Is it time for the UK to join the euro?

[JR-]

A quarter of British nearing retirement age dream of living abroad. Spain, France, and recently Croatia and Cyprus are hot spots. Half a million live in France alone.

This is one of the great benefits of the EU. We have the space, the sunshine, underdeveloped rural areas that few of working age want to live in. Americans move to Florida or Arizona after retirement. Thanks to the EU, Europeans can do this too. Work in bleak Manchester, retire in 'Dordogneshire'. Travel times, telecommunication and administrative hassle of travelling have been greatly reduced by the EU as well. British grandchildren live only a few hours away by cheap train and can hop over as if they were travelling from Scotland to England.

This fabulous system is now under threat.

Obviously, currency fluctuations mean the pound could also rise against the euro. But a pensioner or retiree doesn't need a rise in value. He needs one thing only: stability and security in his financial plans. The recent currency fluctuations are nothing short of a million small dramas to British retirees.

that is lovely, but in no way is it a significant reason for the UK to join the euro.

i am really fond of Polish Gingers beer, does that we mean both Nation States should join just so i can have a stable price on one of my favourite beers?

[Louis VI the Fat]

that is lovely, but in no way is it a significant reason for the UK to join the euro.

Really? I think it is:

My dads pulling out whats left of his hair.

See? This is all about real people, with real commitments, real lives. Let me repeat my point: the financial stability, the very livelihood of a million British pensioners - most of them not rich! - is undermined.
It is not about abstract ruminations about Empire, British insular identities, EU 'superstatism', national pride or lord knows what.

Louis' first rule of politics: never let an abstract political goal override what brings a concrete benefit to concrete people.

he's lost upwards of £600 a month due to devaluation

Serves the old bugger right for spending my inheritence

If Britain had joined the Euro in 2002, then your father would by now squander 600 quid a month less from your inheritence.

[JR-]

See? This is all about real people, with real commitments, real lives. Let me repeat my point: the financial stability, the very livelihood of a million British pensioners - most of them not rich! - is undermined.
It is not about abstract ruminations about Empire, British insular identities, EU 'superstatism', national pride or lord knows what.

Louis' first rule of politics: never let an abstract political goal override what brings a concrete benefit to concrete people.


If Britain had joined the Euro in 2002, then your father would by now squander 600 quid a month less from your inheritence.

it is a significant reason for IA's dad, not the UK as a whole.

financial stability is something we take individual responsibility for, IA's dad took a risk when he moved outside the UK while leaving his pension inside.
No-one ever said it was about ruminations of empire.

Maybe so, and.............

[Husar]

So to have financial freedom, one would have to stay in Britain?
I thought many people shared the ideals of freedom, being financially or otherwise locked in a country isn't freedom in my book.

It's about time we abandon countries and bring forth the world government.

[InsaneApache]

It's about time we abandon countries and bring forth the world government.

Good God no.

[LittleGrizzly]

It's about time we abandon countries and bring forth the world government.

Yes!

Its about time companys where no longer able to hold goverments hostage with the threat of moving elsewhere, with one world goverment corporations and the rich will not be able to run away and hide from fair taxes...

[JR-]

So to have financial freedom, one would have to stay in Britain?

i never said that.

[Meneldil]

To answer a question that was asked in this topic, Britain isn't part of the EU because Britishs, for some unknown reason, think they're different from other Europeans, and that they built their prosperity outside of Europe (which is actually a complete fairy tale).

As for myself, I'm all for them staying out of the Euro zone, and for withdrawing from the EU as well. We've had enough of these buggers and their constant whining. I don't even know why they wanted to join the European project so much in the first time, only to slow everything down and complain all the time.

Oh yeah, right, because UK was back then the poorest country in western Europe (bar Portugal and Spain), and thought - quite rightfully - that joining the rest of Europe could help.

A couple of other thoughts :

1 - Evan-Pritchards is indeed not the best financial analyst, but one of these people that really give a bad name to journalism. I can't even understand how some papers still publish his articles.

2 - Stop your constant nonsense about Democracy. It's not as if London was the city in the world with the most video spying crap, and it's obviously not as if your last prime ministers did not support anti-personal freedom laws in the name of the holy Fight Against Terror, laws that are still unmatched in the rest of Western Europe.
So much for democracy and freedom heh.

Oh, and the voters don't have any power once they've elected their leader. They never did and never will.

