The idea that the EU imposes massive amounts of red tape when no other instition I know of has done more to reduce it in the last century is just absolutely mindboggling to me. Is it so hard to grasp that standardizing regulations among dozens of countries with the explicit goals of making it easier to trade, travel, work and live in foreign countries, inevitably leads to reduced red tape?
Yes, I never got the logic behind red-tape argument. EU literally enabled bureaucracy free trade and travel and UK got out and red tape and bureaucracy was introduced. I think they might have eased something about environment and US chicken but I don't recall the details.
After Brexit, you need paperwork to prove that your stuff that you would like to import or export meets the trade agreement criteria(for example, to prevent people from buying from, let's say China, then import it tarif free into EU, you need to have proper documentation proving that most of the value of your product comes from UK). You can no longer hire whoever you think is the best for your business, you need to go through the government bureaucracy first.
It's weird, it's like Texas leaving the USA to get rid of the federal government then doing everything according to the federal government requirements to be able to sell stuff to the USA and hot having a say on it. Why would you do that?
Honestly, I think UK leaving the EU was a loss for EU(the institution) mostly due to the loss of UK input in the governance.
The rest is a tragedy for the young, losing the ability to live and work in EU or UK and chase their dreams. Can you imagine people from different states in the US not being able to move wherever they want?
A couple of weeks ago, my company shipped a piece of equipment from Germany to UK for a trade show. The equipment wasn't sold, and it wasn't an asset transfer.
Now that the show is done, literally nobody in the UK division knows how to ship the equipment back to Germany. It's not that the paperwork is complex, the paperwork simply doesn't exist.
> just ignore the 200 cookie warnings every citizen sees per day
Would you rather be ignorant of the fact that you're being tracked with 200 cookies? Why is it the EU's fault that companies have so much tracking?
Perhaps you should complain to the companies that are sending you the cookies and not the EU that's simply bringing to light a shady business practice.
>Would you rather be ignorant of the fact that you're being tracked with 200 cookies?
Yes? I know I'm tracked and I know I can do nothing about it besides accepting the annoying cookie warning, so it's pretty much meaningless unless there is option Reject All. If you must always allow at least "essential" cookies them it's while warning meaningless.
Either show me no warning or give me Reject all button, nothing in between, otherwise it just shows your incompetence to solve the problem.
It's as meaningful as permanent sign "There is traffic jam on this road", though that sign one would be less annoying.
I always loved in some subway system in Asia regular PSA "There were pickpocketers detected in subway system", really helpful... Dunno whether it was India or HK or somewhere.
It is illegal to make it difficult to "Reject All" and those who do not comply are being fined. For example Google and Facebook:
"The CNIL found that Google and Facebook's failures to make non-essential cookies as easy to reject as to accept invalidated the consent on which the businesses relied. Whereas cookies could be accepted by a single 'click', a number of steps were needed to reject them."
...
"The CNIL stressed that consent must be freely given which implies that it must be as easy for a user to accept non-essential cookies as to reject them."
Those cookie warnings are intentionally annoying, it's malicious compliance in the hopes that people get bored of them and click ok.
If an annoying cookie pop-up does not close (with an opt out) in 2 clicks, it's illegal; that's part of GDPR because of this malicious compliance. (making people click each option individually).
As an outside observer (in the US), my impression has been that this is largely due to the idea that adding another level in the bureaucratic hierarchy (local > regional > national > now also EU) fundamentally means adding more red tape.
Also that a lot of the complaining is coming from the same kinds of people who want government, in general, to be "so small you can drown it in a bathtub", which viewpoint I never really have a lot of time for.
Oh, sure; not in any way attempting to draw a comparison between the two. If it wasn't clear, this is the impression I have of why people (from wherever) complain about EU red tape, not my personal impression of EU red tape.
No, that's not it. The EU has a reputation for red tape and bureaucracy within Europe too, that's not a UK thing. It's a running gag in the game Tropico for example, which is made by a German company.
And there are good reasons for that. The EU likes to "reduce" red tape by replacing country-specific systems with its own. This can be seen as a reduction if you believe everyone in Europe had to handle every other countries systems simultaneously, and there are (mostly business) cases where that was sometimes actually true. But the vast majority of the time it wasn't. Most people, most of the time, were handling only their own countries bureaucracy and trading with firms in their own country, or one or two others at most.
If your country has a relatively lightweight process which is tailored for local needs and well understood by local people, which is then "harmonized" by the EU, it's both possible and common that the amount of red tape in your life increases. The fact that there are now fewer systems across Europe than before doesn't make any difference because you weren't interacting with them anyway.
In the UK there are several reasons why the EU got a really bad reputation for regulation:
1. Many EU regulations are newly created and regulate aspects of daily life where there is no obvious trade benefit and nobody was asking for it. Example: around the time of the referendum the Commission was trying to introduce regulations that would "harmonize" the power of kettles, which would mean they'd take far longer to boil than before. Guess which country boils kettles way more than any other? They quietly delayed the introduction of these rules, because they knew it'd piss off Brits and make them more likely to vote Leave.
