Doesn't matter who needs more who.
The best deal for both is low tarrifs. There's no conflicting interest here.
Tarrifs = more jobs losses for both No tarrifs = fewer job losses
The best deal for both is low tarrifs. There's no conflicting interest here.
Tarrifs = more jobs losses for both No tarrifs = fewer job losses
I read that about 5% of EU's trade is with UK. It's not insignificant but it's not the end of the world if it goes down to 0.5%. We will fuck UK over, good riddance, we will be stronger without UK, now we will finally pursue tighter integration without fear UK will sabotage such attempts.
Now we're in a sorry situation where each party's incentive is the opposite of what is required for a healthy economy, and the important decisions require referendums and take a very long time. The fact that the vote to leave was mostly supported by older voters is a tragedy for the future generation, who do not have a straightforward way of having their concerns heard in the coming decades.
Goodbye Britain, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I think vindictive sanctions or refusing new trade deals with the UK would be stupid, childish and harmful for the EU. I hope they work together on a reasonable and fair deal. And then maybe the EU can move forward towards a closer union, and maybe also address some of the problems with the EU, because it's hardly perfect.
There'll be negotiation and both the EU and the UK will get less than they want. There'll be free trade for sure, ironically there'll most likely free movement too.
It is possible that the UK gets a slightly better deal than what Switzerland and Norway have, because the UK is bigger, but it's still not going to be a lot better. Certainly not in the current climate.
- they have dragged their feet for 40 years, preventing EU progress
- they have forced on the EU expansion to the East (which I welcome), and then complained that too many poles are migrating to the UK
- they have prevented political integration and shoved down our throats a neo-liberal EU
- they have been treated excepcionally well by the rest of the EU, with excemptions and rebates. How have they thanked us? By continuing to blame all their problems on the EU.
And now they leave.
But I do not loathe them (my personal experience with british people is excellent). I think that you, as a country, have been extremely unfair with your EU partners, and basically betrayed the European project, and the trust that we have deposited in you.
So, the only thing left now is just to accept things as they are: you have chosen to leave, so please do it immediately. Do not burden us with your petty politics. We are not interested in knowing if the next prime minister is going to have the majority to invoke article 50 or not, or if you will have a new referendum, or if Scotland will split from the UK. We do not want to wait for 6 motnhs, or 2 years, or 10 years until you get your house in order. We do not want this uncertainty anymore. We have respectfully waited the last two years (?) for your referendum to be held, but now we have had enough. David Cameron has organized this mess, and he should bear responsibility for making it legally binding.
YOU have decided, and must take responsibility. We can not wait for years while your jonsons, farages and whoever sort their internal politics.
Cameron called the referendum and assured in case of defeat he would activate article 50 immediately. He must deliver. You have two years time to negotiate anyway.
I am sorry for the UK, I really am. I think you were an important partner, even though a bit unfair. But we must respect your decission: we can not pretend this is business as usual. The british people have voted, and we must respect that.
Specially sorry for the remainers, but this is something you need to sort out internally.
You are a sovereign nation.
However, and I know this will grate horribly, but the EU might have to wait, whether it likes it or not. If article 50 is not invoked, no one can force the UK out. What's more, there are gathering suspicions that the UK could consider a second vote in some months' time. Only by waiting could this happen.
For context: I am British and do not want to leave the EU, despite my best efforts to find the positives in my other comments. I think that the UK had a good deal before and was able to influence policy from within. Now we will be punished by the EU and break up internally.
But beyond all of this, I don't want to live in a country where people have voted so stupidly, and so nastily. One of the leave campaign's biggest claims has been proven to be false. Actually proven to be false. And people voted on that. This in my view is almost grounds for a voiding of the entire process. I feel ashamed of my country and I'm a "true" Brit by their standards. I consider myself lucky in that I can leave and live somewhere else, and this is what I intend to do. I no longer feel a part of the country of my family and of my life so far. And I didn't see such a strong feeling coming until it hit me with the leave vote.
This has been a big blow and, unless we act united and fast, the EU is going to crumble. You say that, due to how the referendum has played out, it would be better to repeat it in some months time. What happens in those months? Nobody knows, but probably very big damage for the EU and for European countries, while financial havoc paralizes the economy.
And afterwards? You vote again? Leave again? Why wait more then? Remain? Can the EU really deal with such unstability, a partner which does not accept a role alongside the rest of EU members, constantly complaining, penny pinching and accusing the EU of all imaginable problems? We have frankly had enough. I understand this is not your personal stance, but that is the UK's attitude.
I think that “what is done can not be undone“. Lets try to craft a deal which suits both parties. It could be that lots of EU agreements can be salvaged for EU-UK cooperation.
If we were talking about this last week, I would support you, but reality has kicked in, and you wanted leave. This is not a game you get to play again and again. This was a one-man bet, and the whole country played along. What a disaster!
There is precedent for a second referendum - Ireland did so in 2009 on accepting the 28th Amendment. I admit, this is a lot bigger.
