UK Suffers As A Bystander To Europe's Crisis:

Britain Suffers as a Bystander to Europe’s Crisis

By SARAH LYALL and STEPHEN CASTLE

You know,... I can't say this any different -- it's time for the UK to show her true colours and decide if they are with us (for their own stakes), or against us (against their own stakes).

It's time for the UK to drop the attitude.

And I hope that, for the love of God, the UK will choose the EU over her, what the journalists of above piece, call her "self-proclaimed exceptionalism".

Please,... y'all need to be on our side on this.

Anyways, if you're not -- than I'm sure we'll soon have Scotland as an independent member of the Union for sure.

 

A tip for Mr. Cameron: he could call in sick, so that Mr. Clegg has to go!

He'll be welcomed with open arms! I'll make sure he'll receive a fruit basket. LOL! Afterall, he's a former MEP and he also speaks perfect Dutch!

 

You do reproduce some absurd Posts but at least this one is so obviously stupid that even a not very well informed person in Belgium , just as an example , could immediately see it was written by jokers .

Within reason , the EU and specifically the EZ will do exactly as we ask , OR ELSE , you get no agreements on anything .
I will repeat :-
Within reason , the EU will give us everything realistic we ask in order to get agreements , however irrelevant they may be to present problems .


Merkozy are forced to make concessions , however much they hate that .
They know it and we know it .
It matters not one jot what the UK opposition believe or say . They are not invited to Brussels to even say , " Good Morning" .They have no part in the play !!
Janpoor , you are old enough to be more critical before posting silly rubbish , written as a desperate attempt to sell news papers .

Of course the demise of the EZ will adversely affect the UK . But who has ever thought otherwise? Only idiots.
The point is that the EU needs to rearrange itself for the future .
However , frankly , at this point , I care not a jot if they agree nothing because whatever does finally emerge has no bearing on current debt and bankruptcy everywhere .
On this month's priority list , who care about what might or could happen in two , three , four years time ?
Who is going to bail out Spain now? Apart from the Fed with " funny" money

 

You need to read the article again,...

If there will be concessions, it will be out of goodwill -- since we can just put through the Van Rompuy-Barosso plan instead of an outright treaty change.

Meanwhile, UK is going in the drain:

 

You try desperately hard to make your hopes come true but you never get lucky
Unemployment EU 27 . 2010





EU 27 9.7 9.8 20.9 8.3
UK 8.6 6.8 19.6 5.8

Male Female Under25 25-74

No comment required

As I told you , from a position of strength , the UK will force Merkozy to make concessions .
I guess it infuriates many E.Uers to see the UK doing so well .
Put your energies elsewhere Janpoor and try and rebuild your failing country.

 

Belgium, a country younger than the US iirc, is hardly failing compared to some European dinosaurs

 

The U.K. was at least smart enough to keep its pound.

If they leave the EU, it will be another good move.

Now, if only they could be less politically correct when dealing with race/ethnic relations.

 

Yes indeeedy .
A savvy country with no Government for over 18 months and near civil war between the tribes -- Walloons what a name.Their air force has one Airbus 300 and 4 Westland Search and Rescue Helicopters which they use when their Airbus gets lost .
They speak , Flemish, French , Dutch , German , Walloonish presumably and have a guy called Rumpy Dumpy who is the most boring grey man ever seen .
No wonder they cannot communicate with each other or anybody else .

 

They cannot communicate ?
I have had the chance to meet a few Belgians and they were all very nice, polite and gifted for all sorts of communication.
Granted, my judgement might lack impartiality: As a French I am so used to dumb arrogance that I even find the English good-mannered

 

It is foolish for any country to tie their future to Southern European socialists.


_

 

You may be right , Glock , but Belgium is not in South Europe .
And regardless , nobody has ever tied themselves to that country except the Congo in times gone by .
And look at the mess that caused .

 

Hello raymondo.
Are you a new recruit/roster for team GB ?
Just curious. Somehow you don't strike me as a typically self-deprecating lad

 

I wear purple trousers and fly globally spreading the Word .
I must confess to having a soft spot for the English and suspect God feels much the same way )) .

 

Oh, you're a Rock Star. OK

 

It's for the British to decide what's in our best interests, Janpor. As it happens Cameron's self-preservation instincts appear to have coincided with Britain's, but the truth will come out in the next few months. The BBC reports Cameron as having secured an "effective" veto on an EU wide treaty ... in other words - no veto at all.

We don't need to be on your side when you're sliding into what we see as stupidity. One single currency for nearly half a billion people, living in diverse economies will not work.

 

We have gained more in integrity and self esteem since we single handedly took the fight to Berlin all those years ago . When we held the Yank's hands so they didn't get lost .
The losers failed to produce one sentence of hope that the EZ can ever flourish again .
And that dreadful little midget Sarkozy sowed the seeds of his own end -- he could not see the debt mountain or think of one thing to solve arising matters .
The Euro is dead and we have further distanced ourselves from the Losers Club .