2. There have been many cases where something was happening that both voters and politicians thought was obviously stupid, yet, politicians couldn't fix it because EU rules prevented it. An example of this is the deportation of terrorists, which EU rules routinely blocked on grounds many voters thought weren't very good (e.g. right to family life). Again this has nothing to do with reducing bureaucracy or making trade easier, it's just about controlling local decisions.
3. Many EU regulations that annoy people on a daily basis, e.g. cookie banners and voters never cared about any of this. Their priorities have never been internet related things.
4. From the British viewpoint EU rules are often seen as vague and arbitrarily or unfairly enforced. There are many examples that could be used to illustrate that.
Since Brexit there have been a steady stream of situations that fit this template: media/voters get upset about government doing something that looks stupid, government comes under pressure and fixes it, then says "Oh and actually, it turns out the ability to do this is another Brexit freedom that wouldn't have been possible in the EU". Invariably whatever they're doing seems obvious and nothing special, without any obvious reason why EU bureaucracy would have stopped it. This reinforces the impression that there must have been far more EU rules on stuff than anyone realized. It raises the obvious question - how many obvious things weren't getting done for decades, because they violated some rule and so politicians or bureaucrats just ignored them completely? Remember, the iron law of the EU is nobody can fix anything.
On point 2, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the court of the Council of Europe) blocked such deportations, etc. under the European Convention on Human Rights -- nothing to do with the EU.
The ECtHR is tasked with upholding fundamental freedoms like the Convention, the UN Charter of Rights, etc. and is completely separate from the EU.
"In May 2016, shortly before the EU referendum in the UK, the EU advocate general stated that the court was considering whether the European Court of Justice should adopt powers to rule on all cases of extradition of terrorists, a move described by analysts as ‘European Union power grab’ and rejected by most member States (Slack, 2016). The plan played into the hands of Brexit campaigners who used it to campaign against UK remaining in the EU with the former shadow home secretary David Davis (Now BREXIT minister) stating ‘The argument that Europe is somehow improving our security is falling apart in the Government’s hands’ (Slack, 2016). Thus, exit of the UK from the EU will make it easier for the country to deport foreign nationals, both EU and non-EU citizens, that could be of potential threats to the country."
A good example of this is getting your unofficial non-EU partner residency in an EU country as a family member.
For EU citizens applying in an EU country other than their own, it's a fixed 50 euro fee plus the basics of proving a relationship with some simple documentation: cohabitation and mixed finances.
If you're doing it your own country, the process is much, much more expensive and complicated.
Some of my impressions from when Romania joined EU:
- Old communist mines have closed due to environmental regulation. This is good, but it is regulation.
- Food must now be strictly labeled. Again good, but more regulation. For instance, milk has strict packaging regulations and can no longer be sold easily in farmer's markets. This drove the price up.
- Public infrastructure must meet certain standards in order to access EU funds. These regulations are again good. But certain local corrupt politicians fail to get their buddies' company to respect them, so they just use local funds.
- GDPR and EU copyright acts: these are more regulation, which I think is not so good. See my opinions here: https://danuker.go.ro/tag/eu.html
Sorry that people downvoted you - you shared a nuanced opinion based on your experiences, and your comment did not deserve that just because it went against how people feel about the issue. I might not fully agree with the conclusions but that is no reason for the downvotes.
I think where we differ in conclusions is whether or not we think a change in regulations means more regulations. It more likely is fewer but more restrictive regulations instead. This is a bit of a semantic argument however, I admit, but on top of that I happen to mostly agree with the more restrictive regulation in most cases.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful counter-opinion
"Some observers hope that working with European allies on Ukraine could presage a mending of fences with the EU. Peter Mandelson, another former British EU commissioner, noted at a recent CER seminar that Ukraine had shattered the British illusion that it could turn its back on Europe when it comes to security, though he added that it would take a new prime minister to accept this obvious conclusion..."
This seems like an odd statement to me. I was not aware of any UK push to diverge from NATO, only the EU, and NATO is far more involved in security affairs than the EU. In fact, the UK spends more (as a % of GDP) on security than almost any other western European economy; only France comes close.
Polling data suggests otherwise. Support for re-joining has dropped like a stone.
I voted Remain, and that decision makes little sense in retrospect (not none, it was just a lot of the fearmongering turned out to be false).
The bad parts of the EU are far more evident now we are out of it. To most Brits...the EU just seems a bit mad (and did before btw, it was just that many Brits believed the EU would change). I don't think any Brits know what "the good parts" are (again, this was true before 2016 too, we weren't in the EU for "the good parts"...there weren't any for Britain, we didn't need to shed guilt like Germany, we didn't need to use trade barriers to gain competitiveness like Italy or Spain, we didn't need to use to elevate our global profile like France).
Ofc, the points made in the article are nonsensical...but it is the Economist. Saying that Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of Europe is...comic. The economic points are totally illogical...look at Europe's banks, look at the UK's banks, monetary policy, the values are just totally different.
What are the evidently bad parts of EU that you come to realize once out?
I'm also puzzled by your claim that support for re-join has dropped because as it happens, it actually didn't change much and the latest polls suggest that re-join has the lead[0]
Non-sensical regulations, increasing extreme politics, continued economic problems (essentially none of the structural issues in 2012 are solved, the "solution" was: borrow more...it is worrying), lack of leadership in foreign policy...or lack of anything but self-serving nonsense (as with Iran, the EU leading the way on sanction-busting), increasing corporatism, heavy centralisation.
