Non - Brexit

SilentWriting said:
I think the Economic and EU Bullying was prevalent in Greece, Switzerland, Netherlands, Catalonia, Hungary and even the Republic of Ireland to name a few.
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Lessons can certainly be learned from the way money was lent to Greece. But the situation is far more complex than "the EU is a bully". It is another leap entirely to say "Germany are pushing us about"

Last time I checked, all EU countries except the UK are still in the EU voluntarily and no-one is being held at gunpoint.
 
Red Sky said:
Lessons can certainly be learned from the way money was lent to Greece. But the situation is far more complex than "the EU is a bully". It is another leap entirely to say "Germany are pushing us about"

Last time I checked, all EU countries except the UK are still in the EU voluntarily and no-one is being held at gunpoint.
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Probably because Germany is still working on getting back their membership of the human race . Would you feel the same if in another 30 years the pendulum has swung back the other way and a nationalist Europe ( Germany and France) are ready to have another pop at Russia .. don’t laugh history has a habit of repeating itself .. repeatedly .
 
Red Sky said:
Lessons can certainly be learned from the way money was lent to Greece. But the situation is far more complex than "the EU is a bully". It is another leap entirely to say "Germany are pushing us about"

Last time I checked, all EU countries except the UK are still in the EU voluntarily and no-one is being held at gunpoint.
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Euro-skeptic movements across Europe (for example Italy, Hungary and others mentioned) will look at our struggle to leave and will be scratching their heads. Which from the EU's point of view, has been entirely the point!
Sure, members could leave of their own accord, on paper. But by their own admission the EU never designed A50 for anyone to actually try using it!

Of course there's every chance the next nation to try leaving could have a better united and more competent / coherent internal political class, which would help the process.
 
wallmth said:
Probably because Germany is still working on getting back their membership of the human race . Would you feel the same if in another 30 years the pendulum has swung back the other way and a nationalist Europe ( Germany and France) are ready to have another pop at Russia .. don’t laugh history has a habit of repeating itself .. repeatedly .
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TBH I'm much more concerned about what is happening the other side of the Atlantic. This country's obsession with France and Germany is weird. It's like the rest of Europe being scared that we'll suddenly want our Empire back and start enslaving the locals again.
 
northstandmark said:
Euro-skeptic movements across Europe (for example Italy, Hungary and others mentioned) will look at our struggle to leave and will be scratching their heads. Which from the EU's point of view, has been entirely the point!
Sure, members could leave of their own accord, on paper. But by their own admission the EU never designed A50 for anyone to actually try using it!

Of course there's every chance the next nation to try leaving could have a better united and more competent / coherent internal political class, which would help the process.
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To be fair to the EU, they have never obstructed our attempts to leave. Our injuries have all been self-inflicted.

A country which is united in wanting to leave and knowing how it wants to leave will have no issue.
 
Red Sky said:
To be fair to the EU, they have never obstructed our attempts to leave. Our injuries have all been self-inflicted.

A country which is united in wanting to leave and knowing how it wants to leave will have no issue.
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Really, the only deal that the EU have offered the UK involves essentially remaining in the EU in all but name. How is this not being obstructive?
 
Red Sky said:
TBH I'm much more concerned about what is happening the other side of the Atlantic. This country's obsession with France and Germany is weird. It's like the rest of Europe being scared that we'll suddenly want our Empire back and start enslaving the locals again.
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why be concerned about over the Atlantic ?be more specific , the US has been scaling back all its overseas operations .

Of course this country is going to be more “ obsessed” about France and Germany than it is Tibet and Zambia , they’re the neighboring powers .. and again I hate to bang on about history .. but we have history with them , and unless your suggesting history has stopped there will be issues again .
 
Red Sky said:
To be fair to the EU, they have never obstructed our attempts to leave. Our injuries have all been self-inflicted.

