What were the pros and cons of being in the EU when we joined and how has that changed over time?

[SistemaAddict]

I'm too young politically to know life before the EU. As a teen or young adult I remember the Fail running an article about Brussels dictating our bananas and the advent of kilos instead of pounds. I grew up with pounds and ounces but have no clue on how much a gallon is or how to work in feet and inches but my late dad was a pro. Working in tens seems much more sensible to me but for recipes I use imperial as it's how I learnt to bake.

Anyway, other threads have got me wondering how things were before we were part of the EU and how things have changed since? Areas like business, health, education, science, travel, safety, standards (I liked the kite mark-will we get it back if we leave?) leisure, justice, defence, anything else you can think of.

I wish my dad and grandparents were still alive to ask. I suspect they'd be Leave voters though as they were staunch tories. Since my dad died my mum has become all too aware of how the tories have shafted the chronically ill and not well off and is no longer a Tory voter.

Brussels dictating our bananas was a Boris Johnson lie. Bananas are graded but the legislation was introduced to protect the people growing and harvesting the bananas from things like spraying with dangerous chemicals. Others are better informed on this than I am.

Metrication is absolutely nothing to do with the EU. It was first proposed in this country in the 1850s.

Travel was more difficult - W Europe didn't require visas, but there were currency restrictions.

Health and education are nothing to do with the EU.

Science has benefitted enormously from EU co-operation which is now being jeopardised.

My thinking on health and education was to do with healthcare staff and uni staff from the EU. My local hospital regularly recruited nurses from Spain for example. Students from here going to EU unis and vice versa-was this not as popular as it is now as another example?

I know the banana thing was bollocks and to do with standards thanks to someone who posted about it many moons ago on here, it's just that I remember Brussels getting the blame for it 🙄 I'm sure metric was the EU's devil according to the press too.

Metrication most definitely wasn't to do with the EU, nor was decimal coinage, although I haven't heard Rees-Mogg calling for Pounds Shillings and Pence to be reintroduced.

Prior to the NHS and the FoM the UK used Commonwealth and Irish citizens to prop up the health service.

I believe when the U.K. joined the then European common market, it was basically a trading deal where goods and services were freely traded as now. I don't know about free movement of people but I assume it was the same. The countries in the EU like France and Germany were mainly traditional democracies. Payments into the EU were fairly fair, with countries getting pretty much out what they put in.

What I believe changed was integration of Eastern European countries resulting in richer countries (inc us) making larger payments to develop these new member countries. Plus the free movement now resulted in a huge influx of people from these poorer countries into Europe, which was not the previous case. The EU as an organisation has also expanded massively in its cost, bureaucracy and ambitions (inc a proposed eu army), as well as an increase in laws applying to such things as employment, overruling a country's own legislation.

There are pros and cons to both these situations.

At the time of decimalisation planning, the Conservatives opposed Harold Wilson's proposal for a hundred new pennies in a pound and wanted instead to scrap the pound. (Yes, Tories wanted to scrap the £) and replace it with the New Shilling, the equivalent of 10p.

The EEC (as was) did not impose metrication but did force the UK to regulate weights and measures by law where prevoiusly things could be sold in whatever units a seller offered; rods, poles, perches, bushels & pecks, quires and reames, etc.

Just asked my mum and she can't remember ordering anything in a bushel, peck, pole or whatever! I think you're talking Middle Ages

Pounds, ounces, shillings, and pounds and that was it.

And feet and inches

Decimalisation was 1971 I think so predates joining the EEC/EU.

I don't care about what Britain was like in 1960s, tbh. Things EU made happen that I noticed since 1991...e

It Used to be, You went to Europe & had to deal with lots of currencies. You might not use that currency again so just chucked the leftover coins into a charity bin at the end. It wouldn't be useful money next time you went on holiday. Lots mental juggles doing currency conversions. DM was a defacto 2nd currency in many eastern European countries.

Data roaming: we had high charges. But EU ended that.

I don't understand what automatic 'free' international health insurance or mutually recognised pension schemes there used to be before EU standardised all that.

On negative point, once up on a time we could click on websites & just proceed to browse No constant asking for permissions related to personal data or cookies (I am so fed up with all that).

OP the kite mark hadn't gone anywhere www.google.com/search?q=kitemark&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-m

Leaving the EU doesn't mean going back to the 70s. Time has moved on. No one in industry would want to change machinery etc to use imperial measures or make non-EU compatible products.

The pros and cons of the EU over time is a big question! The core principle is that the more closely tied economies are, the less likely conflict and war is. The EU started out to link the major wwii nations so they would fight again (Germany and France especially).

For countries that lived under soviet rule, the EU stands for freedom to move around and protection against Russian influence.

All the fiddly rules are aimed at creating a level playing field so countries can trade easily and smoothly.

