What do you predict for EU and euro?

[chipmunk]

Where is this thread going?

It seems that Roy and Sawyer are going to keep us entertained by their opinion of an alternate "reality". :roll:

...the reality in which everything that happens in the UK is sweetness and light and everything in Euro-land is heading towards doom and the abyss. :wink:

I am still amused by the characterization of Mario Monti as a dictator - :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Digit]

.the reality in which everything that happens in the UK is sweetness and light and everything in Euro-land is heading towards doom and the abyss.

Where did that come from then?

As regards the doom and gloom, show us some light. Did you not read the report from the Guardian?
I would suggest that Greece is already in the abyss, would you not agree? I would also observe my friend that other countries do manage, and rather well I might add, outside of the EU.
The EU is not the centre of the universe, but now is your chance to extoll the virtues for the UK of EU membership.
(Should be short list! :lol: )

Roy.

 

[chipmunk]

Where did that come from then?

... I would also observe my friend that other countries do manage, and rather well I might add, outside of the EU.

Well you must admit that your characterization of "all things European" is not exacly enthusiastic ;-)

Without sounding too much like the Life of Brian sketch...
Here's my initial list of what Europe has done for us.....

1) Provided us with safe cheap imports.
Major producers can produce one single set of goods for Europe (power plugs & RH drive excepted) which means they don't have to design separately for British Standard and other country's specs too. The safe bit gets a bad press sometimes but it's almost always the result of lobbying by manufacturers' representatives on one side of teh argument or another.
2) Made exporting to Europe for UK firms easy. Essentially the same as above. One product for the whole of Europe.

I'm sure you'll claim that the Common Market can be separate from the EU i.e. have your cake & eat it. But I think if you were honest you would have wanted to keep the British Standard kite mark if asked?

3) Mobile phones and the Internet. This is all part and parcel of the cross-EU standardization activities in all things. All radio spectrum allocation, telecommunications equipment design etc is harmonized across Europe and the EU.

4) The defeat of Communism I believe was almost certainly thanks in large part to the EU. It was prosperity in Western Europe just over the border that finally toppled Communism and persuaded all of the former East to want to be part of the EU and NATO.

5) Safety and security. The expansion of NATO has pretty much gone hand-in-hand with EU enlargement. Turkey and the US are pretty much the only outsiders of the EU.

How's that for starters?
Jon

 

[Digit]

1) Provided us with safe cheap imports.

That does not require EU membership, simply a suitable trade agreement.

Major producers can produce one single set of goods for Europe (power plugs & RH drive excepted

We were doing that pre EU, as is reuired with exports to Japan, Usa etc etc etc.

2) Made exporting to Europe for UK firms easy. Essentially the same as above. One product for the whole of Europe.

See above.

3) Mobile phones and the Internet. This is all part and parcel of the cross-EU standardization activities in all things. All radio spectrum allocation, telecommunications equipment design etc is harmonized across Europe and the EU.

Does not require EU membership, just national agreements, these sort of agreements have existed between nations for years.

4) The defeat of Communism I believe was almost certainly thanks in large part to the EU. It was prosperity in Western Europe just over the border that finally toppled Communism and persuaded all of the former East to want to be part of the EU and NATO.

Your kidding! The USSR went broke trying to maintain parity with the US!

5) Safety and security. The expansion of NATO has pretty much gone hand-in-hand with EU enlargement.

Tell me how many nations have joined NATO simply because of the EU, or was it the collapse of the USSR. Are saying if Greece drops out of the EU she will leave NATO?

How's that for starters?

Mainly imaginary!
There is not one item in your list that did not either exist before Maastricht or requires membership to acheive.

Roy.

 

[chipmunk]

Mainly imaginary!
There is not one item in your list that did not either exist before Maastricht or requires membership to acheive.

Roy.

Who could have predicted that? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well I guess we agree to differ. As I said before... your form of reality.

Jon

 

[beech1948]

A prediction for 2025.

China will purchase the country otherwise known as Greece and rewrite the history of democracy while their citizens use Greece as a holiday park. This will be called the Great Euro Rescue.

Spain and Italy will sign a military agreement and invade France putting paid to any further overly grandiose statements from the peasant known as Sarkosy. The Spanish- Italian armies will range upto the German border but no further. Germany will be told to relax fiscal discipline or else.

Britain will secede from the EU retaining a commercial relationship. The pound will sink to the lowest depths as labour government is elected. Ed Milliband will commence negotiations with the US to adopt the dollar and to become the next State of The Union. The British populace will be as apathetic as usual.

Scotland will withdraw from the Union of the British Isles and find that they can not enter the older EU and that Germany is not interested in spending huge sums to back Alex "The Scammer" Salmond. Scotland will sue to try to return to the Union but find that the Brits have become American and they are frozen out. NI will be sold back to Eire/Ireland and Britain will be flooded with NI refugees.

The French will adapt to the Spanish -Italian invasion by doing nothing. The French governing classes will be imprisoned until they return any wealth they gained from government largesse.