[JR-]

i am all for electing a gov't, granting them my authority to govern in my name and with my acquiescence, but if they want to divest that authority to a third party then i do expect them to come back to me and ask my persmission.

but talk of democracy is better kept to the; "is Britain an island" thread, except where we recognise that the euro is a tool that will of necessity result in greater political union.

as to Evans-Pritchard, people are happy to rubbish him but i have seen little sign of people rubbishing the arguments against Britain joing the euro.

and i am sorry the continent has to keep on putting up with british moaning about "ever deeper political union", and can fully accept that you would be happy to see us out so that brussels can continue with its grand federal project. all the (majority of) British people want is free-trade, and our politicans know it so they keep flogging the dead horse of halting this or that diktat to avoid the sensible solution; EFTA.

[Strike For The South]

Some of you equating us states with European countries are kind of reaching.

[rory_20_uk]

I don't understand joining the EU.

Free Trade: have a trade agreement
Fixed exchange: have a fixed exchange rate (that didn't really work in the past, yet having no opt-out would somehow be better).

The EU accounts have not been signed off for the last decade. If this happens to a company they're in trouble. If it's a massive bloc of countries you merely ignore it.

The EU is a disorganised mess which tries to paper over internal struggles by not asking the general public what it wants. Votes to the contrary are overlooked, ignored or repeated until the "right" result is gained.

Companies can always move elsewhere. The UAE is open for trade - unless that too is going to be forced into the EU.

[Husar]

Good God no.

Why do you hate your dad so much?
I mean in the end we're all supposed to be derived from the same monkeys, aren't we? so why would it be impossible to have the same rules, same money and same rights for everyone without imagining a line somewhere in a forest or desert beyond which you pay 20 EUR more for a PS3 game or get stoned for being raped or something like that?
Just because it allows you(in general) to think you're better than "the others", the beyond-border-people, is not a valid reason.

i never said that.

That's why it was a conclusion on my part.

[JR-]

I mean in the end we're all supposed to be derived from the same monkeys, aren't we? so why would it be impossible to have the same rules, same money and same rights for everyone without imagining a line somewhere in a forest or desert beyond which you pay 20 EUR more for a PS3 game or get stoned for being raped or something like that?
Just because it allows you(in general) to think you're better than "the others", the beyond-border-people, is not a valid reason.

Because we don't necessarily want the same rules, and our economies don't have the same needs which could be accomodated by the same currency.

Show me how it will benefit the UK before you start putting up strawmen about needless nationalist willy-waving.

[Husar]

Show me how it will benefit the UK before you start putting up strawmen about needless nationalist willy-waving.

Show me how benefitting the UK will benefit me before you want me to agree with you.

[JR-]

what?

[Louis VI the Fat]

It's about time we abandon countries and bring forth the world government.

I don't want to share a government with countries I've got nothing in common with, like Swaziland, Bhutan, Greece or Bulgaria. Trade agreements, fine, but not further than that. They have a different history, different customs, different economic interests.

[Sarmatian]

I don't want to share a government with countries I've got nothing in common with, like Swaziland, Bhutan, Greece or Bulgaria. Trade agreements, fine, but not further than that. They have a different history, different customs, different economic interests.

???

All countries have different history and different customs. Even some parts of France have different history and different customs compared to some other parts of France. And what do you mean different economic interests? Don't we generally have the same economic interests? We may disagree on actual policies and actions, but the goal is generally the same

[Husar]

I don't want to share a government with countries I've got nothing in common with, like Swaziland, Bhutan, Greece or Bulgaria. Trade agreements, fine, but not further than that. They have a different history, different customs, different economic interests.

I do not want to share a government with my neighbors either, they have a different history, different religion, different customs, different hairstyle, different culture (I'm rap, they're hiphop) and different shoes as well as a completely different job, it's completely lunatic to think the same government could please both my neighbors and me.

[Louis VI the Fat]

???
All countries have different history and different customs. Even some parts of France have different history and different customs compared to some other parts of France. And what do you mean different economic interests? Don't we generally have the same economic interests? We may disagree on actual policies and actions, but the goal is generally the same

Oh, I am taking the piss, Sarmatian.

Come on, I base a dramatic and emotional pro-integration plea on poor IA's father who's starving to death because mean tabloid-wielding xenophobes don't want to be in a monetary union with Greece, only to be followed not two posts later by me revealing myself to be a dastardly xenophobe moaning that I don't want to be in a union with strange and foreign countries like Greece. It was funny, no?


And apart from taking the piss, I am posing a mental challenge. It may not sound like it, trying as I am to further debate by stubbornly, singlesidedly arguing for more EU integration, but I do take the arguments of the others seriously. For all my talk of a xenophobe, nationalist tabloid version of European integration, I myself of course think exactly the same. We all do. Save for Husar, who really does accept the consequence of his arguments and calls for a world government. Unless one does, one will have to define an 'us and them', and put a geographical and political limit to the extent of the EU.

