Two other countries join UK, France likely to lose AAA credit rating...

[heroinahalfshell]

Is Dave about to be proved right???

Which other two countries?

I notice France are moaning we should be downgraded first. A clear case of sour grapes if ever I heard any.

Non Monsieur Noyer....you first.

Hungary and the Czechs.

Now who is being petulant Sarkozy??

And the Dutch and French opposition parties have said that they will renegotiate if elected next year.

And Sweden needs the backing of opposition parties to proceed - currently unlikely.

Technically the French are right though. Our current economic position is indeed worse than theirs.

But what they fail to mention is that since we have our own currency we're a little bit more insulated from the Euro problems than they are.

And they are currently the weakest of the AAA European states. So thats why they're staring down the barrel of losing their status and we're not.

Funny how they've not mentioned the last bit.

can anyone tell me who owns the organisations who decides a country's credit rating ?

Sour grapes on frances part really, lets see how many want more fiscal union now.

And it seems UK has been invited to attend EZ deal negotiations meetings with observer status. Not isolation, then.

I bet it wasn't the French who invited us!

They are like a gold digging hos dating a old man

They despise us but want to get their hands on our money.

Personally I think boris what right Camron has played a blinder he's now in a excellent position to get them to make even more concessions seeing as Germany has lost their side kick

And what says red ed nothing all quite in labour hq

I said It Before camrom is either a genius or crazy time will tell which one

God know what would of happened if we let ed go their he would of signed our lives away and sold the gold silver

Nah, Ed wouldn't have sold our gold. Gordon Brown already did it!

Variations on the EU and Euro have been tried by the Romans, Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler, it didn't work then.

Frumpet Standard & Poor's are and always have been an American company, founded in the 19thC. They provide financial research, including credit ratings for the debt of public and private corporations to lending companies - hence the credit ratings.

HTH.

Yes Minister... March 1980

Sir Humphrey: "Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?"
Jim Hacker: "That's all ancient history, surely."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're on the inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it's just like old times."

Plus ca change, etc....

I think the financial union was just a round about way for Britain to end up bailing out the Eurozone as most of the EU banking industry is based in the UK. If we are going to tax banking the money shoudl go to Britain not the Eurozone. If the Eurozone needs none eurozone countries to bail it out then it is not going to work in the long term, as this is now showing. And although we have the same debt and deficit as France, because we are making and sticking to cuts the credit ratings agencies have more trust in us than france. That is why we can borrow money a lot more cheaply than other countries.
Ireland are also getting cold feet I believe.
But sarkozy has an election next year and at the moment is not doing well in the polls so he needed the treaty more, certainly does not need France to loose its credit rating on his watch, and is trying to stir up national feeling by moaning about Britain to get the popularist vote. He must really hate David Cameron right now.

The issues that Sweden, the Czech Republic and Hungary have had with the deal and their need to refer to Parliaments isn't news. It's been the position all along. As has Hollande's vow to extricate France if that remains a possibility in April.

What has changed is the tone of the reporting, and the continued presence of UK at the negotiations.

It did strike me as ironic, that despite French pleas that they are in better economic shape than UK, it is they who are likely to be downgraded. It's quite interesting that the markets back the country which is free to set it's own future not the one that is tied into a 17 or 26 nation deal.

That's because Edith, out of the 17 Euro countries, only one has any money....Germany.

I liked Peston's piece on why France is at risk of losing its AAA rating.

They'd be better off moaning about the Germans since they prohibit monetisation of debt, instead of anti-UK posturing.

kelly2000 if Ireland joined their banking would collapse every one would moved to northern Ireland why would you operate from Ireland and pay transaction tax when you can move your business to NI still live in the south be home in time for tea It takes about around 2 hours to get from belfast tp the south people do longer commutes to London Ireland knows if we don't joint the hair brain plan they never could every bank and finical company would be off for NI that very day

To be honest, judging by the many posts on the many threads on the subject here on MN, it is the English who despise the french, the germans, the italians, the greeks, the EU, the greedy EU technocrats, the euro, the Brussels posse, etc etc etc...
And lol at comparing the EU to Hitler 3rd reich...

thats a very good point maypole.

Francagoestohollywood To be fair, it is they who are trying to make us yield to their will and not the other way around. If we have a sensible opinion which we hold for honest, decent and thought through reasons what right have they to try and coerce us into a route that we have no wish to go down - even if we may be wrong?

Whether you like it or not, when the independence and liberty of a country is being taken, without mandate, by another country who refuses to take 'No' for an answer, how is that in any way different to the position that Neville Chamberlain found himself in during the years of appeasement immediately preceding World War Two?

?? Two other countries haven't joined the UK - all that's happened is the Czech Republic and Hungary have laid out their positions ahead of negotiations - in which, unlike Britain, they're taking part. The main thing they don't want in it is tax harmonisation in the treaty - and at present it doesn't stand to have tax harmonisation in it, but Germany has been making noises again about it and the Czechs and Hungarians are saying don't try and bring it in the back door, or pave the way for it etc.

They both said they'd take an intensive part in negotiations. How is that comparable to Britain, who's already vetoed and will only have observer status at the negotiations?

In fact, the Central Europeans are pretty disappointed that they've lost the UK as a negotiating ally (interesting article on this - How the UK-EU split impacts Central Europe)

The Czechs are pretty well aware that the UK's interests are different - 80% of Czech exports go to the EU, and there's also renewed concern about Russian influence in the country.