Switzerland will benefit by becoming the repository of all of the French and German funds seeking a safe haven. The same French and German account holders will have a lot of trouble getting their money back.

Germany will try to bully Holland, Belgium, Poland and the Scandinavian countries into retaining a Euro zone. Only the future will tell.

Alan Beech seeing all this happen and having the benefit of some 14 yrs foresight has moved all his funds to the tax free British Virgin Islands and is living a life of relaxation and repose in Florida whilst shagging as many women as possible. He is happy but sad that his one remaining account in the Halifax-Barclays Building Society is worth next to nothing in dollars.

YeeHa!

Al

 

[Digit]

your form of reality.

No! Realiity. Oz has trading agreements with NZ, Japan and China, just as we have. The US has the same with Canada, which, BTW is in NATO, and Mexico. They share power, water and water ways. We traded before the EU Jon.
You might wish to study this as well.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... lA&cad=rja

See, and no unelected despots telling governments what to do. There is life outside of the EU, trust me!
Do you really believe that the UK cannot exist without EU membership?

Roy.

 

[Sawyer]

Where is this thread going?

It seems that Roy and Sawyer are going to keep us entertained by their opinion of an alternate "reality". :roll:

...the reality in which everything that happens in the UK is sweetness and light and everything in Euro-land is heading towards doom and the abyss. :wink:

I am still amused by the characterization of Mario Monti as a dictator - :lol: :lol: :lol:

A prediction for 2025.

China will purchase the country otherwise known as Greece and rewrite the history of democracy while their citizens use Greece as a holiday park. This will be called the Great Euro Rescue.

Spain and Italy will sign a military agreement and invade France putting paid to any further overly grandiose statements from the peasant known as Sarkosy. The Spanish- Italian armies will range upto the German border but no further. Germany will be told to relax fiscal discipline or else.

Britain will secede from the EU retaining a commercial relationship. The pound will sink to the lowest depths as labour government is elected. Ed Milliband will commence negotiations with the US to adopt the dollar and to become the next State of The Union. The British populace will be as apathetic as usual.

Scotland will withdraw from the Union of the British Isles and find that they can not enter the older EU and that Germany is not interested in spending huge sums to back Alex "The Scammer" Salmond. Scotland will sue to try to return to the Union but find that the Brits have become American and they are frozen out. NI will be sold back to Eire/Ireland and Britain will be flooded with NI refugees.

The French will adapt to the Spanish -Italian invasion by doing nothing. The French governing classes will be imprisoned until they return any wealth they gained from government largesse.

Switzerland will benefit by becoming the repository of all of the French and German funds seeking a safe haven. The same French and German account holders will have a lot of trouble getting their money back.

Germany will try to bully Holland, Belgium, Poland and the Scandinavian countries into retaining a Euro zone. Only the future will tell.

Alan Beech seeing all this happen and having the benefit of some 14 yrs foresight has moved all his funds to the tax free British Virgin Islands and is living a life of relaxation and repose in Florida whilst shagging as many women as possible. He is happy but sad that his one remaining account in the Halifax-Barclays Building Society is worth next to nothing in dollars.

YeeHa!

Al

Wow. And somebody accuses me of entertaining with alternate reality :!: :lol:
Mind you, in 14 years' time, Al will probably be saying 'I told you so!' :mrgreen:

 

[devonwoody]

Blimey, I did not expect such magnificent responses to my thread! :wink:

I can honestly say that the EU has in many ways made me dissatisfied , simple things like going metric. I was borne in the 30's and my years of developing during childhood was the imperial system, my life devolved around distances and weights etc. I could look at things and know they weighed a pound or a loaf of bread was 10" long etc.
Now I still go into a supermarket or whatever and life is not on auto they have funny weights, petrol is in cupfuls.
Perhaps the later generations have know understanding of such things but they would feel the same if we go Chinese in the future and start typing these posts in Chinese characters and have to join an Asian Union. :!:

 

[Digit]

I have no problems with the decimal system John, having used booth since my apprnticship days, but my objections to its use here is simple,nobody asked me!
Little about the EU is anything other than political.

Roy.

 

[theartfulbodger]

13.7 mm plus 45.5mm is a lot easier to add up than 37/84 ths of an inch plus 58/93 rds of an inch

 

[devonwoody]

13.7 mm plus 45.5mm is a lot easier to add up than 37/84 ths of an inch plus 58/93 rds of an inch

Yes, but I still know immediately what 37/84th would be like in my mind as to length. :mrgreen:

but 13.7 mm would take me to a ruler to get the same feeling.

How would you like it if the EU demanded that you learn your tables in binary numbers and your children of the future could not do their times tables the old fashioned way.

 

[Digit]

13.7 mm plus 45.5mm is a lot easier to add up than 37/84 ths of an inch plus 58/93 rds of an inch

Well I could add them up but I'm less sure as to how you might arrive at such dimensions.
I would point out that 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, is more 'natural' than 1, 2, 5, 10.
Try cutting a birthday cake into 10ths and see how you get on!

Roy.

