My view too. The way that some people look at it as being something we need to get out of ASAP doesn't work, that's the same kind of short term thinking that the RFL specialise in, not politicians.

We need to be in there, leading the way, not standing outside going "tut" when we don't like things, followed by "Well, we want a veto" when the restructuring is finished.

I think had Tony Blair had his way that's what Britain would have done, he was a leader that other European leaders seemed to look up to and respect unlike Cameron who gets treated with disdain (especially by Sarkozy when he was there), Blair's vision would have been that he would have been the big fish alongside his adoring fan Gerhard Schroeder and Britain would have been one of the dominating powers in Europe. However the country as a whole was not in step with Blair's Euro-enthusiasm and Blair would have also had us in the Euro which would have made our recent financial problems a lot worse if we hadn't had the independent Bank of England to lessen the pain.

I wish the single currency had never gone ahead as its the single biggest balls up in the history of the EU and it seems the countries inside are not going to cut their losses and end it but trying to go all in and have a giant fiscal union which means they will have to become much closer on tax rates, budget balances and all sorts. The Germans seem to be driving this but if it is to work then they have to accept the inevitable consequences - the United Kingdom is a fiscal union where the rich regions of the UK end up subsidising poorer regions through transfers of revenues and Germany as the richest part of the EU will inevitably have to subsidise the poorer parts. They have to accept this from the start.

What I fear will happen is Germany will lead calls for a fiscal union, so that it can keep on being inside the Euro which means it has a currency much undervalued compared to what the Deutschmark would be on its own, making German goods much cheaper in Euros than they would be in Deutchmarks hence Germany has a huge export advantage. But they will constantly complain about having to subsidise the others, and castigate them for having higher unemployment, lower productivity, and lecture them on how they need to have lower wages and conditions etc. Unless Germany is willing to accept the rough with the smooth of fiscal union it is not going to work.

One of the biggest issues at present is that Maastricht effectively enshrined neo-liberalism. I think it's Caroline Lucas, outgoing Green leader, who has raised this.

And what Merkel et al want to do is go further and, in effect, outlaw anything else, including, say, Keynesianism.

Corporatocracy here we come. Actually, we're pretty much there.

Mintball wrote:One of the biggest issues at present is that Maastricht effectively enshrined neo-liberalism. I think it's Caroline Lucas, outgoing Green leader, who has raised this. It was, in 2003 actually

Mintball wrote:One of the biggest issues at present is that Maastricht effectively enshrined neo-liberalism. I think it's Caroline Lucas, outgoing Green leader, who has raised this. It was, in 2003 actually

cod'ead wrote:It was, in 2003 actually

cod'ead wrote:It was, in 2003 actually

I caught part of a Hugh Fearnley poshgit programme about fishing and the ridiculous fishing laws. That was to do with the EU regulations wasn't it?

Our poor fisherman once again.

And idiot shoppers too, who only ever want cod or haddock or a bit of skate, when we have extraordinarily rich seas all around these islands.

Conversely, the various Cod Wars had nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with rapacious trawler owners. Left unchallenged, they'd have been happy to decimate Icelandic and arctic waters

What's that go to do with Dally's point? And EU regulations?

I suspect he means that EU regulations stopped that, In other words, there are two sides to the regulation argument.