What do you predict for EU and euro?

[Digit]

I have had this debate with another Dutch national and he made the same arguments, even stating that it was federation or WW3!
What you say about Europe's wars is correct, one reason why i wish to have nothing to do with it. If Europe wants WW3 all I want is that my son does not have to fight!
Not having changing money rates is an advantage, but we have paid a high price in terms of national independence due to membership of EU. A price I consider to be too high.
The integration of minorities etc has hardly been a success, as demonstrated by the massive rise in the extreme right, in your country for example Geert.
Peace Geert? Kosovo, Albania, Jugoslavia, if you follow the line demonstrated by your compatriate you will probably argue, 'ah, but they weren't in the EU!' True, so the EU left them to fight it out, and currently kept from each others throats by EU and NATO forces.
I would also remind you that your country is one of the few that held a vote on increasing integration etc, and voted against it!
Also, if the EU and the Euro are the only things stopping you continentals from slaughtering each other then we have little hope for the future IMO.

Roy.

 

[geertswaans]

I don't want to say anything about federation or WW3. One can't know th future and neither did the first six countries of the EEC.
what do you mean a high price?
The intergration of minorities, bt these aren't monorities from inside europe. The problems that many european countries see (including the UK) are with people from outside europe.

What if you look at it from another point of view: what if you need a visa again to go to spain, france. I rember clearly all the border patrols walking around with their machine guns. I grew up 2 miles from the border. None of that exists anymore.

Why do you think the UK joined the EU? And why haven't they left? What about fishing rights after we the EU? We'll never be able to negotiate quotas against such a big block. What about eurpean business setting up hq in london? they'll leave. what about uk business with a factory in europe. It's so easy to do that with the EU. If the UK decides to leave, none of this is anymore. We'll be an island away from the continent, having to import everything from countries that we don't want a economic agreement with anymore.

ps, Holland is not my country anymore. Like I said, I haven't lived there for years.

 

[chipmunk]

Hi Geert,
I agree with you about the Euro.

I'm afraid that what Roy is forgetting is that the UK is in deep doo-doo too. But it's far more fun to point at those in Euro-land in the same boat and laugh rather than to worry about our own travails. It makes people here feel better somehow ;-)

If anyone cares to look at the Euro-Sterling exchange rate graphs they'd see that rather than the Euro being trashed against the pound, we're almost where we were at the beginning of the year. Funny that.

We here in Britain are just taking the pain without batting an eyelid as usual - the stiff upper lip. Later retirement ages, increased taxes, zero growth, devalued currency, lower wages, more expensive imports. The sort of thing that is happening in Greece which requires a referendum according to some was pushed through here without a referendum either.

But somehow Europe's problems are due to some special sort of incompetance only the EU could manage ;-)

Jon

 

[Digit]

The problems that many european countries see (including the UK) are with people from outside europe

Does their origin matter? The Kosvans/Albanians/Bosnians are all European with minorities fighting each other or their local majority.

Why do you think the UK joined the EU?

As I recall we joined the 'common market' Geert, the rest we voters have had little say in have we?

None of that exists anymore.

You seem to have forgotten that France sent Libyans back to Italy, Gypsies back to Romania and a degree of border hardening in the past few months.

they'll leave.

If, as predicted by the Frankfurt group the Eurozone loses members then the value of the Euro will soar, that wouuld make Britain more attrative to foreign companies, not less.

We'll never be able to negotiate quotas against such a big block.

In our own waters Geert? And big would this black be anyway?

We'll be an island away from the continent, having to import everything from countries that we don't want a economic agreement with anymore.

Trade works both ways Geert,Norway and Switzerland hve trade agreements with the EU as does the US Japan etc.

ps, Holland is not my country anymore. Like I said, I haven't lived there for years.

Point taken.

ps, Holland is not my country anymore. Like I said, I haven't lived there for years.

No I haven't Jon, we are in it now as a result of the economic instability of the Euro anyway, leaving won't alter that!

Roy.

 

[chipmunk]

Roy,
No seriously, you can't lay the blame for the mess we're in all at Europe's door.

I think you're forgetting. We're in the current mess due to the bail-outs given to the banks & the bankers to correct their mistakes.

It's the same bankers that our goverment is now bending over backwards to protect from reforms proposed by Europe. The same bankers, speculators and bond traders might I add, who are pouring petrol on the flames of Europe's problems by betting against the Euro for the sake of a fast buck.

