To think Cameron did the right thing saying no in the latest EU vote as that he should go even further and get us out of the EU altogether?!

[runningwilde]

I have always been a Euro sceptic, never liked the idea of the Euro and think that places like Norway and Sweden were very sensible staying out of the EU. Although, of course, there are some very good arguments for being in the EU, I can't help but think we are better off out of it?

Would love to hear what others think about this. Aibu to think like this? Agree or disagree?!

The leader of the French Socialists Francois Hollande has said he won't ratify the latest Eurofudge. And Italy are talking about what would happen in they were to leave the euro the answer is northern Italy would split form them

So it seems not just dave who thinks this is horse shit

Cameron has presented the interests of the City as the interests of the Nation. Yet banking still brings in less than our eviscerated manufacturing industry. Far from making money at the moment they are costing us money. And the investment banks are only a tiny part of the banking industry - most of the people who work in banking are in retail banking or call centres. www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/12/britain-ruled-by-banks

Lol who says that Northern Italy is going to split? The Lega Nord? ahahahahahahah. Where do you read these news? On La Padania? If the Lega Nord tries to split from the rest of Italy there's going to be a civil war Maypole, something I wouldn't rub my hands about.

I live in Northern Italy and I don't want Northern Italy to split from the rest of Italy.

Actually the guardian god forgive me it's in the minutes of the funeral meeting

OK explain how this one works:
EU / EZ countries don't meet the new budget deficit rules and face sanctions : make em pay a fine??? That's really going to improve their njumbers.

What about Greece which, even with the latest austerity plan, if it is followed through to the bitter end (lol), will still be at 120% debt to GDP by 2020?? Will they be fined for the next eight years on the trot? And all the others?

imho Cameron was right to block the deal (EU Commission vetting of national budgets FFS!) but for the wrong reasons. The whole is a crock or shit now we can clearly see how the goats got themselves into this pen in the first place.

I see, I will look for the article you are talking about. You mean Monti said that Northern Italy will split? How bizarre

I can't find it, link? I only found today's account, citing the Northern League intention of forging its own currency...
What would Britain gain with the collapse of the EU?

niceguy2 "....Banks can and do relocate their HQ to suit...."

but where are they going to relocate to that will underwrite them to the
tune of many billions in the case of a default? Some country that will welcome an itinerant foreign bank that is just there while the taxes and regulations are soft, and will pack up their tents and move somewhere cheaper when they fancy it?

The British taxpayer bailed them out last time; the Icelandic taxpayer won't. Do you think Dubai or Hong Kong is going to offer that kind of free insurance?

Who are exactly these EU puppets? Don't you ever vote in European elections?

Yes, I make a point of always voting in the EU elections. I vote for an MEP that represents my region.

I, along with every other citizen of Europe, have never had the opportunity to vote for those who wield the power and legislate in Europe, such as Herbert von Rompuy, Barroso, Baroness Ashdown or any of the British EU Commissioners, past or present, such as Kinnock, Paten, Britain, Mandelson etc.

The fact that they can occupy these elevated, unelected positions unelected which the people of Europe are powerless to remove them from is fundamentally undemocratic.

@niceguy2

Theoretically I am in favour of a Tobin tax. As long as it's applied globally.

Indeed. But there are parties favourable to high finance who are incredibly quick to say 'it can't be done' rather than look into the options open to them

...and it's one thing saying "Ahh it's only 50p per £1000" but when you are doing millions and millions of transactions, that adds up.

As does the profits gained from carrying out such transactions. The idea that a small transaction tax that is a fraction of the profit made from making such transactions is the one thing that tips companies from the black into the red when it's all added up is somewhat disingenuous.

Furthermore....so the way I understand it would work is that this tax would go into the stabilisation fund for the Euro yes? But we're not in the Euro......so we're paying the majority of the money to shore up somebody else's banks. To a fund which we'd never be able to directly use if our own banks went tits up. That I have a problem with.

And it's over this that Cameron should have kept in there and negotiated. Some ideas that spring to mind is an auto-inclusion for non-Euro nations, a fixed time limit on fiscal union controls so that they have to be collectively reviewed. And there's no doubt other areas that can be addressed.

But Cameron just walked away.

@wetAugust

Yes, I make a point of always voting in the EU elections. I vote for an MEP that represents my region.

I, along with every other citizen of Europe, have never had the opportunity to vote for those who wield the power and legislate in Europe, such as Herbert von Rompuy, Barroso, Baroness Ashdown or any of the British EU Commissioners, past or present, such as Kinnock, Paten, Britain, Mandelson etc.

This is called Representative Democracy. It works in the same way as the United Kingdom, where you don't vote for a Prime Minister (you vote for their Party and it's up to them whom they appoint).

You also don't vote for whom that Party appoints to be voting Peers, ambassadors, representatives to the WTO and NATO etc...

What FV said.

You really don't see it do you?

Representative Democracy - is that what you call EU appointed technocratic Govts?

The difference between the EU and choosing a PM is that the PM is chosen by elected MPs - not appointed at a whim (unless of course the Queen has to step in).

If your apathetic views are representative of Italians then I'm afraid you have the Govt you deserve.

We would certainly not settle for this.

Headline in the Financial Times tonight.

EU treaty hopes come under strain: Wavering leaders warn of difficulties on far-reaching pact

It seems other Govts are beginning to say they will have to ask their Parliaments before implementing Treaty changes that allow national budget oversight by Brussels. Ireland will almost certainly need a referendum.