Fundamentally, the UK is just going in a different direction. Staying in the EU isn't helpful for the EU or the UK. But the EU approach of: you should be inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent being pissed on by us...is idiotic (if the history of the 20th century didn't tell you how that ended for Europe).
Those aren't recent. The data varies heavily by question asked, and tends not to consider the trend. People don't want a second referendum (they elected a govt on a significant majority on that basis, for some reason people tend to just ignore the fact that the public did have a second vote after 2016...the result was even more emphatic).
Do you have something specific. For example, for things getting bad I can give you the example of roaming charges being re-introduced.
Corporatism, centralisation kind of things are big words that need explanation. It's like saying that it's red, blue and white Brexit. How poetic but what does it mean?
For example, since UK leaving EU, did the UK abolish corporations and become agrarian civilisation where everyone works for themselves? If so, what exactly prevented UK doing it before leaving the EU? Did UK abolish the central government and gave power back to the local governments? If so, what exactly was stoping UK doing it when in EU?
> Those aren't recent
Okay, please provide the data you are basing your opinions on.
Roaming charges haven't been re-introduced by providers.
They don't need explanation...that is why the terms exist. The EU is run by large corporations. The EU is heavily centralised.
Ah, so you don't understand what corporatism means...so then use some ludicrous analogy, but you don't understand that just highlights your own ignorance.
And yes, the UK is giving power back to local govts. Nothing was stopping that before, but the point of being in the EU is that you are in the EU, which centralises political authority away from voters...again, I suspect that sounded better in your head.
Tell me what political party has a policy of re-joining the EU, and how much vote share they are getting at the moment? The polling on the exact question is exactly the same as it was in 2016 (that will probably fall back to where it was last year through the rest of this year) but if you look at polling on whether people want a second referendum or whether they view rejoining the EU as likely, it is clear (if the result of the "second vote" in 2019 wasn't).
>Roaming charges haven't been re-introduced by providers.
They have been.
I don't see why we should argue over factual stuff. Three for example, my provider, now charges 3GBP per day for roaming in the EU. I'm not a mastermind who voted remain but supports Brexit but I guess, the argument would be that these are not roaming fees due to some definition detail or something?
Anyway, do you have anything concrete on your claims or do you attest anything positive happening to Brexit, even if there's no reason for it not happening before Brexit? Like blue passports being a major Brexit win despite nothing stopping UK from having blue passports before Brexit?
I'm bit slow and ignorant, would be nice of you to explain it. How did Brexit freed UK from corporatism?
I was following this comment chain in the hopes that I would learn more about the bad points you had mentioned before, but it seems you lost as I was disappointed by your ad hominem attack and lack thereafter of any actual arguments about the topic at hand.
Not who you are replying to, one little heard "worsening EU" factor I have read is the rise of far right political parties in most EU states. The implication is that the EU might be controlled by the very problematic far right, and so the UK outside of it would be insulated from any issues.
I don't think we've seen any EU wide political effects because of the rise of the far right in Europe. But I find the idea an interesting one that's being aired by some in the UK. Yes, Europe is seeing the hard right and populism growing but no it's not a problem yet at the continent level as far as I know.
Isn't UK controlled by the very problematic far-right since Brexit(every major pre-2016 far right figure had or has an important post in the government)? Wasn't Farage(far righter) who caused issues in the EU up until he lost his position. I mean, I lost track of political scandals in the UK.
It's a strange argument that I don't see how it could have played out had the UK remained.
"very problematic far-right"...lol. France had Le Pen in the final round, the EU has far-right ministers in govt across the union because of PR...the Tories are centre-right (if that, Tory govts after Blair have all been very centrist). That is why Brits are puzzled by the EU, it is fuelling the far-right.
I understand why people from the EU are confused, because the far-right are in parliament in almost every nation and in govt in a few in the EU. The UK doesn't have a far right, they don't exist politically, our voting system means it is impossible.
The only far-right political party in the UK was the BNP, they don't exist anymore, never elected to Parliament, and their height was electing a few local councillors (and MEPs...ofc, even our far-right figures flocked to the EU).
Farage isn't far right, he is just called that because he opposed the EU. But UKIP has never had any MPs elected to Parliament, it has had 2 MPs (iirc) defect from the Tories, Farage has never been an MP, their only role has been in the EU Parliament.
There is no connection between the far-right and Brexit either. If you look at the Cabinet, you will see non-white MPs who supported Brexit. It is sad that everything has to be overlaid with that context (again, one reason I am glad to be shot of the EU) but it makes no sense. I suppose Europe is content to keep fighting the battles of the early 20th century again, but people in the UK are happy to move forward (this is also why Brits are opposed to PR voting, sounds good in theory but then you look to Europe and see the nutters they have in govt...FPTP has neutralised that debate totally).
Far-right isn't something that you fill paperwork and now you become far-right.
IMHO sending asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing is something far-right would do. Creating hostile environment to achieve something is a thing that far-right would do. Controlling access to porn and arresting people for tweets is something far-right would do. Government officials acting as they are not laws for them is something that far right would do.
