Troubles ahead for the EU

As someone mentioned the Lisbon treaty ... I?d just like to remind some of you that the Treaty would have fixed a lot that is currentyly wrong with the EU and would make the whole thing work better. Nevertheless nationalists across Europe strongly oppose that specific Treaty (with success in Ireland) that could have made quite a lot of change for the better. Why do you think that is? Because the nationalists of each country would lose their favorite scapegoat to blame everything on if the EU would suddenly improve for the benefit of all. Listening to Nationalists about what?s wrong with the EU is like asking a devoted muslim about how to cook pork chops ... you?re not going to get helpful anwers, are you? So don?t listen to them when they tell you your country is better of on it?s own, because it doesn?t matter if you?re from Spain, Germany, GB or Poland ... on the long run you?re going to be fucked on your own. So let?s get together and make this work for us all ...
 
Everything the EU does that is good from could be done just as well, and more cheaply, by the individual national governments. It is perfectly within the power of the UK parliament to negotiate trade deals with one or more of its European neighbours, or to decide what it feels should be basic "human rights", or people of which countries should be allowed freedom to live and work in this country, or how long people should be allowed to work each week.

Sure we may all be f**ked on our own, but we will be f**ked a hell of a lot quicker together.

France is not the Czech Republic, French people do not have the same priorities or values as the Czechs, they do not speak the same language, they have a different history and a different culture, neither is perfect but they both have unique and brilliant qualities. At the same time they also have very different problems that they need to address. Sure, so sometimes we all need a helping hand from other countries, but that is what groupings like the G8 and NATO provide - an opportunity to meet with the leaders of countries with similar aims to work together to provide opportunities and assistance to each other and 3rd parties in distress. Or if you want something from a specific partner then you can sit down with that country and come to a bilateral agreement, or agree to an alliance.

The EU provides these things, but it also forces countries to be lumbered with rules and solutions to problems they never had. It tries to treat everyone the same and on a continent this large, with this much history, that just isn't going to happen.
 
alihaig said:
or to decide what it feels should be basic "human rights",
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this annoys me. Human rights has got NOTHING to do with the EU. The ECHR is a completely different thing, and an entirely separate issue.

The ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights) are to do with the Council of Europe which comprises of many more countries than the EU (47 v 27).
 
I admit I didn't know that sorry :). I do believe my point still stands - we don't need a bunch of Europeans telling us what our rights are, we can do it for ourselves. Whether its the EU or the Council of Europe the principle they work on is the same - "Together is better" - and from my pov, together is not better.

And if a government is truly repressing their people and denying them rights in a way that elections cannot solve, then there is nothing to stop a group of independent European - or overseas - states joining forces to put pressure on that state to improve.
 
Last edited:
alihaig said:
I admit I didn't know that sorry :). I do believe my point still stands - we don't need a bunch of Europeans telling us what our rights are, we can do it for ourselves. Whether its the EU or the Council of Europe the principle they work on is the same - "Together is better" - and from my pov, together is not better.

And if a government is truly repressing their people and denying them rights in a way that elections cannot solve, then there is nothing to stop a group of independent European - or overseas - states joining forces to put pressure on that state to improve.
Click to expand...

The leader of the team that drafted the ECHR was a British man. It is really a bit odd that we didn't incorporate it into law in this country until 2000 (HRA 1998).
I don't see what issue you can have with the ECHR. It is a very simple set of basic rules, with nothing even slightly controversial, all just common sense. There is no aspect at all of it being "Europeans telling us what our rights are". It is a document from 57 years ago drafted by an Englishman.
 
yeah, i dunno. I can see the principle being good, and tbh I don't have that much issue with what the articles I know about say. My problem I guess is more with they way it is used in practice. I don't like the fact that the highest court of appeal is not in the UK, and that people are allowed to bend the rules to fit situations where they really shouldn't have any rights at all - I'm thinking of things like murderers going to the ECHR to stop being deported after their sentences. I just think, especially as they are such common sense rules, that we shouldn't need the European aspect of it. If they are common sense rights they should/could be covered by UK law anyway.
 
Goose+ said:
As for the currency issue.. Sterling's weakness is now having a benefitial effect on Britain. Which is now causing the French Europe minister to run around like a headless chicken, making snide references to us.
Click to expand...

If it was Rachida Dati she could make as many snide references as she wants.

How come the French get them two and we end up with Harriet Harperson and Wacqui Jacqui Smith? That's it, I'm emigrating.
 
AiR said:
Yes good luck exporting stuff with that.
Click to expand...
well sure, there are some eu countries like france who do suffer because of the difficulty with export. On the other hand, the price of lets say gas, is pretty stable thanks to the euro compared to the states. Same goes for import of resources from the east.
 
Last edited:
^^ Because Britain never threw it's weight in, that's why. Notice sth. with the ECB? It's located in Germany and run by a Frenchman. All Euro scepticism ever did for England is not being involved in those sort of things. IMO you have no one to blame but yourselves.
 