A country which is united in wanting to leave and knowing how it wants to leave will have no issue.
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Greenland voted to leave with 53% of votes. It took them something like 3 years and all reports suggest it wasn’t easy. We’re a net contributor and the EU doesn’t have many of those. They were never gonna make it easy to leave, especially us.
 
yanh_ said:
Really, the only deal that the EU have offered the UK involves essentially remaining in the EU in all but name. How is this not being obstructive?
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The EU Commission was very effective in negotiating on behalf of the 27 EU states, which were united in their support. The Tory government never knew what it wanted and entrusted David Davis, the man who puts dim in dim-witted, to lead the negotiations for the UK. It is hardly surprising that the Tory government lead by May wasn’t able to negotiate much of a deal. As I have explained in previous posts the Tory government lead by Johnson has only pretended to try and negotiate a deal, for its own party interests.

The current shambles is nobody’s fault but successive Tory governments.
 
dutchcherry said:
I was aware of the other allegations of bullying, eg Ireland and Greece, but not heard of the swiss one and FOM.
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It's the main Swiss-EU disagreement, so the only thing I can think of when talking about EU 'bullying' them. Bullying is probably a bit strong...but the EU have used some carrot and stick. Such as taking Switzerland out of the EU's Horizon 2020 research fund, costing them billions in academic research funding, and then reinstating them later.

As with us, there's been lots of banging of heads against brick walls for years, as internal Swiss politics has swung back and forth. Way more complicated for me to understand or articulate accurately. But broadly they have similar socialist left, and right wing immigration/freedom of movement concerns, together with centrist pro-EU integration proponents, that you'd recognise anywhere in and around the EU.

Swiss-EU relations are governed by a weird hodgepodge of hundreds of little treaties, rather than the large headline treaties we know as full EU members.

To try and square the circle of different political factions, the Swiss have tried to do various deals with the EU to tweak that raft of treaties, to allow them to set limits, quotas or criteria on FoM and schengen arrangements.

The latest round of arguments was sparked by a 2014 referendum that decided in favour of limiting FoM. However whenever they go to the EU and try to renegotiate based on the mandate given by their internal referendum, the EU always say no, as you might expect. As with the UK, the EU says no “cherry-picking” when it comes to access to the Single Market, insisting on freedom of movement and capital, as with good old Blighty here.

So they argue it out round and round in circles, like us.

The right wing want another referendum next year (cos the Swiss love 'em) on ending FoM with the EU outright. No vague language around limiting it. Just ending it. Although it's not clear how that would actually work in practical terms, in the event of the vote deciding to end it (sound familiar?).
 
yanh_ said:
Really, the only deal that the EU have offered the UK involves essentially remaining in the EU in all but name. How is this not being obstructive?
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With all due respect you are wrong. May's deal included leaving the single market and ending free movement with immediate effect. That was the outcome of EU negotations.

It was our parliament that obstructed this.
 
wallmth said:
why be concerned about over the Atlantic ?be more specific , the US has been scaling back all its overseas operations .

Of course this country is going to be more “ obsessed” about France and Germany than it is Tibet and Zambia , they’re the neighboring powers .. and again I hate to bang on about history .. but we have history with them , and unless your suggesting history has stopped there will be issues again .
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Because it is a return to regressive, populist politics on a large scale which plays to peoples' fears.

Sound familiar?

When people get obsessed with France and Germany it is rarely in context of the modern world. For an equivalent proximal comparison instead of Tibet and Zambia, why not the neighbouring powers of Spain, Belgium, Holland, Norway? As I said it’s just weird. And if you spent any times in France or Germany you’d realise they are no closer to the third reich than Jamaica is.
 
SilentWriting said:
after all a lot of remainers did vote remain because they thought it mean't they wouldn't be able to holiday in Spain anymore.
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Dominic, I hadn't heard that one, just made that one up?

It's a bit like the people who wanted to post a protest vote and were surprised that they 'won'.

Also, those people at the poorer end of the spectrum who had nothing else to lose and also voted to leave too. Let's see if they're better off soon?
 
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