In the context of Europe, one needs to compare the Tory party to the self declared far right nationalist parties in Europe. Many of which hold actual positions in their governments.
I'm sure you would agree it's all a matter of degree rather than a yes/no situation. The point is that in Europe there are further, more extreme far right parties. And they are increasing.
However I don't think they are causing an actual problem at the EU level.
There's also a counter argument that the UK should have remained in Europe to counter the rising European far right, to help moderate things at a continental level! Ironic but a little heard argument as the main campaign was that the EU didn't need the UK, rather it was the other way around (the UK needed the EU).
> The only far-right political party in the UK was the BNP, they don't exist anymore
The BNP and The National Front just evolved into other groups like Britain First, English Defence League, English Democrats etc. and yes, UKIP.
"Ukip is the party for decent supporters of the BNP" said Deputy Chair Neil Hamilton in 2014 for example.
> The UK doesn't have a far right, they don't exist politically, our voting system means it is impossible.
They absolutely do and political power is more than winning seats. UKIP's primary influence was simply by splitting the right wing vote so that the Conservatives had to move further right (and adopt hard Brexit positions) to neutralise them.
UKIP has historically been at least a "further right" party beyond the mainstream. At best I would call it the suit wearing, dog-whistling front for the far-right. Under the new leader Batten it is more unambiguously far-right itself. It appointed Tommy Robinson (BNP member, EDL founder) as an advisor for example.
The conservatives have moved much further to the right, by absorbing UKIP voters to win on Brexit.
So while Farage never won political power himself he certainly moved the political window rightwards.
I would not call the Conservatives centrist in any sense. They may appear further to the left on some issues than the US, but only because they would not win if they were honest about their intentions (e.g. privatise the NHS).
Most of that red tape isn't actually created by the UK, it's created by the EU because "we'll impose lots of red tape and strangle your businesses" is their primary, number one argument for why countries should be in the EU instead of outside it.
Most of those rules could be disappeared tomorrow if the EU was genuinely in favour of reduced bureaucracy. One thing you quickly realize if you study the issues in depth enough is that it really isn't in favour of that. Their entire mentality is that red tape is bad if it's not the EU's and good if it is. That's not the path to increased cooperation.
No it's not, it's the same type of red tape the UK has selling goods and services to the US, or Japan, or Australia, and that the UK imposes on goods and services bought from the US, Japan and Australia.
Yes, I have. What am I supposed to have noticed? I used to work in equity research, I still follow companies that trade in Europe...have seen no mention of Brexit yet, it just doesn't appear to have been a significant event. If I had something to say about it, I would be able tell you...but it just wasn't a big event.
By "brexit red tape", you should clarify: regulations that weren't brought in and so have had no impact. I don't think anyone would deny that food and drink hasn't been impacted (inevitable, the EU has a strange xenophobia about "foreign" food...that seems to respect arbitrary political demarcations) but even in fresh, it has been surprisingly limited. Companies that failed to prepare suffered...but such is life, companies that failed to prepare for the global rise in freight costs have also suffered.
> I don't think any Brits know what "the good parts" are
Some are finding it now when they get bounced off a flight for an (almost) expired passport, when their phone bill is high after going to an EU country, or when they can't bring their pets on vacation, etc
Or if they are a smaller company that have seen their sales share to the EU plummet
The reason why passports aren't getting issued is because of unionised govt employees refusing to return to work (this is one of those weird things you see Europeans discuss a lot online, why has this been linked to Brexit? It is very strange...are you telling me the EU doesn't let in Americans or Brazilians? Odd xenophobia, I thought Europe was over that phase). You can free roaming. Who takes their pet on vacation?
That hasn't happened. Even in food and drink, you would have expected to see an impact...it hasn't happened.
The delay in passport issues is of course due to Covid and holidays rebounding, but the fact that it wasn't that important before is due to brexit obviously.
> Who takes their pet on vacation?
> A Brexiteer Tory MP has urged the government to let his dogs keep their freedom of movement rights after Britain leaves the EU. Bob Stewart, the MP for Beckenham, said his "French-speaking" hounds crossed the Channel regularly on their EU "pet passports".
But then, we have a more direct democratic choice over the politicians that make decisions for us. For me, this is worth more than the niggles you've mentioned.
A strange comment given that EU tax havens are responsible for the largest amount of tax avoidance globally, and that avoidance was organised (often secretly) by govts.
Britain does not have control over BOTs, and we have tried to bring them up to the UK standards of tax avoidance. Hopefully EU govts will join that effort and stop using tax evasion as a competitive advantage.
>I voted Remain, and that decision makes little sense in retrospect (not none, it was just a lot of the fearmongering turned out to be false).
Indeed. Weren't you and other Britons supposed to be fighting over cans of food in a Max Max-style "anarchy in the UK" situation by now?
I especially loved the glee—yes, glee—shown by Remainers when there was a shortage of truck drivers. *PROOF* that Brexit was a colossal mistake!!!!1!!!1!! As opposed to COVID19-related staff shortages that also affected the continent.
Indeed, I didn't understand Brexiters back then, now after seeing EU approach to "pandemic" and two 3rd world countries conflict in Eastern Europe (TLDR EU shown how useless it is for my life in both scenarios), I would for sure vote to leave in EU country I reside for years, ironically I'm not even citizen here yet and my wife is not from EU.
