Is the EU falling apart...?

[Frownette]

My mother seems to be convinced it is. She hasn't given a compelling reason.

And someone at the Halifax told her that it was!

No, but my mother in law also thinks this. She gets all her news from the daily mail.

There are other countries which may get, if given the chance, vote to leave.

And having lost one of the two net contributors, there may need to be some new thinking about scale and scope of EU activities.

A further Eurozone crisis could sink it.

And global downturn - already on the cards and looking increasingly likely given the protracted China shut down - will exacerbate the difficulties

No - but I did notice with interest that in an EU Member State airport last night, of the 5 lanes open, there were only 2 lanes for EU nationals and 3 lanes for non-EU nationals at immigration/passport control - despite there being at least 4 plane loads in the EU lane (we'd merged with 1 other plane load, and 2 more groups came from at least 2 other gates behind - the big gang coming down the corridor from behind us, and the group coming from a gate on the other side of the corridor that we saw joining the big gang) and about 15 in total in the non-EU queue (which included the 5 airline crew from an EU based plane skipping through). I guess they were expecting a lot of Brits!!

Biddy you've lost me. Brits can use the EU queue at the moment anyway.

As for is the EU going to break up - no. But it's possible that some of its ambitions for ever closer union may falter.

...Immnent collapse any day now.

Fog In Channel: Continent Cut Off!

There is no evidence at all that other countries want to leave the EU.
Three countries are deeply pissed off that their joining has been delayed.
One country has put its talks into the deep freeze.
But no other country plans to make the catastrophic mistake the UK has.

And having lost one of the two net contributors, there may need to be some new thinking about scale and scope of EU activities

Ireland is now a net contributor, UK contributes net around 8 to 10 billion, EU budget is 160 billion, will it make that much difference?

A further Eurozone crisis could sink it

You could say the same about any currency crisis anywhere.

And global downturn - already on the cards and looking increasingly likely given the protracted China shut down - will exacerbate the difficulties

A Chinese shutdown and/or Global recession will affect the UK far more as it has outsourced so much of its manufacturing and our exports are 80% services, the first to be hit in a recession.

I know brexitiers love the idea of a EU collapse but (if it occured) will hit UK extremely hard, we are all interdependent in a global economy, so Leonardo in Yeovil are being badly affected because the US is insisting S.Korea buys US 'coptors not UK ones... special relationship and all that!

UK was for many years one of the two major net contributors along with Germany. The Dutch and Scandis are all net contributors, and now so are the French in an increasingly big way. (Which some would call Karma.)

I think the EU will get stronger now that it doesn't have Britain sabotaging from within with it's pesky veto.

At present the UK looks more likely to fall apart than does the EU. What a surprise.

I thought that Spain was on the point of becoming a net contributor too.

Hmm, they need us more than we need them.

I agree the UK is more likely to fall apart.

But I disagree that the UK has been sabotaged the EU. It hasn't, and it's a fallacy to claim that it has. It has often argued for rules to be different, because it generally complies with them, whereas other countries, perhaps being a bit more cute about these things, say yes ok and proceed to ignore. Eventually they might have infraction proceedings against them but that's many years down the line.

Yes the UK vetoed a few things but some of the smaller member states were quite grateful. Once the EU expanded there was a lot less opportunity to use the veto because of qualified majority voting.

The UK was goldplating a lot of EU legislation at one time.

The EU will be glad to get rid of Brexit/right wing Tory MEPs. I imagine it will miss a lot of the British officials who couldn't get EU passports in time to stay employed by the EU institutions.

@leghairdontcare my mother reads the daily mail as well

Three countries are deeply pissed off that their joining has been delayed

Not sure Brexit is to blame for that. Didn't France veto their entry (one of the things you can still veto, and rightly so).

The UK is the 2nd largest net contributor. The French have been net contributors for decades.

Per capita the UK is about 5th or 6th.

Gross contributions 3rd.

Poland is due to be a net contributor from the round of spending from 2027 as are others.

@Frownette

Mil also thinks polish people steal swans to eat and that there's more domestic abuse these days as women are more annoying than when she was young. Make of that what you will.

I thought it was Romanians who ate all our swans while the Kosovans went for the pigeons?

I thought the Poles were polishing (!) off all the carp?

(As any Pole will tell you, a carp from the river needs to be kept alive in clean water for a week before it's edible.)

I don't think many Remainers/Rejoiners think that the EU has sabotaged the UK. I imagine many think it's the other way round.

I think they are tightening up the rules about eligibility to join and length of establishment of democratic processes before you can apply. While I don't rule out economic or political problems in the EU, I think the UK is closer than it's ever been to breaking up.

They are not breaking up and a lot of EU countries will prosper as Companies move staff to other countries ( I am moving all my staff out of the UK at the moment) and countries will choose to buy goods and services from their countries than the UK.

@leghairdontcare what, is that because they speak more?

It's quite frightening what some people come out with.

@cologne4711 are you trying to say they'll be glad to see the back of Nigel Farage...?

This is from last year but I don't imagine it's changed much - it's not as if Brexit has suddenly become a huge success!
www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-eu-survey-italy-ireland-portugal-eurosceptic-poll-a8888126.html%3famp

there's more domestic abuse these days as women are more annoying than when she was young. And women are using food banks and becoming homeless because these days they think they are entitled to as many children as they want and they spend all their money on dying their hair, botox and plastic surgery according to my Mum. All this whilst her generation had a culture of sacrifice and would never have children until they had the money to support them.

I pointed out that in our village a fairly large proportion of families living in deprivation when I was growing up had 5 or more children and my peers from those families (I was used to that rancid smell of old unwashed clothes, although it could be very high when sharing a cubicle on Brownie / guide swimming night) all got pregnant as early as they could in order to force their choice of man to marry them (a culture that applied in all surrounding villages and possibly went back hundreds of years). There was a particular scandal when one of the girls picked on the son of one of their middle class friends. She genuinely looked completely blank. Those Daily Mail rose coloured specs for looking at the past are incredibly effective.

The EU wanted to bring in controls to stop Chinese steel being dumped on them. The UK vetoed it. The welsh steel industry collapsed. The UK blamed the EU.

The EU wanted to bring in tighter rules for the movement of workers. The UK vetoed it. Then blamed the EU for the UK's uncontrolled immigration.

I think; China, Japan, Russia and the US want the EU to topple. Reasoning is;

Germany has the largest trade surplus in the World. Even larger economies like China and Japan, who have trade surplus, don't come close to that of Germany. Toppling the EU first and then imposing tariffs on imports from Germany will boost domestic demand in China, Japan, Russia and the US.

Even the EU is drained by Germany. Take a look at;

financialtribune.com/articles/world-economy/91287/german-trade-surplus-burden-on-eu-partners