peter said:
Mark said:
[...] So, in my eyes, the question isn't about whether we should have
a constitution or not, but whether the EU should exist at all, or not.
As far as I'm concerned, this constitution is just a sop to divert us
away from the real issue.
This could be written only by an Englishman,
(obligatory wave of Union Jack)
I think, who doesn't know
that his country pays next to nothing into the EU but profits MORE THAN
ANY other country on the continent from the EU! You blame the EU
administration to waste money, but you pay nearly nothing, thanks to
Maggie Thatcher's tactical tricks!
The prices for butter, milk products, wine, coffee and many other goods
were never lower than today since I live. When Dutch, Danish tell me
that the EU is bad it could make sense to start thinking, but someone
from the British Isles or a German, a Spaniard, Italian or a Greek has
no reason to complain!
The alternative is to build borders again with more than hundred
thousand border guards, high tolls, million jobless people plus millions
of soldiers again - what a nice idea!!!
I suppose it's true that, being an Island nation, we have a different
perspective on border control. And I'm not advocating Fortress Britain,
or Fortress France, or Fortress anything else. Surely there has to be
/some/ border control, though, even if I were to agree in principal with
things like letting Europeans work here without visas (and actually, I'm
not opposed to EU citizens working here without visas, or British
citizens working in the EU). Why can't we have /light/ border controls,
and still not be part of the EU?
We Germans pay lousy 22,5 billion Euros for the EU, that are peanuts
compared to exports worth more than 800 billion Euros!!!
I'm not acquainted with the amounts involved in Britain's case in order
to weigh costs and benefits. And I dare say that, even then, I would
find it difficult to believe that the opportunities could only have been
created due to the existence of the EU.
Put it this way: do politicians generate wealth? I doubt it. I think
it's done by the honest men and woman who actually produce something. So
I'm thinking that this bureacratic edifice is not as crucial as you
think it is.
But we live in
PEACE!
But I bet the common sense of Americans throws shadows on the British
Isles and that means, war is the motor of all progress and 60 peaceful
years had been far too long ...
I advocate peace too.
Result would be wars sooner or later again like in the past, we all know
that. As you said it, every country has it's own problems and that is
good ...
Well, I'm not saying that having problems is good. I'm saying that a
country's government has responsibilities to its own country, which
might conflict with the EU. Each country wants broadly the same thing:
peace (yes, even in Britain we're not /always/ spoiling for a punchup),
with a great emphasis on economic prosperity. But there are occasions
when a country's priorities conflicts with everyone else.
The case that springs most readily to mind is Britain's ignominious
departure from the EMU in the early 90's. We entered the exchange rate
mechanism, and everything went swimmingly well at first ( a little too
well, one might even say). Eventually, though, things went wrong, and
interest rates went sky-high. We asked Germany to increase their
interest rates to counteract the problems we were having. And you know
what they said? They said "no".
So there we have it, so much for this global harmony and mutual
cooperation thang. Don't get me wrong. I don't really blame the Germans.
They had their own employment problems to deal with, and were sure as
hell not going to send their country down the tubes just to help us out.
The German politicians were acting in the interests of their own
electorate. Which is as it should be.
Which, to my mind, it does give unequivocable proof that this whole EU
thing wont work. We joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism thinking it was
all sweetness and light - and it turned into a complete and utter
disaster. I'm given to understand that the French didn't do much better
with their attempts at it, either. My conclusion? It doesn't work.
I suppose you're now going to say "but this time it's different". "We're
not going to have a fixed-rate exchange mechanism, we're going to have a
single currency", and so on. To which I'd respond "seems like pretty
much the same thing to me". As they say: the more things change, the
more they remain the same (sorry, I couldn't find the traditional French
version of the saying).
Do you think that national governments will stand idly by as their
economy is tipped down the drain, whilst Brussells says it wont do
anything, but urges it to "see the bigger picture", or something? Well,
I would certainly hope not. I definitely would expect my government to
take remedial action. And this is exactly the kind tension that could
let extremist nationalistic governments to come into power. OK, Britain
was nowhere near the point of going to war; but you could see how a
buildup of extreme tensions could create a volatile situation.
We should always bear in mind human nature.
nations, oh my good, how boring!' ... 'We're British, we're special. And
we don't want to know what it would cost us to leave the EU. In times of
trouble we could count on the wonderful USA, who needs Europe ...'
Actually, I'm sure that the USA is more than capable of sitting on the
sidelines when they're not particularly in the mood. Just don't threaten
their supply of oil, that's all I'm saying!
D