The implied joke was that this would have been another advantage that they squandered with Brexit because they did get special treatment before leaving.
Looking at what's happening with Germany I suspect the EU would dearly love the UK back involved.
It's quite noticable that the doom-porn regarding Brexit has now died down. It's gone from 'the shelves are empty' to 'person's passport was rejected'.
Yes, EU and UK got a deal so it's all cool now, therefore no empty shelves - just increased bureaucracy and red tape in trade. However, UK claims that the deal they signed is a shitty deal and they are expected to break it. Things can start moving again.
Why would they, join an economic union that has a political layers with negative benefits?
Better to partner with Norway, Switzerland, to develop some kind of meaningful coherence on trade issues with the EU and especially focus 1) on the US, the current superpower where there's obviously deep resonance 2) and especially Asia where all of the growth is, particularly India, Singapore and Hong Kong where UK has deep ties.
Joining EU makes sense for Ukraine and even Serbia, not necessarily others.
> India, Singapore and Hong Kong where UK has deep ties.
Deep ties is a warm fuzzy term to describe ex-colonies. Nearly up there with “commonwealth”.
I think your characterisation of the EU is extremely poor, no political union as massive as the EU gets away without issue, you can argue that there are too many to even bear, but it’s absurd to think the British can make a better economic Union, we have 500 years of history to look back on and it proves that we do not know what we’re doing and we do not learn from our mistakes.
> it’s absurd to think the British can make a better economic Union
The great irony being that the U.K. poured a huge amount of effort into making the EU and ECHR a reality, so as help ensure there wouldn’t be another war in Europe. So in many ways the U.K. has already proven it can’t come up with something better than the EU.
The ECHR has nothing to do with whether or not there would be a war in Europe. The EEC/EU possibly does, but it's doubtful if the political apparatus of the EU has anything to do with it, but rather measures of economic integration, which would have likely happened even without an EEC.
The resulting conclusion 'can't come up with something better than the EU' doesn't follow from the original statement, moreover, it wouldn't be hard at all to come up with something 'better' than the EU: A trade and customs union with relatively free movement (but not fully) would be 'better' than the EU, especially because it would likely include Turkey, and possibly already Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia.
A 'Decentralized European Bank' which allowed for national currencies but under tight regulatory oversight and exchange rules, obviously a more progressive concept that could only be enabled by tech, would be better than the ECB, which is a giant drag on periphery economies.
I guess at this point our issue is that the EU represents a great many different forms of international integration, from economic, to political, covering immigration, economic policy, monetary policy, policing, civil rights, food policy etc etc
The EU is assumed so many responsibilities over time that it’s difficult to talk about the EU as whole in a meaningful sense. You need to break down each aspect of integration that’s been built around it, as assess each policy on its own merits. When you start doing that, it quickly becomes apparent that some aspects of the EU work incredibly well, but other aspects have failed, sometimes catastrophically.
Personally I think the EU has been a rather grand, if lumpy, success so far, and I’m keen to see it continue growing. With it the merging of national identities across the EU into single European identity, with many nuanced sub-cultures.
> A trade and customs union with relatively free movement (but not fully) would be 'better' than the EU
On specific point. The EU has got a lot of flak in the UK for freedom of movement, usually focused on the stereotypical “Polish plumber”. It worth mentioning this was a self-inflicted pain by the UK. The EU gave all existing countries the right to limit immigration from the new joined eastern states, with 5 year ramp up period toward full freedom of movement. The UK opt-ed out, and decided for full freedom of movement from day 0, most other EU countries limited freedom of movement to prevent large economic migration. So all the limits on immigration the EU supposedly prevented the UK from implementing, were an completely legal option for the UK, it deliberately decided not to exercise them. Further proof that the EU has never prevented the UK from reducing immigration, is the fact that net immigration has fallen since Brexit.
1) I didn't suggest the UK would form some kind of 'Union' - that's just your defensive posturing.
I suggested 'economic ties' - which are being developed with those actors.
2) There is no benefit to EU political union and it is structurally impossible - unless - the states truly want to give up with everything sovereign and surrender to Germany which controls the Euro (to their benefit) and has just enough disproportionate influence to have 'the last word' on everything.
The 'EEC' is a success - the 'EU' is not.
There probably is a 'better way forward', something between Nation Sate and Federalization, but there's too much contention to talk about it - and frankly 85% of the benefits could be achieved with a comprehensive trade agreement.
Switzerland and Norway are not free to make trade deals by themselves. They too opted to be part of the economic block even though they aren't full member states.
Going for the type of deal these countries have with the EU would have been very smart. You still get to have your borders, you are not paying in, etc. But trade deals are approved by the whole bloc. If you don't want that then you are less integrated with the European economy than Turkey.
Honestly, if you aren't aware of the different layers of collaboration within Europe (with an EU member state being the highest form), you really shouldn't pretend to be able to say anything meaningful about it.
This is so far removed from reality, i have to ask: which Murdoch outlet has been misinforming you?
I worked for the European Investment Fund (part of European Investment Bank Group in Luxembourg) I know a thing or two about 'The layers of EU government and trade', thanks very much.
