SPD sellout complete: Merkel becomes chancellor

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by C0ckney
when you look at things that france supports, like a common EU foreign policy and tax harmonisation, a number of things become clear. an common EU foreign policy is an unworkable idea, largely motivated by a juvenile desire to 'stand up to america'. the french when they talk about an 'EU' foreign policy, what they mean is french foreign policy imposed on 25 countries, the clearest evidence of this was chirac's 'they missed a good opportunity to shut up' outburst, when several eastern european countries expressed support for the iraq war.

In case you don't know, the idea of a common foreign and security policy is not only a French one. The current French leadership actually hesitates between bilateral agreements and foreign policy on the supranational level. Unlike Berlusconi's Italy, which pushed to give more power to the EU foreign minister in the constitution talks.

But we were speaking about collective mentalities. And we were speaking about whether the New Members can want some abition for Europe. Click here: http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opi...63/eb63_en.pdf and look at the page 67. Obviouly, the 78% of Poles who want a common foreign policy geared toward other countries are just juveniles wanting to stick it to the US. It is obviously the same with the 88% of Cypriots, or with the 69% of Spaniards (more than France, whose 65% are actually below the EU average of 67%).

OTOH, the fact that only 44% of the Brits want such a thing, less than any other European country including neutral ones, shows the great ambition that the average Brit has for Europe. Britons

[Spiffor]

Oh, another interesting stat, to show how the Brits differ from the rest of the Europeans on about what the EU should do.

For the Brits, the fight against unemployment shouldn't be a EU priority. Only 14% think the EU should care about this. This is significantly lower than the 4 other countries that score low (NL 23%, Eire and Denmark 24%, Romania 25%).
But it is much lower than all the other 25 countries, which range roughly from 40 to 60%, regardless of whether they're new or old members. Oh, and the spike of 79% in a country so very close to British European conceptions as Poland.

Besides, the Brits are much less interested by the Euro than every other countries, including those that don't have the Euro yet, those that aren't part of the EU yet, and even those that have actually rejected the Euro per referendum. (Edit: I am unfair. Turkish Cyprus is on the same level)


The British great ambition for Europe is all about fighting terrorism (only the Spanish and the Turks give it a similarly high priority, all the others give about three times less importance) and fighting illegal immigration (only the Maltese are in similar levels).

What an amazing ambition The Brits really are about creating a Europe that goes far This is definitely the future

Source: page 32.

[Az]

Spiffor is performing solidly against numerous opposing forces

Good job.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Colon
Ever bothered to check Blair's track-record? There's that half-hearted devolution reform, that spending splurge on health-care and public services, the so-so Iraq-war, and next to that...? Not much I can think of. You didn't exactly presented a massive list of reforms of Reagan either.

I don't particularly like Schröder either, but I just find your venom towards him hard to understand.

Minimum wage?

Spiffor's gone off the deep end, again. Poor guy.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Sandman


Minimum wage?

Spiffor's gone off the deep end, again. Poor guy.

Minimum wage (or piles of new red tape that have risen under Blair's watch) is not what Dan would consider as a beneficial reform.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by C0ckney


the same charge could be made about france, except that it would actually be true. britain's primary interest in the EU is free trade, which benefits everyone.

when you look at things that france supports, like a common EU foreign policy and tax harmonisation, a number of things become clear. an common EU foreign policy is an unworkable idea, largely motivated by a juvenile desire to 'stand up to america'. the french when they talk about an 'EU' foreign policy, what they mean is french foreign policy imposed on 25 countries, the clearest evidence of this was chirac's 'they missed a good opportunity to shut up' outburst, when several eastern european countries expressed support for the iraq war.

when it comes to tax harmonisation, this is a device for the big uncompetitive economies (read: france and germany) to stifle the more dynamic ones. you can bet your life that france doesn't want everyone to adopt estonia's 20% flat tax! i've heard you describe the impact of the new member's liberal economic and tax policies as a race to the bottom, france doesn't want to engage in this, because it is a race that it can't possibly win, and instead will try to get others to handicap themselves. i think that the new members see right through this.

you seem to think that there is something wrong those who don't wish to surrender, being french i suppose that comes naturally i think there's a lot more wrong with those who would give away their sovereignty so casually.

Only a very little group in Denmark has wet dreams of France controlling EU foreign policy. Tax may be tempting, but not that much. Sovereignty is a serious matter wich we don't play easily with, and lastly, we don't want to destroy our society by being forced to adobt french/german labour policy.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Sandman
Spiffor's gone off the deep end, again. Poor guy.