 

[theartfulbodger]

ok ok ok point taken

maybe it's a factor of age? (and I'm being careful here!)

I only 39 but think of long distances in miles, then metres.. volume in pints or litres, fuel in pounds sterling (rather than litres) but fuel consumption in miles per gallon...


#-o

What have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[Digit]

Bilingual then! :lol:

Roy.

 

[theartfulbodger]

I wish!
Confused, more like! :|

 

[chipmunk]

Sorry to have been offline for a bit on this one but I have a life outside the forum ;-)...

no unelected despots telling governments what to do. There is life outside of the EU, trust me!
Do you really believe that the UK cannot exist without EU membership?

Where do you get this unelected despot nonsense from? The Council of Ministers is at the head of the EU. And all of them are the elected heads of state of every country in the EU. You'll now claim that the heads of state of Greece and Italy are unelected - Remember John Major and Gordon Brown?

The truth of it is that the European Commission, who I think you must be referring to as the despots, is no different from the Civil Service here. IMHO Sir Gus O'Donnell is no different from José Manuel Barroso and so why not accuse Sir Gus of being an unelected despot? I can hazard a guess ;-)

I agree that we could survive without the EU, and so could they without us. I believe that the issue is whether we are better off being part of a group of nations with similar (obviously not exactly the same) problems/issues in the same region. I believe that in these modern global economic multinational times we are, but at the same time I know that whatever I say I'm not going to convince you of that.

Britain unfortunately reminds me a school boy on the playground wanting to play cricket (free trade) when everyone else around them wants to play football (closer intgeration). So, reluctantly we join in but instead of getting on with it we stand on the wing and keep harping on about how much better cricket is than football. Then we moan that no one takes any notice of us.

We aspouse democratic values but somehow can't bow to the views of the majority with good grace. To be honest it makes me ashamed to be British that we fail at the first fence in the fundamentals of democracy - something we were supposed to have invented. Then we talk about taking our bats home (Not cricket again ;-) and asking for our Sovereignty back because we lost the argument.

As it happens I don't like the current government but I had my vote and my views did not prevail. When I vote for my MP, I don't vote for all of them. I have to bow to the majority formed by all of the constituencies of UK. All of the elected MPs determine the government and from that comes the cabinet that sets the agenda. How is that different in principle from the Council of Ministers? The answer is it isn't.

Just because I don't get my way that isn't undemocratic, it's just what happens in a democracy, and in fact it'd be rather purile to call it undemocratic IMHO.

Jon

 

[Digit]

Where do you get this unelected despot nonsense from?

As you say. But Major and Brown were elected reps of their country, tyhe current Greek and Italian cabinet consists of mainly men who do not, and never have had, a seat in their parliaments. Check. Also read the Guardian article I posted about decision making, ok?

I can hazard a guess

You probably could, but it would remain a guess.

something we were supposed to have invented.

Poor old Greece doen't even get a mention now then?

and asking for our Sovereignty back because we lost the argument.

So you join a cricket club with a set of rules, somewhere down the line the rules change and become unacceptable to you. What now?

I believe that in these modern global economic multinational times we are, but at the same time I know that whatever I say I'm not going to convince you of that.

If you care to bother you will find that many countries have trade agreements etc with each other. The US has one with Jordan and Egypt, there are numerous ones in the far east, check! The EU is about politics!
Many Scots and Welsh object to rule from Westminster, Ireland fought a war against it, Iceland broke away from Denmark, The US fought us because they objected to poitical inteference from abroad.
The majority seems to be with me.
You did not vote for the incumbents in Westminster, in many respects Westminster is pointless, more of our laws that reach the ststute book come from Brussels than Wesminster, check that if you don't believe me.

You may have voted for one of the fringe parties at the last GE, but if you voted labour you may be interested to note that on Sky TV news earlier this week there was a report that Ed stated that any new treaty discussions should involve repatriation of rights to Westminster!

Roy.

 

[devonwoody]

Anyway, whats going on, when the pound was in trouble we got up to 15% bank rate, the Euro is siht and they are under 1%. Its not cricket is it?

 

[chipmunk]

something we were supposed to have invented.

Poor old Greece doen't even get a mention now then?

Touche - apologies to Greece on that one ;-)

You are correct that neither Monti or Papademos have been directly elected.

Mario Monti is a member of the Italian Senate - effectively the equivalent of a Life Peer of the House of Lords. We have members from the Lords in our cabinets all the time.

Lucas Papademos was appointed by the elected members of the Greek parliament as a non-affiliated neutral and has stipulated that the goverment include prominent figures from across the political spectrum.

But surely it's for the Italians and the Greeks to be concerned about whether their appointments are democratic or not. It's actually none of our business to question their system. They have a right to be represented at the Council of Ministers by whoever their system appoints.

Crying foul and decrying the whole system because of this is not really rational IMHO.

Maybe the rules in the EU have changed but the point is they were changed by, and on behalf of, the Council of Ministers, in which we are represented and have always been represented.

...but as I said I know I won't convince you.

Jon