europe should we stay or should we go?

[shetlandpeat]

I think we are too far down the road to leave. Which is a good thing.

[Styumpie]

Very good points by Mr Farage here.

 

 

Democracy is no more.

[Sha]

I must admit I'm quite amazed on the opinions regarding the EU here.

And not only here but generally in the UK.

 

I've lived on the boarder of Germany and France for years and it was very easy there to see how Europe affects everyday life. It is not only free trade, where, eat least inj the industry I work in, everything has been made much easier but it is everyday life on mainland Europe that has been made easier.

Free travelling, and the ability to find jobs all over the place.

Inter-european education such as the Uni course I did which was partly in France, partly in Germany.

 

The Euro, a currency first feared and that now has become one of the strongest world wide. A bunch of possibilities was offered to everyone within the EU.

 

I don't know enough facts to be throwing around with them but personally I believe the EU is a good thing and that we should work on it instead of blaming all our problems on it.

[unlinkedstudent]

^^ Every single European I have had the pleasure of meeting on me holidays (with the exception of the Belgians - can't imagine why ) have absolutely detested the Euro and the European Parliament. Granted, when I was in Berlin, the trains did run on time and apart from the Sunday night, the streets were spotless. However, you can't judge how an entire nation is doing simply by one weekend trip nor, for that matter, you could argue that I shouldn't take into account the Europeans' opinions.

 

The Dutch didn't like the fact that bread shot up in price overnight (may sound weird, but that is one thing every Dutch person I met mentioned to me!). In summary, every person said that they were economically affected (and not for the benefit of themselves).

 

Personally, I wasn't old enough to vote to go into the Common Market and resent the fact that we are now in the European Union and I've never been given the opportunity to fully air my views on the matter.

 

Referendum - bring it on! (but blooming a tad too late innit?)

[Sha]

@unlikestudent: sorry but EVERY SINGLE EUROPEAN? How many have you met? 10?

 

Of course in the beginning everyone was annoyed by the price rise because of the Euro. But that wasn't the beginning fo Europe. Europe opened it's boarders in 1992, we got the Euro in 2002.

The Euro and it's introduction aren't the EU. the EU is much more than a common way of paying. And the prices did rise when the Euro was introduced but they fell again and teh wages raised since then. So it turns out quite the same by now just that we have huge advantages due to free trade and free boarders.

 

I remember what travelling between France and Germany was like before 1992 and it was a pain in the ass.

 

And the only place I've ever seen such negativity towards Europe is the UK.

 

Of course not everyone agrees to it in the rest of Europe but most do.

[JohanofNess]

@And the only place I've ever seen such negativity towards Europe is the UK.

 

 

To be fair over the last several hundred years we've either invaded there or been invaded by continental europe to join up and be all lovey dovey now well that would kind of go against that spirit.

[unlinkedstudent]

@unlikestudent: sorry but EVERY SINGLE EUROPEAN? How many have you met? 10?

 

...

And the only place I've ever seen such negativity towards Europe is the UK.

 

Of course not everyone agrees to it in the rest of Europe but most do.

 

Firstly, user name is unlinkedstudent. Secondly, I've done a fair bit of travelling and I would put the figure of meeting Europeans on my holidays more like a couple of hundred, not 10. Thirdly, having lived in London for over 25 years prior to moving up here, I must have met hundreds of Europeans there. Fourthly, I did not say "every single European" - I said those I had met with the exception of Belgians.

 

I can only comment on the expressions and statements made by those Europeans I have met as, no doubt, is the same with you.

[Sha]

@unlinkestudent and all the others here: would you all really rather go back to no free travelling, no free trade when Europe is next to you?

Do you really think that England, or even worse Scotland, could stand on it's own?

[Njugle]

Free travelling? Bit of a myth when we require passports to get in and out of Shetland, let alone Europe...

 

And having recently been to Europe, I still had to queue at passport control and present.

 

[unlinkedstudent]

Aargggh - spelling user name once incorrectly but again?!

 

We don't have free travel - by right we should be able to travel without passports and have freedom re the borders but we don't and never have. At best, you could hop over to Mainland Europe for 3 days - the anti-terrorism laws put that to bed too. So free travel - we NEVER had it!

 

The EU also put to bed a lot of the trade agreements we had with Commonwealth countries. I do not know the precise figures but we do tend to import a lot of goods, not just from Europe but from elsewhere too.

 

I would be for a "common market" but not the EU in its current format; however, even a "common market" would need to be modified.

 

I'll never forget the fiasco over Mad Cow Disease - a prime (pardon the pun) of EU, unvoted quango interference at the best/worst. Sha, were you aware that Britain was not allowed to export leather jackets due to idiotic decisions by the EU Brigade? Why? Because they were a by-product from cows.