Jon

 

[Digit]

No seriously, you can't lay the blame for the mess we're in all at Europe's door.

I don't Jon, but the forces you refer too have precipitated the decline in what was always a political marriage made in hell.
It is worth noting that all other currencies are weathering the storm that has been caused by those actions you describe.
Can you say that the financial pundits did not warn of this, that those warnings were that which kept us out of the Euro?
The pundits even gave an acronym to those countries they expected to fail within the Euro. PIGS!
Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain!

Roy.

 

[chipmunk]

Roy,
I cannot deny that there were nay-sayers who are now claiming credit for predicting what would happen - Nigel Lawson to name one.

But where are these currencies that are weathering the storm?

The dollar is not faring any better than the Euro at the moment, for all the Euro's problems and even the mighty Swiss Franc is not looking so hot against the Euro at the moment as it was in the summer.

Jon

 

[Digit]

Agreed Jon, all currencies are having problems as you say, but none seems about to collapse, and our fiscal pundits state that we may be heading for a recession. Because of the EURO! They don't speak of 'contagion' with any other currency.
The EURO would have been in better shape if it were not for the PIGS, but political expediency was placed above fiscal responsibility, as Lawson et al stated, and Brussels is responsible for that.

Roy.

 

[devonwoody]

The thread is "what do you predict for EU and euro"

Not who to blame.

 

[t8hants]

I hope the Euro will collapse taking with it the whole rotten undemocratic 'Union', and that the Nation states will re-emerge with border controls, armed guards and all. The thing has only lasted this long because those countries with shores lapped by the Med' have been milking the north for a life style the coudn't otherwise afford.

I was conned with the lie about the Common Market, I did not want, nor wish to be in a European super state brought into being because France was jealous of the USA and scared of Germany, and it will be worth the decade of finacial pain because that is better than a European war. The Nazi's were far more honest, they didn't have this pretend veneer of democracy that the EU attempts.

However should the war come, we should keep out, supply both sides, not allow in a single 'refugee', and grab what ever we can in the way of lost European world exports. If we had the guts to grab territory as well that would be even better.

Gareth

 

[devonwoody]

written like a true Brit.

 

[RogerS]

.....
However should the war come, we should keep out, supply both sides, not allow in a single 'refugee', and grab what ever we can in the way of lost European world exports. If we had the guts to grab territory as well that would be even better.

Gareth

You are joking, I hope?

 

[t8hants]

Nope, should the Europeans have a dust up over the collapse of the Euro, I see absolutely no reason to get involved unless it to supply equipment. They won't because the whole object of Euroland was to trade on German post war guilt, and milk it, and now the Germans are too timid to follow their own interests.

G

 

[Digit]

Greece suffered a tri-partite invasion during WW2, first Italy, then Germany and finally Bulgaria. The Bugarians and Germans were brutal, hundreds of thousands of Greeks died!
The Germans installed a puppet government in Athens, (sounds familiar) and 'persuaded' them to advance Germany an 'emergency war loan'. They pretty much stripped the exchequer, the Drachma was devalued and Greece's economy destroyed.

They won't because the whole object of Euroland was to trade on German post war guilt, and milk it,

That 'loan' has never been repayed and Federal Germany refuses to reimburse the Greek people. The 'Loan' is currently valued, depending on which interest rate you apply,at between 60 and 90 billion Euros!

Roy.

 

[t8hants]

The Greeks fired upon British troops sent to liberate them, I am unsure of the true number of deaths, but a mate who was one of the lucky ones thought it could be as high as 200.

G

 

[Digit]

So did the French in North Africa, many Greeks died of starvation due to Britain's naval blockade.
But neither would have happened without the war in the first place.

Roy.

 

[RogerS]

Where is this thread going?

 

[devonwoody]

Well Italy has got a new PM and he is an ex EU commissioner so things should be just as slippery as before.

 

[Sawyer]

There's a possible lesson here from American history: and a rather scary one at that.

Start with a big federation, with some members feeling their interests have been compromised. Disaffected, they ultimately decide on sucession: but the rulers of the federation say 'no'.

The example from history? 1861 and a particularly horrible war.

The EU's total disregard for democracy makes this example all the more frightening.

 

[Digit]

With two states now led by dictators it's beginning to look more like the EuSSR every day!

Roy.