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Comment by edvards | Hacker News Reader

If the UK proves itself to be a partner that doesn't want special treatment like before, it sure can be welcomed back by the EU, and if anything it coming back will only strengthen the union by showing that leaving it was considered a mistake in the end.

But I still feel skeptical regarding Brits and British politicians actually being ready to accept the fact they're not special and that they will not have special treatment. I am pretty sure they'll want to pull a sneaky and try to sneak something in to calm down the Tories.

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Well only even the most pious remainers would accept the Euro as a currency and removing fiscal sovereignty, so it's a total non-starter.

The special treatment for the old guard (German automotive, French farming industries) also needs to be expunged.

> would accept the Euro as a currency

I don't know why this keeps coming up-- joining the EU does not require adopting the Euro.

> I don't know why this keeps coming up-- joining the EU does not require adopting the Euro.

The EU website disagrees:

> All EU Member States, except Denmark, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area. To do this they must meet certain conditions known as 'convergence criteria'.

https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-a...

5/27 states are not attempting to meet convergence criteria (ERM2); there is no mechanism to force states to join ERM2.

Because domestic UK politics wouldn't allow this to pass on technicalities, I mean haven't you learned anything from the build up to Brexit? It would have to be explicit to be palatable, not some technicality that we effectively want to play ball on the Euro, but never really do... Hell, even from the EU side I'd want a honest decision, not political illusion.

I'm not sure what you're even saying. 5/27 states sit outside of ERM2 and are allowed to not progress towards adopting the Euro.

I'm saying a pinky promise (to join the Euro, never to do so) would not be sufficient to reassure the British establishment or electorate of losing fiscal sovereignty. I don't understand why the EU would want this either. It would have to be an explicit "The UK has full fiscal sovereignty".

I don't think Germany and France are getting any special treatment. There might be something for the agriculture or automotive sectors, but it will apply to all countries.

That's precisely why the UK got a rebate, because the subsidies were not applicable to the UK economy, which had a disproportionately low input from farming, thus for our financial input we weren't fairly rewarded.

The UK has had a declining car manufacturing industry also, so the same applies to German industry.

The redistribution of contributions may very well appear fair on paper, but countries cannot simply magic up a pivot to farming and automotive industries as a way to receive funds...

So I guess the EU should just let everyone use pounds as currency.

"60 per cent of Britons now think Brexit was the wrong decision and would vote to rejoin the EU at a second referendum"

Do you think these 60% are unaware that there would be no special deals? And it's 79% of young voters, so even just the demographics will only shift this further, in addition to the ever more obvious data showing just how disastrous Brexit has been, that all the claims were lies.

And what special treatment does the German automative industry get?

It's called the Euro ;)

I'm sortof not really joking but the German export driven economy would have been much harder to maintain with the DM.

LOL.

The Euro was a concession by Germany in order to get France to agree to unification.

Sure, but it ended up benefiting Germany more than anyone else.

One of life's little ironies I suppose.

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