What has the EU ever done for you?

[jasjas1973]

With all this doom and gloom, i thought i'd start something a little positive...
For me its travel and food.

I can travel around europe as easily as i can the UK, we've EHIC, one currency, i ve worked in Sweden and found love! picked fruit in france, worked in a bicycle shop in Mallorca.
I remember what a PIA it was pre EU, open skies flights, no tunnel, loads of different currencies and border checks, green cards, travel insurance and before anyone says it - i'm not middle class by any means, i left school at 16 and my mum was on benefits.

Then there is food, in the 70s Spagbol was considered adventurous cooking, now look at what we can find in our shops plus a load of euro cooking programs.

Oh and then there is trade, my friend can export to 17 EU countries from Plymouth as easily as he can to Luton or Hull & trade disputes are easily settled.

We've also had a load of worker rights regulations, not least the Working time directive, which gives many a max 48 hr week, many employers inc mine would happily see their work do far more.

AIBU ?

It allowed my dh's parents to meet and marry in the UK. It then allowed him to be educated here and for us to meet at university. So on a personal level without the EU I wouldn't have my family. I now have the continued stress that at some point my own government may remove my husband and my (British) children's father.

European court of human rights is pretty good. Be a shame to lose that.

Erasmus scheme - I got to spend a year in France studying.

So being able not to be here is the best thing

Prefer to see it as the EU has broadened the avg brits outlook on europe... good and bad.

No one can deny that travel is far easier than before and considerably cheaper, the open skies agreement made the low cost carrier possible.

Of course there is the counter argument that it has impacted negatively the environment :(

Just to clarify, the ECHR is nothing to do with the EU, atm we will still stay in but many tories want us to leave that too, makes deportations easier.

Workers rights is the main thing. I used to work in a company where annual leave was 15 days and we didn’t get any statutory holidays. It was a 24/7 365 business. They then had to increase our holidays under eu directives. Maternity rights are there due to EU ruling, did standards, safe medicines....

Paid massive amounts of money towards regeneration which paid my salary for 10 years
Clean beaches
Good food quality
Good workers rights
Easy travel
and most importantly of all and normally forgotten

THE LONGEST PERIOD IN 1000 YEARS WITHOUT A MAJOR WAR IN EUROPE !!!!!!! (BALKANS EXCEPTED)

Let all their criminals roam freely in this country...r

So you can't think of one good thing the EU has done for you?

You have no children and therefore benefitted from maternity leave?

You have no job and therefore benefitted from the holidays, working time directive?

Just two examples of how you could have benefitted

Yep my DP is Spanish, met him in the UK whilst he was working here in hospitality

I'm an ardent remainer but some of these things would have happened anyway, the UK was not a backward country - it may have seemed so in hindsight but my extended family was raised in Europe and the UK was way ahead of their home country in many ways.

The biggest thing for me is that it promoted peace, co-operation and prosperity with and amongst our nearest neighbours. That is priceless.

Helped fund the regeneration of my city, and lots of others across the UK
Workers rights
Maternity rights
Create peace & stability across the region
Influence other countries and set out a model of cooperation
Ease of travel across the continent
Some of the best food & drink now easily available
Saturday night foreign language dramas on BBC 4

Allowed me to study at universities in three other European countries as part of my degree.

Nonsense, that is down to our poor border infrastructure and lack of policing to deport criminals, which is easily allowed under eu law and well as ours.
All passports are checked on entry to the UK.

Not being in the eu means we do not have access to eu criminal databases, so in future, a french peadophile can turn up at Dover as a holiday maker, be allowed in and then stay here for 90 days or illegally even longer.
Brexit makes us less safe.

£30K grant for our village shop when the Post Office closed the branch.

But yes, most importantly, peace.

Scientific research relies heavily on cooperation between the EU countries. I sometimes work with one of the top cancer research facilities in the UK/world and the majority of their scientists are from EU countries rather than from the UK. Undoubtably it would be near impossible to recruit all that talent from the UK alone, if immigration became an issue.

Cheap and easy flights to destroy the environment yay

Nato is responsible for peace

Local city was European capital of culture over a decade ago and this helped kick start a huge urban regeneration after years of decline. It helped friends and family with employment opportunities and made the area a great place to live. There is now a thriving tourist economy and there is always interesting events being held regularly.

Nato doesn't create the kind of co-operation and shared visions created by the EU.

Made it easy for DH to take up a role in another EU state.

Made it easy for our family to move to another EU state.

Stepped in an knocked heads together when our host nation started messing about with our rights.

Ensured we received healthcare on the same basis as locals. Especially important as DD became seriously ill and now under threat because of this feckin disgrace of a government.

Made it easy for us to still buy the stuff we like from the UK.

Allowed me to keep my driver's license in my host state.

Funds loads of historical sites which we like to visit.

Allows us to bring our dogs with us every time we visit the UK.

I could go on ...

Helped us have a customs free, tariff free system with a large economic clout to take on the world.

So many things have been given to us as a whole- clean beaches, roaming, employment law, food hygiene etc..: but I have benefitted personally from living and working abroad, my wonderful European friends and an amazing doctor

This thread is four years too late ....

This thread is four years too late ....

True - as the saying goes You don't know what you've got until you haven't

paddington NATO is not designed for 'shared visions', apart from keeping the peace in Europe since 1949. Did you know that NATO was 70 this year?

NATO certainly does create cooperation - have a look at the list of NATO allies and partner countries. Anything strike you about a lot of them? Oh yes, they are EU Member states, and in many cases, becoming a NATO ally can be seen as a precursor for becoming an EU member state (apart from a couple of cases).

NATO creates both large scale cooperation (Canada and the US are not in the EU, but are in NATO, the same applies to Turkey), as well as smaller scale, so FORACS for example, and the Heavy Lift capability in Hungary. It isn't the EU flying missions over the Baltics, it is NATO allies.