Your comments about 'getting the benefits of an EU deal' are a bit glib when not contemplating the innumerable other costs and constraints of such a deal.
Moreover - as you hint they are 'economic benefits' for which the political layer of the EU are mostly not necessary.
An evolved EEC (with a different kind of ECJ, different kind of Euro) would be much better for European nations than the EU - and everyone including Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, probably even Turkey could be part of it.
Norway is in the European Economic Area, closely tied to the EU. Switzerland isn't an EU member but is in the single market. That means both Norway and Switzerland are loosely attached to the EU bloc and play by most of the EU rules. They aren't interested in tearing up those relations to make a separate deal with Brexiters.
Switzerland and Norway are not much closer to or farther from the EU than the UK. What works for them can also work for the UK. The UK also plays by most of the EU rules (more than actual members such as Poland or Hungary if you ask me).
Switzerland is very interested in keeping relations with the UK at a high level and is actively negotiating since Brexit.
The EU is not Europe and is definitely lacking in some aspects that might countries want to reconsider a membership.
Norway is in the European Economic Area, which allows for free movement of people, which is exactly the part that Brexiters hated the most. They aren't going to give that up.
Switzerland is in the European Free Trade Association and part of the Schengen area, again allowing for free movement of people.
Sure, they might sign deals to maintain trade with the UK, but won't accept any deal that would harm their ability to trade with the (much bigger and wealthier) EU.
It's an ideological to pro-EU political types ... but from a populist sense, European citizens themselves have something a bit closer to the UK view.
'Ideological Free Movement' means basically what they have in the US.
Popularly, if it were put to a vote, European citizens would chose something more along the lines of 'unlimited, no visa travel and work' - which is not quite the same thing.
Finally - be careful with concerns about 'It's what UK hated the most' - it's not quite true.
The UK is the most open and tolerant country in the EU, it's also the one with considerably more migrants than most [1]
UK attitudes towards migration are a function of the large scale of migrants that chose, the UK, much like almost all of the nations on the periphery of Europe i.e. Greece/Italy etc have 'very negative' views of migrants, at least partly due to the fact that for whatever reason they're just not able to integrate them. (Which is obviously a complicated thing).
> The UK is the most open and tolerant country in the EU, it's also the one with considerably more migrants than most
Appreciate the citation provided but this is beyond the pale, I can't imagine we're even talking about the same Britain where I come from.
Sweden and Germany bears more immigrants per capita than the UK does, Britain was complaining (extremely loudly) about an absolutely infinitesimally small fraction of migrants coming over the channel.
Britain is also AWFUL at integrating migrants, leading to "Polish" and "Pakistani" areas of cities. They're kinda cute and kitche in London, but the pakistani areas of Coventry are closer to isolated slums (and it's not their fault that it is that way).
Britain is also the place where when I go to the pub with my mum someone is within earshot talking down "ragheads" or quipping about "darkies". Coventry in particular has a little hate boner going on because a lot of the students are Chinese -- even my Mum complains about it. (since "Students aren't paying council tax", but she's fine with british students, go figure.)
The britain that I know is very far away from being "Open and Tolerant".
I am now part of the Immigrant population in Sweden, I've also lived in Finland. You're joking if you think that Britain is more open and tolerant than these places. That's before we get to the Netherlands (which, while less open than Sweden) puts tax incentives in place to promote migration to the country! Britain would never do that! (unless absolutely-absolutely desperate: EG truck drivers post-brexit).
Wealthier? Where did you get that idea? The EU is not particularly wealthy. Large parts of it are still considered poor, that's why so much IT gets outsourced to the eastern European countries. Italy GDP hasn't grown for 20 years. Germany is a surprisingly poor country relative to where it should be.
If what you care about is size+wealth then the USA dominates. And, the only way to get better trade deals with the USA is to be outside the EU. Whether the USA wants to play or not depends a lot on whether a Democrat is in the White House because the Dems are very pro-EU (large centralized unaccountable power structure hmmm wonder why they love that). But politics comes and goes, eventually there will be another Republican in power and deals can get done.
Certainly, for looking towards economic growth and enterprise, you don't want to be looking to the EU. It's all about heading over the Atlantic and then maybe, the Pacific.
I think both Norway and Switzerland are significantly closer to the EU than is the UK.
With regards to who plays most by EU rules, I would indeed expect that the UK has not yet actually diverged, but diverging was (and remains) an explicit point of the exercise judging by the rhetoric of the politicians who campaigned for Brexit.
"They aren't interested in tearing up those relations to make a separate deal with Brexiters."
Oh, they absolutely are.
They do not like the marginal to zero power they have in their relationship with the EU.
The EU plays pretty aggressively with individual states, it's 'EU First!' in the Trumpian sense to the maximum extent.
Switzerland and Norway have little power vis-a-vis the EU and therefore have to 'do what they are told'.
UK has a bit more influence and outside relations, so it's not quite in the same position.
... but 3 'key states together' are almost (not quite) a critical mass.
I don't think UK/Norway/Swiss are 'quite enough' to form a bloc - but they are 'one country short'.
Every two years, there's an election somewhere in Europe won, or almost won by a Eurosceptic party.
There is always Turkey - the 'odd man' on the border of Europe.