I'm old. Yawn.
The question is No Deal or Not.

Shillings ended long before we joined the EU. More yawn.

I don't know about free movement of people but I assume it was the same.

No it wasn't. Europe had internal borders until Schengen. People still went to Europe. (it was always said that they could recognise the Brits by their M&S clothing). Europeans still came to the UK.

Showing my age I was a Saturday girl in Woolies during decimalisation - was paid 19/6 a day pre decimalisation and got a pay raise to £1.08 after it! We still sold things in lbs and ozs, gallons and pints. As far as I was concerned you could go to Europe pre EU but I remember not being allowed to take much money which I think was a Wilson Gov. think as they wanted to keep the currency in the UK. We always had immigrants in the NHS but they would be from places like Ireland, the Caribbean or the Indian sub continent.
People didn't put their foreign currency in charity buckets lljkk - that wasn't a thing. If you went to France, you would probably be going back. Or if you went to Spain every year no problem. It was always handy to have change as you needed it for pay phones to phone home with or pop in a supermarket trolley.

I grew up in the EU before schengen and the EU. You had to accept long queues at borders if you were driving through, various currencies, working abroad was a often a choice of emigrating for life and not doing 2 years here and 5 there because all the systems of pensions, contributions, payments etc were not speaking to each other. Having a nurse or a doctor not from your country raised deep suspicions (surely they degree was different from your degree and they didn’t study as well as doctors would do in your own country?)
In engineering, every country had a separate code using different methods to calculate buildings, so if you would move between countries you’d know absolutely nothing about the local way. Now the method is the same, but each country has their own national parameters to “adapt” it.
If you were buying a material from a different county, you would need to understand if its properties were tested and how, and for things like fire resistance there were a million different codes, all providing a rating with similar letters but meaning different things. Now you have a CE marking and a EN standard that guarantees to you the stuff you buy from anywhere has been tested with the same methodology.
Every country can then prescribe to meet different rating, but at least you know the method to test the thing is the same

And on the note of pensions, it might go back to where we were: apple.news/A-9I2OzbvRTeZG7sKb04q2Q
New taxes on pensions
Presently, the transfer of money from UK pension savings to schemes overseas are subject to a 25% tax by the UK government—unless they are to countries in the EEA.
It is not clear if no-deal Brexit, which entails leaving the EU and EEA, would mean pensioners in Europe will face a transfer tax, but it is a possibility. If not immediately then perhaps in the future

When we joined, it wasn't the EU, it was the EEC and it was very much a trading bloc.

Our membership was confirmed by referendum in the 1970s (inconvenient truth for thise who try to paint the 'older' generation as against 'Europe' because at the time they were counted, the majority were in favour of trading bloc, and the free movement of goods, services and people.

What changed? The move from EEC to the EU and a wider European integration policy. The main landmark being the Maastrict Treaty of 1992, and political divisions have widened ever since then.

Arguably, it should never have come into effct, as the Danes voted against in it in a public referendum.they were persuaded to vote again until they returned the 'right' result. Which fatally undermined the idea that nations would not be badgered/forced to cooperate with closer integration regardless of what the democratically expressed views of the population.

We really should have had our EU referendum then - it did.not risk EEC (which everyone was happy with), but might have halted the closer integration, the undesirability of which has been a key factor in refer dim result now.

"It is not clear if no-deal Brexit, which entails leaving the EU and EEA, would mean pensioners in Europe will face a transfer tax, but it is a possibility"

Highly unlikely - once you are already drawing your pension you cannot change it to a different scheme. This could affect those who are still deciding where to place their funds, and makes some overseas choices a little more expensive on transfer. They might however still provide the best return - as anyone who has transferred all/part of their pension to emerging markets, Asia etc has already chosen as best.

I don't know about free movement of people but I assume it was the same

No it wasn't. Europe had internal borders until Schengen. People still went to Europe. (it was always said that they could recognise the Brits by their M&S clothing). Europeans still came to the UK

This isn't exactly what 'free movement" means. It's not ability to cross borders without passport control. It is the right to travel, and settle/seek work and this did come in with EEC. Visas and work permits have not been needed for any EEC (or later EU) country.

Farahilda I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. If the government imposes a 25% tax on your funds the day you transfer them (to merge them with something else? That’d be the case usually) how do you recuperate that 25% loss?? If you do it close to your pension age, I don’t see a way

Example: I have a few years of pension contribution to a EU state fund, 15 years of pension contribution to the U.K. state funds, and 15 years of private pension schemes. And in 15-20 years time I was planning to retire and move to another EU country where I have family ties.
Pre brexit the “only” pot of money I was considering wasted were the first bit- because under 10 years you can’t merge EU pension funds at the moment. But I was hoping at some point things would improve...now do I also have to assume that a quarter of the other funds can be taken by taxes?