[JohanofNess]

Do you really think that England, or even worse Scotland, could stand on it's own?

 

Yeah I reckon we'd be alright as we aren't standing alone along with Northern Ireland and Wales we're the United Kingdom. There are plenty of downsides to being in the EU and allowing free travel and work, in Scotland in particular we've got a lot of people out of work and a whole load of people from outwith Scotland still here making competition for what jobs there are even harder. Personally speaking I think it's done more for europe than it has for us becoming part of it.

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

Befoe you vote for a pro- E.U. Party next week, here is something to think about.

And by then the greek collapse may be snowballed into the E.U. collapse.

http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/Coughlan.htm

 

5) THE EUROPEAN UNION IS FUNDAMENTALLY UNDEMOCRATIC AND CANNOT BE DEMOCRATISED

 

 

It is the absence at the level of the European Union of anything like the underlying national solidarity which binds Europe's Nation States together that makes the EU project, and especially the euro-currency scheme, so problematic and therefore unlikely to endure. The EU is a creation of powerful political, economic and bureaucratic elites, without popular legitimacy and authority, and is therefore fundamentally undemocratic. There is no European "demos," no European people, bound together by solidarities like those that bind nations and Nation States. Rather, the EU is made up of Western Europe's several nations and peoples. Every Nation State is both a monetary union and fiscal union. As a monetary union it has its own currency, and with that the capacity to control interest rates and the exchange rate. As a fiscal union it has its own taxation, social service and public spending system. By virtue of citizens paying common taxes to a common government in order to finance common public spending programmes throughout the territory of a State, there are automatic transfers from the richer regions and social classes of each country to the poorer regions and classes. This sustains and is sustained by a shared

 

national solidarity. By contrast, the euro-currency project (EMU/Economic and Monetary Union) means a monetary union but not a fiscal union. Never in history has there been a lasting monetary union that was not also a fiscal union and political union, in other words a fully-fledged State, deriving its legitimacy from a common government and shared national solidarity, which in turn underpinned a common fiscal transfer system. The euro-currency scheme deprives the less developed EU States and the weaker EU economies of the right to maintain their competitiveness or to compensate for their lower productivity or poorer resource endowment, by adopting an exchange rate or interest rate that suits their special circumstances. But it does not compensate them for this loss by the automatic transfer of resources entailed by membership of a fiscal union. Compensatory fiscal transfers at EU level to the extent required to make a monetary union viable in the long run are impossible, in view of the amount of resources required and the unwillingness of the richer countries to provide them to the poorer because of the absence of shared national solidarity that would impel that. At present expenditure by Brussels in any one year amounts to less than 1.3% of the EU's annual Gross Domestic Product, a tiny relative figure, whereas Nation State expenditure on public transfers is normally between 35-50% of annual national products. In other words, the solidarity that would sustain an EU fiscal union and an EU Multinational State does not and cannot exist. Democratising the EU without a European "demos" is impossible. The EU's adoption of such traditional symbols of national statehood as an EU flag, EU anthem, EU passport, EU car number plates, EU Olympic games, EU youth orchestra, EU history books, EU citizenship etc, are so many doomed attempts to manufacture a European "demos" artificially, and with it a bogus EU "nation" and supranational "national consciousness." They leave the real peoples of Europe indifferent, whose allegiance remains with their own countries and Nation States. The more European integration is pushed ahead and the more the national democracy of the EU Member States is undermined, the more the EU loses legitimacy and authority. Consequently the greater and more inevitable the popular reaction against it will be. To align oneself with such a misguided, inevitably doomed project is to be out of tune with history. It is to side with a supranational elite against the democracy of one's own people, to spurn genuine internationalism for the intoxication of building a Superpower.

[whalsa]

http://www.shetlandmarine.com/2010/02%20Fishing/Salmond%20steps%20into%20Vigo%20wrangle.htm

 

^^^^ Heres a recent example of how poorly run the EU is.

[MuckleJoannie]

^

I think that is an example of how poorly the UK government regard fishing.

 

Mr Salmond wrote: "Mr Lochhead had asked to attend the talks in Vigo, Spain, but was refused permission by UK Secretary of State Hilary Benn last month.

 

I'm sure the EU would be happy for him to be there as part of the UK team.

[Gibber]

Wouldn't Hungary et al be back to murdering its Gypsy, Jewish and other minority populations by now if there wasn't an EU?

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7094323.ece

 

Would the BNP have had to tone down their race hate to remain legal if there wasn't EU human rights law?