Tsk, you still haven't understood why I treat the Brits the way I do

In all non-Europe threads, my attacks on the Rosbifs is pure banter. I know that you guys will respond in kind anyway, so I'm just having fun hurling insults I don't really mean. It's my way of liking oldie but goldie traditions (and what is not to like in English-bashing ?)

In Euro threads, I take a more serious tone. I really consider that the "pro-Europe" Brits overwhelmingly support just a big free-trade area and little else (or even nothing else). I have felt extremely little emotional loyalty to the idea of Europe among the Brits I could talk to. If tomorrow we had a worldwide free trade area (or even an atlantic FTA), my impression is that the Brits would consider that the EU has no raison d'être anymore.

The Brits seem also seriously obsessive about their sovereignity. It has struck me as extremely hard for the British to accept that Britain could be committed in anything for which it didn't say "yes" specifically. This is why Britain has so many opting-out clauses, which were the first to undermine the unity of the EU. This is why Britain still isn't in Schengen, this is why Britain still isn't in the Euro. And I don't think it'll change anytime soon.

I consider that this sovereignist frisolosity is the main reason as to why the EU is so little democratic. A system cannot be democratic when it's based on haggling. And the only alternative to haggling is to entrust more power to the European Parliament. Problem is, the European Parliament might not reflect the values of your country. And this is why this sovereignist attitude seriously hampers the democratization of the EU, despite the fact that the Brits (and the Danes, and the other usual sovereignists) love democracy in principle.


The British idea for Europe of a free-trade area with as little political coordination as needed, is really abhorrent to me. It's abhorrent because I love the Union and I want to see it go further than it is. But not only that. Such a system would set us at each other's throats (the "race to the bottom" I was speaking about in the other thread).
It may be easy to demonize the French voters when they stigmatised against the "Polish plumber". But in a system of unchecked competition, you are bound to see the resentments only increase. The countries temporarily "winning" the race to the bottom will not understand that so many people hate them in the temporarily "losing" countries (I use the word "temporarily" because the winners will become loser as soon as the loser further reduce their standards in order to take investments and markets from the winner).

A system of unchecked competition, where the political systems barely coordinate themselves, and where no effort is made to make the Europeans closer from each other, is a system that is bound to create hatred. And this is why the British vision for Europe, as it is extremely limited, is horrible for someone like me who hopes that there will never be a major war anymore between European countries.

Remember, free trade isn't a vaccine against war. Europe right before WW1 had an extreme freedom of trade. It also had rampant jingoism and hatred for the neighbour. It's not mutually exclusive. And we should learn from that horrible mistake from the past, and do something different this time.

And I think the British collective mentalities are definitely not up that task. At least not in this generation.

[Ecthy]

Spiffor is talking trash in the first place.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Colon


How good is it to pay 4-5 million people a monthly amount with money taxed from people who do work?

I have to correct myself on this: since it peaked in february this year, the amount of unemployed fell from 4.44 million to 3.99 million in August.

BTW: this is not due people leaving the labour force since the number of employed people rose from 38.37 million to 38.84 million. (thus by more than the number of unemployed fell)

http://www.destatis.de/indicators/e/arb410ae.htm

(alas, it seems people aren't too interested in discussing Germany's labour market )

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Colon

(alas, it seems people aren't too interested in discussing Germany's labour market )

Could it be because it has failed so utterly and are in deep need for reform ?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
A new British-German alliance can from and they can gang up on France.

We'll repeat the Normandy landings...Germany can do it's blitzkrieg thing

[OzzyKP]

Sounds like a plan.

[Jon Miller]

it seems that Britian doesn't really want ot be in the EU that you want to exist Spiffor

and I don't blame them, I wouldn't want to be in it either (if I were in their shoes)

so of course they are going to go for what they want to be in.. and you should not be able to force them to do otherwise..

now maybe their should be two groups, and EU nation state and an EU collection of nations that have free trade and other such nice things

for a nation state to begin out of a bunch of devided nations (like the EU seems to be headed towards in your vision), it really needs the nations which are losing their soveriegnty to be similiar enough to trust others...

and I don't think that many of the nations in the EU are at that point yet (my France is with a number of nations, but there are also a lot of antions (And Britian is one) which aren't as close)

Jon Miller

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


We'll repeat the Normandy landings...Germany can do it's blitzkrieg thing

Yeah, and while you brits and germans are busy with your jobs, a fleet of danish longboats plunders liberates Paris yet another time

[Provost Harrison]

I've always thought that we should snuggle up closer to the EU and stop being a slut with the US...the US is a lousy partner...