Damn right, the EU wanted to ban junk bonds ABS certificates, etc. a long time ago. Only Britain vetoed... now you got yourself deep into shit - you fucking deserve it.
 
i think that one point of the eu is a united europe, idea that came just after the war, and for that you need economic stabilty and wealth to all countries, that's why the east europeans get nonrefundable money, and if one country gets blasted by some unexplained hole in the ground, money should pour in from the rest of the countries
 
Which is fine, except there is no such thing as a "united europe" because a) we have nothing in common and b) we have hated each other/been knocking lumps out of each other for a couple of thousand years. It all works great if you are some poor little Eastern European country that can't do anything on its own, but the UK gets no benefits at a whole heap of grief and bills.
 
alihaig said:
but the UK gets no benefits at a whole heap of grief and bills.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the problems are plain to see (money, immigration (for some people)) whereas the benefits are not as obvious. However, the benefits are there and far outweigh the problems. I'm going out so I won't try and describe what the benefits are right now.
 
If your list of "benefits" is anything like this one http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...urope-ever-done-for-us-apart-from-441138.html then don't bother. Of these 50 so called benefits not one of them is really down to the EU and some are actively bad for the UK - I'm thinking of these:

24. Introduction of pet passports
Since 2004 travelling across borders with pets has been easier. In addition to pet passports with a vaccination certificate pets require permanent identification which can be either a tattooed code on the skin or a microchip which can be read by a special machine. In the future the microchip is likely to be obligatory.
Click to expand...
We had the previous system of mandatory quarantine for good reason. All we need is one forged "pet passport" and all the effort to keep the UK free of diseases like Rabies will be undone.

30. End of the road for border crossings (apart from in the UK)
Frontier posts have been abandoned between the 15 countries that have implemented the Schengen accords. This agreement means that EU nationals crossing most borders in continental western Europe do not need to show passports. The newer nations plan to join in soon.
Click to expand...
Without border checks how are we supposed to know who is in the country? UK border control is laughable as it is but still, the answer is not to remove it altogether. Areas of the EU are ridiculously porous when it comes to control of the "external" border (I'm thinking of the Albania - Italy route in particular) and without internal border checks that problem is spread across the whole continent. Thats even before you start to think about the issues of internal migration which is completely out of control.
 
alihaig said:
If your list of "benefits" is anything like this one http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...urope-ever-done-for-us-apart-from-441138.html then don't bother. Of these 50 so called benefits not one of them is really down to the EU and some are actively bad for the UK - I'm thinking of these:
Click to expand...

If you're blindly going to ignore all the benefits then clearly you are not somebody who it is possible to have a reasoned debate with. Go away and have fun reading the Daily Mail.
 
I could tell you why I don't believe each of those benefits, but I thought it would take up too much space for this thread. I am willing to be convinced if you can show me compelling, hard evidence of something the EU has done that directly benefits the UK and could not have happened without the EU. I just have yet to see any such evidence and am skeptical about its existence.
 
alihaig said:
I could tell you why I don't believe each of those benefits, but I thought it would take up too much space for this thread. I am willing to be convinced if you can show me compelling, hard evidence of something the EU has done that directly benefits the UK and could not have happened without the EU. I just have yet to see any such evidence and am skeptical about its existence.
Click to expand...

Lets just pick one random one from the list shall we.

"Any citizen of a European country is entitled to free medical treatment if he or she is taken ill or suffers an accident in another member state. So long as you carry the correct form from your national health service, no questions will be asked."

This did not happen before the EU, and nor would it have. Clearly it directly benefits citizens of the UK when they travel abroad. Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
 
1) It didn't exist before the EU because there was not that much widespread foreign travel before the EU formed, so it wouldn't have been that much of a problem (or enough of a problem for governments to do anything about it).

2) Why couldn't it exist without the EU? As foreign package deals grow in the 60s and 70s it becomes clear that there is a growing problem with people getting treatment abroad. So representatives from a group of European countries meet and sign a "European Healthcare Treaty" (or something like that).
 
alihaig said:
1) It didn't exist before the EU because there was not that much widespread foreign travel before the EU formed, so it wouldn't have been that much of a problem (or enough of a problem for governments to do anything about it).

2) Why couldn't it exist without the EU? As foreign package deals grow in the 60s and 70s it becomes clear that there is a growing problem with people getting treatment abroad. So representatives from a group of European countries meet and sign a "European Healthcare Treaty" (or something like that).
Click to expand...

So explain why you must pay for healthcare in places such as Switzerland, the Channel Islands and Norway if you are on holiday. Surely if it isn't that much of a problem, these places would have similar systems in place. Simply saying "Oh we could have done it anyway" is a pathetic argument. If you did all the things anyway, you would basically have exactly the same thing that we have now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top