This is beginning to make Cameron look a lot less isolated.

Wetaugust, you don't really have a clue about what's the current situation in Italy, do you. I know most of you are rubbing their hands in anticipation, why are you all so pathetically glad to see other countries collapse?

I've already explained to you how our institutional system works, perhaps in a different thread. But you are fixed on this fascinating idea of a benign dictatorship sponsored by Merkel. I trust my Presidente della Repubblica, who was a partigiano and fought against real dictatorship, you know that little dictator that the UK thought it would be so useful in the 30s against the communists.

I don't have apathetic views my dear, I am just aware of the gravity of the situation. ANd you don't really want people taking to the streets at the moment, because the outcome would be a real populistic dictatorship, would you prefer that?

Totally agree with WetAugust (again). The PM is not only chosen by elected MPs, he is an elected MP himself.

The eurocrats in Brussels etc have been voted in by no-one, chosen by more people like themselves. It is so undemocratic as to be laughable, and now they want power to control the budgets of democratically elected national governments?

Sweden are in the EU. I'm not a fan of the direction that the EU is taking, but you need to understand basic facts like who is and isn't a member before you take a view.

I don't think that the Italians are apathetic politically (and Franca most definitely not!). There may be certain factions that are but if we are going to generalise I find the UK much more apathetic than Italy. My Italian DP always comments on the fact that the Brits define themselves by their work, the Italians by whether they are left or right politically. If you want to talk about why it took so long for Berlusconi to go then that is a whole other thread! If you want to talk re Monti's government then absolutely agree with Franca. Napolitano the president is a good, democratic man. Italy has known true dictatorship in living memory and I don't think they would sit back and let it happen easily again!

I think that it is in Britain's interest to stay in the EU. I also think that it is in the EU's interest if Britain leaves altogether.

There was no alternative to Mr Monti's government.
There was no time to go for elections. And Berlusconi wouldn't have stepped back (despite losing the majority in the Parliament) to let Bersani (the leader of the opposition) form a new govtm.

And there was no way any party could form an alternative coalition to the PDL, because never in history Left/right etc etc have been so unable to compromise, and that's also the result of years of deepening of conflict.

I hardly think the shoo-in (in the absence of any other candidate) of Ashton to head the EEAS is representative of any type of democracy at all. The woman has never been elected to any post at all; buggers off back to UK every weekend, and the EEAS is still in a bloody mess almost two years down the track.

The MEPs didn't vote for Ashton either; and the people who worked in the Commission/Council had not heard of her either.

As for the appointments to NATO; they are a combination of FCO and military personnel; all the UKs ambassadors are professional FCO career diplomats like Mariot Leslie at NATO and the MilRep is now RAF, having taken over when General Bill retired. Of course one doesn't vote for a career civil servant or senior RAF officer; but one should have say in the appointment of people like Barrosso, van Rompuy and Ashton who wield huge amounts of power and our money without our approval.

wetaugust etc and the undemocracy trope...

I think maybe you misunderstand the structure of the EU.

There is the Commission (and all those unelected Commissioners you mention - WHICH ARE CHOSEN BY YOUR GOVERNMENT!) They can propose stuff but not adopt it. THey are the equivalent of Civil Servants, with a bit of a bigger profile. IE think Gus o'Donnell. Certainly not elected.

Then there is the Council, which is made up of ELECTED GOVERNMENTS, including the UK of course. The Council is the one taking the big decisions about the Eurozone, the treaty etc. Barroso and Rompuy are proposers and facilitators not deciders.

On most legislation the Council takes the decision in negotiation with the Parliament, which is made up of ELECTED MEPS.

Although there are issues regarding transparency, power etc, it is incorrect to believe that Commissioners somehow make all the decisions in Brussels. If you dont believe in having an executive you might as well decide to elect all the British civil servants.

For once I actually really don't know... it all does feel like it's gone out of control. I wonder where it leaves the likes of me if Britain is out, but my homecountry is still in

Exactly amicissima. This whole we bailed all the banks out really gets my goat and smacks of ignorance. It's usually followed by some rubbish about spending trillions on them. We spent quite a lot of billions on a few bad banks yes. And the taxpayer provided insurance on their toxic loans and that theoretically could run into trillions yes. But that's assuming they were all bad which is about as likely as Directline waking up to find every car they insure crashed overnight. In actual fact I remember reading (can't remember where) that the guarantee scheme was returning a healthy profit for the taxpayer because it certainly wasn't given free to the banks.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that one of the risks is that the good banks, the ones which managed to survive on their own are the ones who up sticks and we're left with the crap which we had to bail out. Hardly a great plan is it?

As for negotiating more, I guess it's easy in hindsight to say he could have/should have done this. Time will tell how this one plays out.

I remember a lot of debate at the time about us joining the Euro and again lots of people were saying the UK should and we'd be penalised if we didn't. Those people have been proven wrong and it turns out we were right not to join. There's still a good chance we're right about this one.

Like I said earlier, amid all the hoohah about us being on our own, the markets have not been fooled and have realised the plan does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problems with the Euro at all.

The problem is that drastic and decisive action is needed to sort the Euro out. And that's practically impossible if you need to gain the consensus of 27 nations every single time you want to do anything. What is it they say? A camel is a horse designed by a committee. The Euro is the camel.