank, expect the single currency to result in further job losses within Euroland.

The Single Interest Rate and the Single Exchange Rate

The "single" European currency means a single interest rate and a single exchange rate from Lapland to Gibraltar. Both will be set by the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank to suit the German and French economies (which account for well over half the combined output of the 11 Euroland countries) irrespective of the needs of the other 9 countries.

Most of the time, the one-size-fits-all interest rate and exchange rate does not suit the other countries, and will produce even more unemployment, as Britain found to her cost in 1990-1992 when the pound was locked to the German Mark in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

If Britain joined, she would suffer disproportionately from the consequences of the one-size-fits-all interest rate and exchange rate, since there is deepening negative correlation between the German and British economic cycles.8

There is no evidence whatsoever, anywhere in the world, that removing the interest rate and exchange rate safety valves increases jobs, trade and investment within a single currency zone. Trade between Germany and France, for example, has grown more slowly than trade between Germany and the rest of the world, and between France and the rest of the world.

Money-Changing Costs

The only unambiguous minor benefit from a single currency is that costs of changing money (for example from Francs to Marks) within the single currency zone are removed.

With the growing use of plastic cards by individuals, and of hedging by businesses, such costs are already shrinking. The costs of changing money with all the other 200 currencies in the world would not be affected by being inside or outside the "single" currency.

The costs of abolishing the pound and substituting the Euro (replacing notes, coins, cash registers, cash dispensing machines, slot machines, accounting systems etc etc) would be massive. Consumers would have to pay for those costs through higher prices and taxes. It would take years, perhaps decades, before the trivial savings on money-changing outweighed the costs of abolishing the pound and bringing in the Euro.

Tax, Spending and Labour Costs

With the start of the Single Currency, control over Euroland’s tax and spending passes to the EU. Tax and spending levels will be "harmonised" – in other words made the same – throughout the single currency zone. In addition, Germany and France are already insisting that what they call "social legislation" – including the cost of labour – be harmonised too.

Germany, France and other Euroland countries have far higher tax rates than Britain (and, mainly because their unemployment levels are so high, far higher levels of state spending than Britain). If Britain joins, British taxpayers will pay more and state spending will rise towards German and French levels. In addition, far more pensions in Germany, France and the other countries are provided by the state than in Britain. If Britain were to join the Single Currency, British taxpayers would automatically end up contributing to the state pensions of retired people in Germany, France and the rest of Euroland.



What should Britain do?



If Britain wants to continue as a self-governing nation, she should not join the Single Currency.

She should keep the pound, keep control over her own tax, spending and wage levels, and continue to trade successfully with the rest of the world.

If Britain wants to become a province governed from Brussels and Frankfurt, she should join the Single Currency.

The pound would be abolished and replaced by the Euro.

If the British people are asked to vote in a referendum on joining the Single Currency, the fundamental issue will be the survival or extinction of Britain as a self-governing nation.

Sources:

1 - In, for example, Chancellor Schröder's inaugural address to the Bundestag, and Foreign Minister Fischer's address to the European Parliament on 12th January 1999, in which he said: "…a common currency is not primarily an economic, but a sovereign, and thus eminently political act…political union must be our lodestar from now on".

2 - Some currencies are however temporarily pegged to the dollar.

3 - ONS: Economic Trends, December 1998 and ONS: The Blue Book 1998. Exports (visible and invisible) to Euroland in 1997 were £151 billion; British GDP in 1997 was £802 billion; thus exports to Euroland as a proportion of GDP=18.8%.

4 - Office for National Statistics (ONS): Economic Trends, December 1998.

5 - The Facts about Foreign Direct Investment: eurofacts Occasional Paper No 5: November 1998 (based on ONS data).

6 - Interviews in the French magazine Capital, January and December 1998, with Yves Thibault de Silguy, the European Commissioner responsible for the single currency.

7 - A recent report of the French Commissariat au Plan conservatively estimated real French unemployment at over 5 million, equivalent to a 20% unemployment rate. Comparable estimates exist for Germany and Italy.

8 - HM Treasury, October 1997: UK Membership of the Single Currency: An Assessment of the Five Economic Tests, page 12.



Enquiries: Ian Milne (Director)

Global Britain, Hope House, 45 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 3LT

Tel: 0171-233 4443 Fax: 0171-233 4446 Email: [email protected]

When the EU forced the Irish Government to have another refendum, the YES people won. But why? The only reason why they won is because their campaigns are purposefully made more noticeable than the NO campaigns, and are given loads of money from the EU, whereas the NO people are given nothing.

In all the EU member states the Treaty of Nice was ratified by parliamentary procedure, except in Ireland, where the Irish Supreme Court in an earlier judgment on the Single European Act had ruled that fundamental changes to European Treaties, which alter the Irish Constitution's recognition of sovereignty as being ultimately derived from the People, require an amendment to the Irish constitution. Ireland's constitution can only be amended by a referendum of the people.

