Off Topic Political Debate

Apologies, i have got my facts incorrect about Britain bailing greece. I believe the EU are paying Turkey so everyone in the EU is contributing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...rs-meet-to-discuss-migrant-crisis-latest.html

 

What is I think missing from our debate so far is the left wing attitude to the EU. We have pictured the supporters of Brexit as all coming from the one area of little England, reactionary politics - so why is someone like George Galloway supporting it ? We do not know how left wing supporters from the Labour party will behave at this coming referendum, whereas most other things are predictable. Seen from the left the EU is driven by big business (what has been described as a very corporate coup) as witnessed by the secrecy of the TTIP negotiations. We have seen unprecedented levels of austerity imposed upon Greece - together with enforced privatization of national assets (the very reverse of the Keynesian economics which Corbyn favours). Also EU. rules on state aid could make it difficult to renationalize on a large scale eg. power. Many on the left were in favour of the EU. during the time of Thatcher because it blocked some of her excesses - however, it could also block a left leaning government. To be honest, I want to stay in because a Britain outside could lurch to the right, could become the dirty man of Europe (if freed of EU. environmental regulations), and would preserve precious little sovereignty if forced into closer contact to the USA or China. However, if Britain were left of the rest of the EU. then I might view it in a different way.

 

Britain has contributed to Greek bailouts in the past.

 

Can you quote examples or proof here - all bailouts of Eurozone countries are done by the Eurozone itself.

 

The UK is, of course, not exposed to Greece via any eurozone rescue loans (laughable to call them loans). It is, however, owed money because of its contribution to IMF bailouts.

UK banks are still owed about 10 billion euros.

 

Which has, of course, nothing to do with the EU. if it goes via the IMF.

 

It has because the Greek tragedy was created by the eurocrats following political dogma not sensible fiscal policies. In their rush to create a superstate they failed to use their brains and follow their own guidelines.

 

Careful Cologne, asking for facts on this thread is dangerous - but on reflection you will probably be OK as the abuse is very selective!

 

Exactly the case. Problem with directives is that countries have flexibility in implementing them that leads to inconsistencies and difficulties for multi-nationals to implement them. Over the years, I have had massive problems trying to develop and deploy solutions without massive process variation for some of these directives.

 

Seems that free trade within the EU is somewhat dependent on which countries are involved:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35982736

I suspect that like British Beef and Sheep, nothing will be done about it though...

 

That article has absolutely nothing to do with the EU.

Desperate stuff from you w_y, although I'm not surprised...

 

Would you take coals to Newcastle ? The French and the Italians already produce about 60% of the World's wine. Yet we have ritual exchanges of the same products between these 2 countries and Spain - all of which is carried by lorry across either the Alps or the Pyrenees and significantly increases our Co2 emissions. Most of the French prefer to drink French wine, the Italians, Italian and so on - so why this exchange. To me this is the free market gone too far - a country should not be importing a product which it has itself, in abundance.

 

David Cameron intervened personally to prevent offshore trusts from being dragged into an EU-wide crackdown on tax avoidance, it has emerged.

In a 2013 letter to the then president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, the prime minister said that trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as companies.

The EU planned to shine a light on the dealings of offshore bodies by publishing a central register of their ultimate owners but, in a letter unearthed by the Financial Times that remains publicly available on the government’s website, Cameron said: “It is clearly important we recognise the important differences between companies and trusts … This means that the solution for addressing the potential misuse of companies – such as central public registries – may well not be appropriate generally.”

The prime minister’s personal involvement in the EU-wide debate emerged as he continued to face questions about his family’s connections to Blairmore Holdings Inc, the offshore trust set up by his late father, the existence of which was revealed in leaked papers from the database of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The prime minister’s spokeswoman said that Downing Street had responded to allegations about Ian Cameron in the past.

When asked earlier if there was still any family money invested in the fund, a Downing Street spokeswoman had said: “That is a private matter.” But subsequently No 10 has issued a series of clarificatory statements.

Cameron made cracking down on tax avoidance a central theme of Britain’s presidency of the G8 group of wealthy nations in 2013, and the proposal for a central ownership register was one of the proposals discussed at the Lough Erne G8 summit in June of that year.

But when some in the EU wanted to extend the same principle to trust structures, Cameron said in his letter to Van Rompuy that tax authorities were already “gaining access to more information than ever before on trusts, especially offshore trusts,” through information-exchange agreements with tax authorities in different countries.

 

to be fair, there must be a market for this as someone wouldn't be doing this if they couldn't sell it and make a profit.

Not a wine drinker myself, but this is a luxury item which people drink as a pasttime so you have different grades and quality. your analogy for coal to newcastle is somewhat different as this is a practical material used for heating and so doesn't necessarily translate to we need specific coal grades brought to newcastle as coal is just coal and is used for burning for power/heat etc etc.

In a world of globalisation, unfortunately people will do whatever means necessary to make a profit, especially in our more self centred style western lifestyle

 

So you are justifying criminal actions by the French against products that have free movement within the EU because of it's environmental impact? If that was the case, then you would accept that any product grown or produced in one country should not be freely exported to another country that already grows or produces it? Surely this is denying one of the key pillars of the EU i.e. the free movement of goods?
Britain produces white wine (debate on the quality is welcome), does that mean that French, Italian & Spanish white wine should not be free to be imported into Britain? Same for fruit, vegetables and salad stuff?

 

The problem lies with the fallacy that the EU is one big happy family. The Germans basically look after themselves as do the French. None of them adhere to the rules as we do in the UK. There is more division between countries within the EU than there would have been without the integration.

The french illegal actions against other nations, whilst the French government turn a blind eye, just shows the weakness of the present system.

We need to bail out of their corrupt system.

 

That post makes no sense.

So what about the 'sovereignty' crap that most brexiters go on about?

 

You should know me by now W_Y. I would do more or less anything for environmental reasons, because I believe Co2 reduction to be the single most important problem facing our planet. For this reason I very much respect the Swiss for saying that all transit freight should go by train through their country. A country should not be importing those products which it produces itself, unless their own production is insufficient or if the incoming products are of better quality - which is not the case between Spanish and French wine. If I go to the local drinks market here nearly all of the beer on sale is German (possibly because only Belgium has better beer). The French are very 'local' in their thinking - most regions only have recipes which use local products, and that is how it should be - and also the reason why French food has such a good reputation. For me the EU. is not a reason for having unnecessary goods permanently winding their way through the continent and choking the environment with their exhaust fumes - there are better ways of creating jobs than this. We need to be looking at sustainable models which abandon the concept that all growth is good, or that all trade is good. Since the year of my birth the weight of freight (measured in ships tonnage) has increased 400 times over Worldwide - rarely do we ask if our standards of living have increased at the same rate. You can well say that this creates jobs - but does it ? You only have to look at the way eg. containerization has destroyed the need for dockyard workers and reduced the number of crew on board ships to see that increased trade can actually destroy jobs. If we are to take the challenge of global warming seriously then we need also to be looking at means of raising levels of self sufficiency, and not simply repeating the mantra that globalization is a fact and inevitable (which it isn't).

 

But I'm sure you do not really condone criminal activity! But I agree with much of what you say and I would extend it to saying that the EU pillar of the free movement of goods enables this...

 

You cant have it both ways ,You say they will play by the rules if we come out ,But they have not done so in the past ?