Is it time for the UK to join the euro?

[Louis VI the Fat]

No. Done it before.

Hah! I am unshakable in my pompous arrogance! No amount of weird looks and painful silence will ever convince me I am not hysterical.

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.

Indeed. And more secularism! And doner kebabs!

However, I, for one, do not intent to share the wealth with Turkey. Sorry Husar, but I think sharing is for naive internationalists. It is not what Europe is about, how our capitalist union works. We are not going to share with Turkey.
Instead, we will continue to shamelessly milk Germany and the UK for our own financial gain, thank you very much.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Whatcha gonna do about it?

[JR-]

Louis, this is descending into spamming.

[Husar]

Overall Germany is making some nice trade profits, at least it was last time I looked at wikipedia.
If we make poor Louis a bit richer in the process I have nothing against it.
I already said I buy from the UK so basically I'm sharing our wealth with them as well.
I'm sure you've stopped watching youtube videos because that means sharing your wealth with the US, I wonder where the .org host is located since you're probably financing them as well with your visits.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Louis, this is descending into spamming.

Nah, spamming is single smiley posts. This is turning this place into a riot. The thread is three weeks old, I don't think we'll see any hefty posts discussing the financial merits of euro membership anymore. Consider my gibbering nonsense the equivalent of debators having a few drinks after a debate to laugh it all off and to mock the heavyhanded seriousness of earlier that night.


Let me buy you a pint! We'll drink to Britain! To this precious stone set in the silver sea! This other eden, this demi-paradise!

To your sceptred Isle!

[Thermal]

all brits can say no quite easily, and its our decision so shove off people that dont live on the sacred island of chocolate and stuff

[LittleGrizzly]

It seems we have a statistical tie!

never fear! grizzly has a plan, we ship out a few anti eu residents... temporarily of course... so boot out Apache (visit the dad in greece) and frunculu (i hear spain's nice this time of year) and ship in a few of the euros... not the evil manaic's though... and then... EURO FTW!!

Louis you are hysterical, and ill drink to that!

[Sarmatian]

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?

Well, when you put it like that, yes. Not really funny, but interesting. You need to hone your witticism. I guess you've spent too much time watching German films or reading German literature, switch to British for a couple of months

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.

Yeah, because they all live in a dream that we'll get rich the moment we become EU members and others will stop looking down on us. Poor beggars, they don't know what they're getting into.

I see what you mean. So, you must have protested when a certain guy of Berber/Algerian roots born in Marseille played for Bordeaux and France?

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.

Are you kidding? Of course! Serbs are held in very high regard in Syria because of our involvement in non-aligned movement

Reject union with Ireland? To pass on an opportunity to be in an union with the country where Tribesy is from??? Not a chance!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Not really funny

You need to hone your witticism. I guess you've spent too much time watching German films or reading German literature, switch to British for a couple of months

Ouch! Scathing!

I might have to study Serbian instead to hone my skills of razorsharp insult.

I see what you mean. So, you must have protested when a certain guy of Berber/Algerian roots born in Marseille played for Bordeaux and France?

When they win, they're French. When they lose, they're Algerian.

[Sarmatian]

When they win, they're French. When they lose, they're Algerian.

I know what you mean. In WC 2006, (then) Serbia and Montenegro lost 6:0 to Argentina, and would you believe it - those Montenegrins managed to concede 6 goals!!! Luckily, Serbia managed to grab a 0:0 draw....

[thrashaholic]

Now is quite possibly the worst time for the Uk to join the Euro if ever there was one...

With Sterling in free-fall at the moment, joining now at the current exchange would likely mean that our exports would be uncompetitive in the short term since sterling has a lot more devaluing to yet, forcing an even deeper recession... However, in long term, when things pick up, it would mean imports would become far too expensive, causing an inflation problem.

Also, surrendering monetary policy independence in current climate would be quite possibly the most stupid thing we could do in the present economic climate given that monetary policy (interest rates etc.) is the only policy tool that works in a world of floating exchange rates. Essentially, the UK would be forced to take an interest rate set for the economic conditions of countries doing far better than it and risk a huge deflationary trap.

That said, pegging our currency would mean that all this 'fiscal expansion' nonsense would actually work... (I love how Gordon Brown professes to give David Cameron 'a lesson in economics' every PMQs, yet it's first year Cambridge economics undergraduate stuff that fiscal policy doesn't work with a system of floating exchange rates... Mind he's probably too busy saving the world to brush up on the Mundell-Fleming model...)

But then, what do I know?

[rory_20_uk]

As with all things with Europe it seems the argument is we should charge into the EU where we have no ability to leave if things are causing our country to be ruined... but nothing about reversible measures such as currency pegging which can be unpegged in worst case scenarios.

Dear old Gordon does seem to think rather too much of himself with the Economy- everything that goes right is him, everything wrong is external forces. Sorting out problems by throwing money at them is easy. Dealing with the debt later isn't - but of course that probably won't be his problem.

[JR-]

As a matter of clarification, I got the answer from the ONS on the total value of UK trade in goods and services for the year of 2007 with the EU, which now stands comparison with the worldwide figures.

Dear Me,

Your e-mail enquiry of 11 December has been passed to me for reply.

The EU total trade in goods and services figures you request for 2007 are
as follows:

Imports: £223,977m (= Goods £169,143 + Services £54,834)
Exports: £187,114m (= Goods £127,678 + Services £59,436)
Balance: £36,863 (my addition)

Kind regards

Him

Versus World Figures -

Imports: £415 817m (= Goods £309 955 + Services £105,862)
Exports: £368 337m (= Goods £220 703 + Services £147,634)
Balance: £47 480

So the EU represents:
54% of our imports
51% of our exports

Regarding the importance of service trade:
Our services exports to the EU represent 1/3 of the total exports, versus only one quarter of service imports from the EU, making the competitive advantage of service industries of comparatively greater importance to the UK than it is to the EU.
Likewise our service exports to the world represent 2/5 of the total exports, versus only one quarter of service imports from the world, making any EU derived harmonization of service industry regulation particularly damaging to UK trade.

On balance of payments:
77% of the UK's balance of trade defecit is with the EU
The UK actually maintains a surplus with the EU when the balance of service trade is considered.

In short; the EU represents half of the total value of external trade conducted by Britain.