To the surprise of Europe's political classes, the voters in Ireland rejected the Nice Treaty in May 2001. The turnout itself was low, partly a result of the failure of the major Irish political parties to mount a strong campaign on the issue, presuming that the Irish electorate would pass the Treaty. (All previous such Treaties had been passed by big majorities.) However many Irish voters were critical of the Treaty contents, believing that it marginalised smaller states. Others questioned the impact of the Treaty on Irish neutrality. Other sections viewed the leadership of the Union as out of touch and arrogant, with the Treaty offering a perceived chance to 'shock' the European leadership into a greater willingness to listen to its critics. (A similar argument was made when Denmark initially voted down the Treaty of Maastricht.) In large measure, the Nice Treaty was lost because pro-treaty supporters simply never bothered to vote, while the 'Vote No' campaigns were effective in raising serious questions as to the value of the Treaty.

The Irish government, having obtained the Seville Declaration on Ireland's policy of military neutrality from the European Council, decided to have another referendum on the Treaty of Nice on Saturday, October 19, 2002. A 'Yes' vote was urged by a massive campaign by the main parties and – for the first time in European referenda in Ireland – by civil society and the social partners, including campaigning through canvassing and all forms of media by respected pro-European figures like then EP president Pat Cox, former Czech president Václav Havel, former President of Ireland Patrick Hillery and former Taoiseach (prime minister) Dr. Garret Fitzgerald. Prominent civil society campaigns on the Yes side included Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the Progressive Democrats, the Irish Alliance for Europe led by Professor Brigid Laffan and Adrian Langan, and Ireland for Europe led by Ciarán Toland. On the No Side, the principal campaigns were those of the Green Party, Sinn Fein, Anthony Coughlan's National Platform, Justin Barrett's No to Nice campaign, and Roger Cole's Peace and Neutrality Alliance. The result was a 60% "Yes" vote on near double the turn-out of the previous referendum. Every constitutency in Ireland voted Yes by a significant margin. It is generally accepted that most people voted NO the first time because the treaty was not explained to them properly and they did not want to risk approving of provisions of a treaty without a full understanding of it.

www.answers.com...

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It is generally accepted that most people voted NO the first time because the treaty was not explained to them properly and they did not want to risk approving of provisions of a treaty without a full understanding of it.

In other words, according to the Eu, the people of Ireland were "too stupid" to understand the contents of the Nice Treaty and that's why so many voted against it.

The Eu also said the same thing about the Dutch and French who voted against the EU Constitution.

You're kidding yourself if you think there is the slightest realistic propect of the UK leaving the EU.

As for your comments about Ireland that was a long wordy bit of 'cut n paste' that didn't contradict what I said, no matter what spin you attempted to put on it at the end, thanks.


[edit on 29-7-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

To say the EU is dead is a completely over-stated reaction to a proposed constitution which is not the "all and end all" of the EU. As previously stated, the beautiful thing about the EU is it evolves with the demands of the people from their various locations and nations. If people don't want something, they won't get it. Every EU nation is democratic, and as democracies how can the people not recieve what they (the majority) want? Again, as stated before, the Irish example and the the Treaty of Nice was voted upon again AFTER the EU had reconsidered its content to suit that of the Irish peoples.

As a British citizen I would like to say plainly that I belive that we SHOULD become closer to Europe, as co-operation always achieves more than competition. To say that we might lose our national identity is absurd. Look at Greece. They took on the "evil" Euro, but who thinks of the Greeks as being any less Greek?

I see the Euro as being our chance as a group of democracies who have the power, especially the wealthier nations such as the UK and Germany, to transform the lives of the ordinary peoples of other not so wealthy European nations, and help to destroy the idea the one countries citizens are some how allowed a better chance in life than others.

[edit on 29/7/05 by John Pearce]

Thank you all for your comments I see that this is a hot subject I would like to add a question.

1. Were should the EU go from here that is economic reform as in either liberal free-market or amended social model.

IMO we will continue to do what we do in Europe.

We will operate a form of capitalism that recognises the benefit of attending to wider responsibilities beyond mere margin of profit.

We will maintain free and democratic societies with a high quality of life worth living in.

Some of us will veer more towards a more 'capitalist' emphaisis (the UK for instance) and some towards a more 'mixed economy' (Sweden for instance)......what Americans inaccurately call 'socialist'.
(although Americans seem to call anything not republican party approved 'socialist' these days for some reason.)

That will all in any event be almost entirely a function of the sovereign national governments and not under the direction of the EU.

The national Parlaments throughout the EU set economic policy or agree cooperative economic policy.
Europe was already operating a mixed economy (with variations in emphaisis) long before the EEC/EU got involved.

The EU does not and never has set the national 'economic model' for any of the European countries.

[edit on 30-7-2005 by sminkeypinkey]