And, in the meantime, Ukraine, which has been told by Austria that they are 'minimum 10 years away' - but in the meantime there's ample opportunity for trade harmonization.
One more added to the group and effectively 'it's a block'.
I think there's a 50/50 chance you see a 'Trans European Trade Group' forming with those kinds of countries - basically between EU and non-EU European countries.
Despite the UK exiting from the EU, and therefore no longer benefiting from its trade agreements effective 1st January 2021, from your list of countries the UK has only successfully ratified trade agreements with Switzerland and Singapore.
There is also a provisional agreement with Norway.
The Canada trade deal is a "continuation" deal (as described by the UK Govt in a link I will post at the end of this comment) which basically sets terms to be the same as the EU's currently existing deal before free trade: IE, it's not free trade (though; not that you claimed it was).
I believe it's rather disingenuous to describe a continuation deal as a "deal" since essentially it's... a continuation.
the... same deal the EU currently has? Yes, that's ratified.
Both with the EU and the UK. Because that's what the "continuance" was.
Canada _does_ have a trade deal with the EU, there's a more comprehensive Free-Trade (IE; not just a Trade agreement like the UK's) one that's on the table since 2016 but is actually already in active use, despite not being officially ratified.
But that's different to the one that the UK has "continued".
It's not the same thing? Am I talking to a brick wall?
Do you understand that the UK's deal is the same as what the EU had before the <<NEW DEAL>> that has yet to be ratified (but is in effect).
And yes, it makes sense that it's quicker to say "we continue what we're doing" than it is to hash out a new trade agreement, especially a free trade agreement.
Plus, let's be real Norway is the world's largest petro-state that's not also a theocracy and Switzerland is the world's largest 'offshore' banking state.
They are not part of the EU because very obvious parts of their economy are 'we got lucky and don't want to share that luck.' Why would they then want to share that luck with the UK?
You can see the EU a little bit like a microservice mesh standard; once your microservice is integrated, data flows, resource sharing, statistics/observability, and so on become easier in various ways, although you may have to adapt to common standards.
In legal and practical terms, the UK is still currently strongly compatible with the EU, despite Brexit. Another way to look at the situation: the UK is currently in an early fork stage of the codebase, and remains more-or-less compatible.
The biggest opportunity from Brexit -- which, strangely, may not only be available to the UK, but also to keen observers within the EU -- is the chance to introduce some local code changes without all the usual code review stages and interface negotiations.
Will everything that the UK does as a result create improvements? No: plenty of these attempted changes will fail -- some badly -- and hopefully we'll all learn from those mistakes. But there will certainly also be policy and procedural changes that result in unquestionable improvements that are re-usable elsewhere.
(disclaimer/context: I believe that Brexit was a mistake in economic and political terms, but that the UK could eventually rejoin the EU if-and/or-when the upsides are clearer to people, and that it's an opportunity to learn)
Like Mao who said (so the story goes) that it was too early to judge the effects of the French Revolution, perhaps better wait a bit before reaching a conclusion. As a terribly gross generalization perhaps it comes down to pond size. Small stroppy fish in a big pond don't get very far but in a smaller pond they feel they at least have some influence and tangible contact with government. Difficult to claim that for ordinary Europeans. Worth remembering also that the establishment (the UK Civil Service) has been firmly against Brexit from the word go and have dragged their feet significantly. This isn't just a moan from the pro-Brexit crowd; it's pretty much accepted on both sides that this is what has happened.
Well, personal opinion: I don't think it's clear that the UK Civil Service has been more of a blocker to Brexit than they would've been for any other earth-shattering policy change.
Part of the social contract of joining that sector is, I expect, that staff will be working across successive governments and policy changes, and yes, people are going to have some personal connections to day-to-day events, but the professionalism and processes of the institutions involved are intended to minimize and overcome those biases (and apply correction when they aren't, with supporting evidence and investigation).
That said, identification of weaknesses and opportunities for structural improvements are welcome. "Wait a hundred years" is always an option, although if there are shorter-term risks then I'll always be listening for those.
I don't pretend to be an expert on Irish politics. It's unclear to me whether the Republic really even wants North Ireland given its lackluster economy. Maybe it's easier to have London keep sending billions there.
Sinn Féin is a political party over a century old, and in 1918 won an all-Ireland election, 73 of 105 seats, on its platform to leave the UK. That the mainstream media refers to Sinn Féin as the political wing of the IRA tells little about them but a lot about the media and other things. Sinn Féin is also tied for largest party at Leinster House in the 26 counties.
Instructive is https://bbc.co.uk . You can barely find news of this, it is way down the page. Superhero movies, Miami Grand Prix. dating apps, pilota, carbon bicycles etc. take precedence. England doesn't care, other than the loose ends remaining snagged Brexit somewhat.
Sigh. This is manifestly incorrect. The party that campaigns as Sinn Fein in Ireland now has very very little to do with the Sinn Fein that won the elections in 1918.
That Original Sinn Fein splintered into Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, a bunch of random socialist parties, and eventually the workers party which merged with Labour 30+ years ago.
The Sinn Fein that did really well in the NI assembly elections yesterday is Provisional Sinn Fein, which is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement for Catholics that started in the 1960s.
This Sinn Fein was the political wing of the Provisional IRA, an armed group which engaged in violence to bring about a united Ireland.