 

I agree, Cameron did what he had to do. UK is in no different a position than before and by no means alone. Countries are looking after their own interests, as it is their right to do.

And UK does not require the guidance or direction of Merkozy to maintain a set of accounts. Teaching the grandmother to suck eggs.

 

If he's right, it'll be the first time...

I thought Belgium was just a confused conglomeration of clashing regions. How do they find the time to house the EU?

 

Or ... the Euro will never die, it will only get renamed and reintroduced as the Germany-France-BeNeLux currency. This will be strong money, against the penny stocks of the local currencies of the other EU members. So, which one would the UK rather be in the future? The strong currency, or the penny stock? Or do you hope to peg the future GBP to the USD, like Latin America does?

The fact is, that countries like Germany and France can even go to the extreme and nationalize their banking system if needed. This is something the UK will never be able to do, since the UK has no "nation", only powerful individuals in it. To be a nation may be bad for the collective, but good for the individual, and it is the individual that is paying the price of the 21st century's artificial banking mess. So the UK has no choice but to join or peg to a national currency of some nation state.

By the way, the EU as an international effort may have failed with this banking game, but if it can be successfully completed by carrying it into some resource-war, the UK will be able to make money on that. This is the UK's best bet, too bad this is a pipe dream.

 

That seems to have polished off our very young Belgium Federalist , Janpoor .
However if thoughtless indiscretion is his only sin , I feel we should forgive him in our usual gracious manner .
I guess those little Wallooons would be better off looking after their own interests now that they are pinned by the German Dumfnoodle on one side and a psychotic midget with delusional fantasies on the other .

 

I will do this point by point because this post is based on fantasy.

The Euro will die. Germany and France can't afford it. For example the debt of Germany and France per person is larger then Spain and Portugal as of right now. Germany and France exceed the Euro avg of 37,700. But on top of that with the "European Financial Stability Fund", IMF, and ECB commitments promised Germany and France will have a debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. Could even push to 120% depending on how big the EFSF is. At that point they are Greece.

But nevermind that. Both populations are aging and massive amounts of workers are going to retire soon. That's another cash cow that needs to be paid for still.

No, Germany and France can't afford to nationalize their banks. Show me where Germany and France can borrow over €5 trillion.

Deutsche Bank alone is €1.906 trillion in assets but only €49.2 billion in equity. That's €1.850 trillion in liabilities.

Soc Gen has €1.132 trillion in assets but only €50.98 billion in equity. That again is another €1.07 trillion in liabilities.

Those are just 2 banks, one from each country. Germany and France would be lucky if at the end of the day they lose less then €2 trillion in loses after Nationalizing.

UK has the power of money press which the EU does not have.

This is under the assumption the UK will never print money. But it does. It threw the ECB a life line last week by doing currency swaps. Oh and just to let you know the BoE, Fed, BoJ and BoC saved Europe last week because a major bank in Germany or France couldn't fund itself with dollars (no bank in Europe would lend overnight to them) and they were hours away from shutting it's doors.

 

It seems to me this thread is rapidly turning into a pissing contest, which was inevitable considering the OP.

Nonetheless, I'm glad for the UK that Cameron said no. I do wish however that there was a third way, saying no has just as many downsides as saying yes.

EU membership is good for the UK, "we" are European. Just because we're Islanders, doesn't mean that we;re somehow exceptional, however, handing over further power to non-elected Eurocrats is bad for any country IMO.

We have to understand, that although we all have a common history and present, all our countries have different personalities, and our countries therefore different solutions to the same problems. 27 countries under one goverance does not account for this.

BTW anti-EU UKers, the UK is about to lose its importance to the USA. Cameron has not only divided the UK from the EU, but also from the USA. Look for new allies quickly.

 

If there's another way to rule nearly half a billion people no one has thought of a successful way to do it yet. EU membership as it stands is bad for the UK. We are indeed European, that as far as I know has never been in dispute! Informed opposition isn't based on us being exceptional (we're not) or on us being islanders, (or that we want the Empire back, or any of the other strawman arguments that so often come up when this is debated.) It's based on the fact that EU membership is bad for the UK and it's not democratic, it rules contrary to our interests, and it's costing us money we cannot afford.

 

Why? Please explain.

 

Cost, lack of democratic control, prevented from helping our own industries without EC permission, European Arrest Warrant, prevents us from negotiating trade deals without EC permission, EC red tape binds business and its a particular burden for small and medium sized businesses, global warming scam, setting us against our nearest neighbours, not to mention the fact that it has made our own elected politicians turn into humungous institutional liars ...

Why? Please explain. If you have thought of some other reasons apart from the ones we've all heard, I'd love to hear them. (Access to the single market does not depend on EU membership.)