I think the context here which may help this to make more sense to those outside: a lot of British people voted for leave on false claims. Ok, lots of elections have false claims. But these were enormously misleading and widely spread. It seems like there are a lot who regret their decision, though I'm not sure what % they represent. If there is a general election called early with a party that explicitly backs EU membership winning, then there's no way we can leave without another referendum. And if we vote to stay, I think there would be grounds for the EU to get us to accept a lot of things which we might not have before.
But yes, it's a totally miserable situation for everyone.. you know what, I'd even say it's miserable for the politicians who 'won'.
I understand that the plan is maybe not detailed, but I assume they have some kind of detailed roadmap on how to proceed? The Scotland independence referendum had a very detailed plan, hundreds of pages long.
The other issue is the British government: that Cameron did in fact not prepare for losing is his biggest blunder, and history will judge him for that.
It's disingenuous to say they "took everything and gave nothing."
Besides, you are counting only EU related expenditures. Are you counting indirect benefits? How much money makes london operating EUR finantial center? And lots of other indirect benefits.
> they have taken everything from the EU, and given little in return
(not edited, that's my original statement)
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lScVfwe-Rp0
If you want to go with the rationalist perspective you seem to be advocating, then the UK government will have to be anti-democratic and strike a deal explicitly against their citizen's declared interests.
(This vote is particularly vexing for me since I'm Irish (voted stay) and now will have to sell my house in order to leave. Quite upsetting, overall.)
And it's not about Germany. It's about 27 countries, some of which don't even like Germany too much right now.
Accepting lots of troublesome unskilled illegal immigrants hurt the German economy, and the workers, but sent a message.
I think I can see a pattern here...
It's the other way around: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/09/germany-imf...
Actually robots will take away lots of jobs. Why do we need more unskilled people in our lands, when soon even the skilled labour will be automatized, and unemployment will grow further?
Except they can. Many Syrian refugees are proficient in English, and many even speak German. There was strong collaboration between German and Syrian universities historically.
(I'm not saying that everyone can read and write, but then again, Western societies have a surprising number of total and functional analphabets.)
And re the automation argument: Automation only takes away medium-skilled jobs. Jobs are for unskilled people because they don't require training, and that's also why they are a poor fit for robots. (Robots don't like irregular situations and need programming for new tasks, whereas you can easily explain a new task to a human worker in a few sentences.)
I always laugh at how people equate more people in a country with growing unemployment rates. If this really worried you, you would move to outlaw procreation, since procreation produces new workers to compete with you about 18 years from now.
Only if the birth rate is above replacement which it isn't in any developed western country.
Let's be clear: it's the UK that felt obliged to send a message.
The rest of Europe's countries does not have delusions of grandeur and feel disenfranchised by foreign workers making minimum wage.
There are many reasons to leave the EU, other than "delusions of grandeur" (the US seems to do pretty well..) and xenophoia. Perhaps the UK wanted to make choices without being slandered like this.
What choice? You can wish that the refugee crisis would not exist, but the choice has been made when deciding whether or not to be the 6th largest weapon exporter.
Acting like an overrun victim now is a bit schizophrenic and it's sad to see 52 percent small minded bigots pulling down a country in this way.
What an astute grasp of politics..
You honestly believe that?
Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful
Do you realise how crazy you people sound? "There's no punishment for leaving the Mafia, you just have to understand the principle that it will be as painful as possible".
The EU has warped into an ideological disease that sees European people's turned against one another by an absolutist religion that sees diversity as a flaw to be fixed and believes its own hype about stopping wars.
The EU does nothing to stop war. If turning Europe into a single country could stop war, there'd be no civil wars, but today the only wars are civil wars.
I have to say, with this kind of attitude, I am even more glad that the UK has left the EU. Who would want to be partners with this kind of spite and hatred?
Has the EU actually said this or is this just what people on the internet are assuming?
But yes, multiple people connected with the EU government have been making statements to this effect: out means out. It is not in the EU's interest to give the UK a more favourable deal than it had before, because that signals to other member countries that leaving has financial benefits.
Be able to set immigration to points based - like the US, Canada, Australia. Why should we discriminate against Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Africans for the EU? I like immigrants and I think they help our economy, but I want this to be run better.
I don't agree with how the EU subsidizes e.g. French farmers at the expense of e.g. African farmers.
To not be a part of what seems to be a failing system and having to answer to the un-elected European Commission, and to therefore avoid being swept along in integration which isn't so good.
It might sound odd, but I didn't vote for leave. But I can see that now that this is what we have, maybe there are some reasons to be positive.
Because EU people are not immigrants. That's the whole point. They are citizens, which happen to be born 1000 km to the east and in a different historic region - but they are citizens. There is no discrimination here because you're comparing apples and oranges.
One day, if globalization advances far enough, we will have the exact same conditions for all (or most) of the world, in some form or another. But brexit is a step back from this, not forward.
Don't you think not having enough local food production to feed the population is a liability of any sovereign nation? Personally, I think there are "strategically important" industries (like food, steel, weapons) that countries need to protect to remain sovereign, by subsidies or other means.