So, yes they are IRA associated (though the pIRA haven't engaged in political violence since about 1997).
There is so much tension between Germany/France vs. the rest of the EU. If you're a struggling small nation in the shadow of Russia, membership in EU is great.
Not sure that’s true. One of the first things Boris did after Brexit was start pushing hard on infrastructure spending with projects like HS2 (already on the books, but Boris explicitly threw his weight behind it, and got rid of objectors) and “levelling up” the north.
Think Boris realised that all those labour voters that voted for him wouldn’t hang around unless he substantially improved the quality of life outside of London. Big infrastructure projects are the obvious path to take.
Boris also increased business rates as well, along with being caught saying “fuck business”. Boris isn’t your standard conservative, looking for economic stability or growth. He’s only interested in what keeps him in Number 10. And big spending up North looked like a pretty good strategy. Who cares about ROI for the tax payer, when it’s gonna keep him in office?
Personally think the spending is/was a good thing on the whole. But I really don’t like Boris, and his complete lack of any conviction, except his conviction of reminding in Number 10.
There is actually a minister for "levelling up" - Michael Gove IIRR and he is making some hay with it.
The idea is that Britain is massively massively centered around London Metro Area. And the regions suffer lack of investment, brain drain, lack of jobs as a result. The idea is to "level up" the rest of the UK to London levels (seen as a big Brexit lodestone)
However, 1. no extra actual money seems to be allocated to it, 2. it's not quite clear how to do it.
30 years ago the surprisingly prescient comedy show Yes Prime Minister had a similar idea, to move the Army up North and spark new job creation.
It would take massive scale action to do this - tax incentives, infrastructure, etc.
It's worth noting that we have to spend vast vast sums to become climate neutral (revamp most housing infrastructure to be heat efficient, get rid gas boilers, replace the car fleet, move to vegetarian diets). So we could just spend that money in a different part of the country.
And it's also worth pointing out that only Germany has this kind of levelled society - mostly because for 50 years Berlin was a no go area so Hamburg and other cities got an industry each (Frankfurt got finance etc).
Paris, Rome, Madrid all have similar "Black Hole" status
The best way to actually disperse economic access is from the ground up: target the inputs to industry and create regional cost advantages.
The US famously did this by electrifying Appalachia via hydroelectric dam construction, which created a power cost advantage, which drove power-hungry heavy industry (chemical, metallurgy) to the area.
Unfortunately, this is a 30+ year long game, so requires more interest in true change and outcomes vs ones political career.
Black hole-ism in Europe seems like a historical response to a geopolitically fractured and competitive continent, as disparate states all tried to centralize their most valuable / productive industry in their (mostly) centralized capitals.
Why invest in a border city, if for much of European history there was a good chance of it changing hands?
>> The best way to actually disperse economic access is from the ground up: target the inputs to industry and create regional cost advantages.
I'm dubious this still can work. Electrification was like steam - fundamentally transformative compared to all previous human history. It's hard to now put "cheap" inputs into almost any part of the UK - coal? nuclear? We have been mining the raw resources for something like 5,000 years in cornwall. There is not a lot left.
Interested in counter examples or ideas but this feels a lot like "build cities not so centred around cars"
Edit: are you saying that you give cost advantages to a region in a country? Say Cornwall will be the tech hub, North East will be aerospace, etc? Which it's probably possible to make an area an aerospace local maxima. but will that compete globally? do we set up tariffs?
I genuinely am interested because otherwise it's a crapshoot.
It's really two different questions. #1 How do you create incentives to locate profitable businesses in economically depressed areas? #2 How do you create competitive global businesses?
The latter question is really a more complicated valuation of possible end state, current global market state and opportunities, and how much capital the nation is prepared to invest. South Korea and Japan (and SE Asia) would be modern examples.
The former question is a bit simpler, because all the levers are in national government hands (or proxies for those levers). Although it's a process that still takes time, as businesses organically form, relocate, and scale in light of the new local maximum, and economies of colocation organize.
If asked to pick, I'd say the biggest modern inputs that can be influenced by the government would be: temporary tax incentives, capital access at competitive rates, access to sufficient local supply of trained and knowledgeable labor, low carbon / cheap power, global network access at reasonable rates (or at least sufficient capacity to nearest backbone), and local upstream suppliers (or room for same).
Something worth considering is how tiny the UK is compared to the US. The Appalachia region is 200,000sq miles, over double the area of the UK (94,000sq miles). The UK is smaller than the top nine largest states in the US, you can drive the entire length of the the UK in 14 hours.
We’re a tiny nation compared to the US (we only have a single power distribution grid!). Creating meaningful regional advantages can be tricky in the UK because the regions are so small, and so close together. Interestingly the approach we seem to be following is increase mobility and regional integration, thus making it easier for companies to hire outside of London, without taking a hit due to distance. That way companies and employees can take advantage of lower wage and cost of living respectively, them that outflow of money can pour into local communities around the UK as employees spend their wages.
In the US, conservatives are very much anti-stimulus funding. Similarly, Germany demanded severe austerity in Greece during the recession, leading to the worst economic depression in a an advanced capitalist nation in recorded history (outpacing the American Great Depression).