Whom do I want to be in bed with? For me it is simple: the countries that surround me. Italy, Iberia, the British Isles, the Benelux, Germany, the Alpine countires. Those, plus the fat beef of Scandinavia - all their Kroner are belong to me.

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

This all means that all criticism about invoking different histories, different customs, different interests, is a matter of quantitive preference, not a qualitive one. Or, to put it differently, I can argue Furunculu's argument that Britain does or doesn't belong in the EU because of different history and customs etcetera. I can not argue the principle itself that different history, customs, etcetera are a criterium.

I myself have a limit. Turkey? No, too big and too different. Russia, the same. North Africa? Nope. Some Britons have limit as well, often conveniently summarised as: beyond the cliffs of Dover, the abyss.
You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.

[Husar]

Whom do I want to be in bed with?

The nice turkish ladies I see almost every day of course, don't try to trick yourself into believing they shouldn't be here.

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

All day long I'm hanging out with internet friends from all over the world with whom I have more in common than a lot of people here in Germany whose interests could well be from Mars, but when I want to see those best friends of mine I have to pay a fortune, have my fingerprints taken, undertake a nekkid scan etc and when they gift me a flatscreen TV while I visit I will have to pay my country for taking it back home when I return. And people talk about freedom?

The EU offers that freedom, I can buy things from the UK, support their precious nationalistic economy and let ours rot because they are ripping me off anyway (to make a stupid example again I ordered LBP from the UK for 30EUR including shipping etc, in german stores it costs 65 to 70, that's more than twice as much...), I can also travel to Bulgaria and visit that beautiful country with nothing but my personal ID(or passport or whatever you call it). I know about the dangers of terrorism etc but if we could get the world to unite under one political entity and get rid of all artificial borders dividing friends and enemies alike, then we could achieve real freedom, different religions and customs merge at the borders all the time anyway and even faster since we got planes and the internets, a modern building in Bangkok looks very similar to a modern building in New York, at least in architecture the cultural differences are vanishing anyway.

350 years ago catholics and protestants were still bashing eachother's heads in, now they peacefully coexist so what says that muslims and christians cannot coexist peacefully or that a briton and a frenchman cannot be neighbors? The only thing that does is their perception of the other guy, their prejudices, their monkeyspheres, their stupidity.

[Incongruous]

And when that world state becomes so unbearable, where to go?
For it is the Utopian dream land, no?

Any idea that it is not, must desist.

If I were you Hussar, I would think harder about a World State than simply that it will allow you to buy cheaper goods.

[Husar]

And when that world state becomes so unbearable, where to go?

Mars.

I mean currently the options do not look much better either, if the west turns undemocratic(and some say it is), where to go? China? Iran? Pakistan? Africa?

[Strike For The South]

Mars.

I mean currently the options do not look much better either, if the west turns undemocratic(and some say it is), where to go? China? Iran? Pakistan? Africa?

Mexico

[JR-]

I myself have a limit. Turkey? No, too big and too different. Russia, the same. North Africa? Nope. Some Britons have limit as well, often conveniently summarised as: beyond the cliffs of Dover, the abyss.
You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.

i would love to see turkey in the EU.

in my view they have earned it for their party in NATO during the cold war, the west would also benefit from what can be best described as the obama effect, and most importantly it would help make the EU broad and shallow, which is the way i like my supra-national governance.

[Louis VI the Fat]

i would love to see turkey in the EU.

Wot!? Rubbish Furunculu! The EU must not expand! We are too different, have too many diverging interests. I don't need the UK and their schemes to get me into a union with Turkey! I want a referendum NOW!!


Hehe.


Bah, I enjoy myself much more as an evil rightwinger. Forget about my recent sharpleft turn. From now on, Louis is a rightwing fanatical maniac.

[JR-]

i want turkey precisely because it is so different it would force the EU project in a shallower direction, as a necessity to survive it being so broad.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Oh, I am taking the piss, Furunculu.

Come on, I splatter dramatic and emotional pleas for more EU expansion over five hundred threads, only to now argue that expansion must be halted and that I want a referendum NOW. It was funny, no?

[JR-]

whatever, i'm just telling you my thoughts that spring from your comments.

[Husar]

Come on, I splatter dramatic and emotional pleas for more EU expansion over five hundred threads, only to now argue that expansion must be halted and that I want a referendum NOW. It was funny, no?

No. Done it before.

Anyway, when Turkey finally enters the EU we may finally get some new laws for the equal treatment of muslims that are sorely needed in countries like the UK, France and the Netherlands.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Incongruous]

No. Done it before.

Anyway, when Turkey finally enters the EU we may finally get some new laws for the equal treatment of muslims that are sorely needed in countries like the UK, France and the Netherlands.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Taking the piss or what?