So why are UK's xenophobes more afraid of the Polish Plumber than the Bangladeshi Goat Farmer??? That's what makes no sense to me. If you're going to be scared that your "Britishness" is disappearing, fine - but at least be logical about it. Who's more a danger to your way of life? Someone from 400 kilometers away or someone from 10,000?
This vote will set in motion a chain of events that can reshape politics across the continent. The EU leaders who have little to lose will use their votes to force the UK's main trading partners (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden etc) to start a trade war with the UK, at the same time as the UK is wanting to sign trade deals. This will piss off the populations in those countries. Referendums may well follow there too.
Or other debtor countries in the EU will see this as a chance to possibly get out of the union and "start over" as it were.
Hitler and Stalin will be proud of their heritage.
If the UK leaves this decade, it will be without any deal in place.
"As of date X, all existing EU regulations remain in force. Changes to UK law that overlap with existing areas of EU regulation will result in a notification to the Commission".
Done. There is no need to 'replace' detailed regulation on a thousand topics when, as you observe, it is already implemented in UK law.
Differing regulations create trade barriers and much of the work the EU did was unifying exactly those myriad different and sometimes contradictory regulations. That way someone making something in Germany only has to adhere to one set of regulations (and not, in the worst case, maybe even open different production lines for different countries) if they want to sell something anywhere in the EU.
How does the UK plan to be involved there? Realistically they can't if they are outside. So it's adhere or be out of the common market … this is the UK losing some of their power because they are unwilling to cooperate. Not even ill will involved
This is not the EU trying to do something harmful. If you don't cooperate and participate in something complex like unifying regulation you obviously lose power. It couldn't even be any other way!
I mean, what do you even expect the EU to do here?! Roll over and say that the whole EU will adhere to all UK regulation from now on? Accepting that the UK unilaterally gets to dictate regulation? That’s obviously not fair. The EU cannot give that kind of power to the UK. That would be monumentally unfair to all members of the EU.
It's already fucking hard to unify regulation and it's hard to find a way to somehow respect everyone's interests. How should the EU even react to the UK saying that they don't want to play ball anymore? There is no way except to give the UK an unfair amount of power or less power than they have inside the EU.
And the second solution is the only plausible one to me.
Apparently it looks like the English dont grasp this idea...
To give you a quick introduction to the EU's legislative process... There are three main groups involved in putting together new EU legislation: the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. In terms of democratic debate, the European Parliament is where the bulk of elected representatives sit, with the Council being the 'upper house' (equivalent to the House of Lords in the UK). However, neither the Parliament nor the Council have the power to propose new laws, they can only discuss proposed laws put forward by the Commission. Therefore, it is the Commission that controls the agenda for the EU.
EU Commissioners are not elected democratically. Furthermore, they are required to take an oath to put the interests of the EU first, and not take any instructions from the countries they are from.
In addition to all that, the Commission has very close ties to big business. There are reasons why TTIP and CETA are being pushed forward even with resistance from MEPs. I'd recommend checking out the documentary The Brussels Business for a look into the ways the Commission and big business work together.
Well, they are suggested by the democratically elected governments of the member states and either accepted or rejected by the democratically elected European Parliament.
> Furthermore, they are required to take an oath to put the interests of the EU first, and not take any instructions from the countries they are from.
As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably.
> In addition to all that, the Commission has very close ties to big business.
Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-a-mafia-expert-tell...
We're not talking about some inconsequential civil servants, we're talking about the leaders of the EU. If you want to call the EU a democratic entity, you should at least be able to vote for who runs it.
> "As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably."
The point I was making is that they aren't placed to represent the will of the people that put them in power. They represent whatever pushes the agenda of the EU forward, regardless of whether that serves the member states or not.
> "Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves."
Best of luck with that, with the lobbying machinery that exists in the EU you're going to need it. There are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, in terms of volume it's second only to Washington DC.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro...
The UK and German cabinet (including prime minister/chancellor) are also not elected. Should we not call these democratic entities either?
I'm not aware of the situation in Germany, but I can tell you that in the UK they are elected.
First of all, the leader of each party is elected. There's due to be a Conservative leadership election soon due to the resignation of David Cameron, so you can follow the build up to this election if you're interested in how it works.
Secondly, whilst the positions in a cabinet are selected by the leader of the party, the available pool of people that can be part of that cabinet are all voted for democratically. Therefore, if they do a poor job, they can be voted out at the next election.
In contrast, you have no power to vote out Commissioners who do a poor job, and without that you basically have no power over the decisions they make.
In short, the Commission is not directly elected, but selected and approved or vetoed by elected officials, and can be removed if it loses the confidence of the democratically elected legislature.
If the HoL stopped being anything more than a handbrake on laws it'd be abolished too. And as for the monarchy, well, nobody cares whilst the Queen is so disciplined about staying out of politics. If she dies and is replaced by Charles, and he doesn't change his ways, expect a constitutional change soon after.
It's not a hugely significant thing - maybe costs just a hundred million € per year, or a bit more, not a lot in EU context - but its symbolic nature about the essence of European Union is telling.
I wasn't aware you'd disestablished the House of Lords. It will indeed be delightful not to have the Anglican Church dictating social legislation!
Would you care to elaborate?