Er... "left out in the cold"?
What is the implication of this? I don't get it. Britain doesn't have the euro... why should it abdicate its fiscal policy? Why would Britain agree to abdicate its fiscal policy given that it has a different currency?
Or, in other words: I thought the point of having lockstep fiscal policy in a currency union was to prevent cheating, and why would anyone be upset that Britain didn't sign on to this, given that it is not in a currency union?
We don't need you for funding at all. London is a trading platform and nothing more. Also you can forget about your free-trade fantasies; the EU is not a free-trade zone. It is a political union which will no longer try to live according to the lowests common denominator. And if that makes your lot depart from it, all the better for us.
You can also forget your dreams about another Irish referendum; they can have all the referenda they want, but a 'no' this time will simply mean they get cut off from desperately needed funding. Of course you could try to buy them if you have a €100bn lying around somewhere, but somehow I don't think you selfish lot are going to spend a red cent on saving anybody. The Irish should know better than that also.
Congratulations America
The real question of course is why the Brits feel they should have a say in the way we run our own fiscal policies as those policies are not affecting them in their fiscal policies at all. They thought they intrinsically had a right to demand something in return from us dealing with our internal government, we told them to shove it. And damn does it feel good.Originally Posted by agamemnus
Would be better if those idiots leave the EU alltogether for good measure, but that would be too much to ask for one Christmass
Congratulations America
I don't quite see how requiring Britain to levy a surcharge on all financial transactions "wasn't affecting them".The real question of course is why the Brits feel they should have a say in the way we run our own fiscal policies as those policies are not affecting them in their fiscal policies at all. They thought they intrinsically had a right to demand something in return from us dealing with our internal government, we told them to shove it. And damn does it feel good.
Would be better if those idiots leave the EU alltogether for good measure, but that would be too much to ask for one Christmass
Hope is the denial of reality
You're a liar: All we asked for was an opt-out so that those regulations wouldn't affect us.The real question of course is why the Brits feel they should have a say in the way we run our own fiscal policies as those policies are not affecting them in their fiscal policies at all. They thought they intrinsically had a right to demand something in return from us dealing with our internal government, we told them to shove it. And damn does it feel good.
Would be better if those idiots leave the EU alltogether for good measure, but that would be too much to ask for one Christmass
When that was refused we said do it yourselves but count us out.
Why would UK suffer for this, EU introduces essentialy a tax on financial transactions to be levied by their financial institutions making themselves even more unatractive then they already are. UK preserves an improves its competetive advantage. If anything EU will be the one to suffer for this, to give an example bank where I work has several partners where we execute trading, most of them are already in the UK, but there was one german one but obviously when it starts leving a tax on those deals we will shut it down.
Not only will it make EU institutions less attractive as business partners, it will motivate those in the EU to move and why not UK after all they already in compliance with all the UK regulations. ICAP already anounced its intention to do so.
EU wanted London to shoot itself in the foot, London declined.
We'll see who shot himself in the foot. And it certainly ain't been Europe.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
If anything the new situation will make it easier to impose even an FTT on business done in London. The other regulations London was trying to wriggle out of were not part of this agreement.
Big fat lie, you were trying to re-introduce a veto where you hadn't one; the regulation of the financial industry.
Well, given that the money is coming from outside the UK, there should be little easier than making sure it either doesn't go there from the eurozone or be taxed as if it is traded in the eurozone.
Congratulations America
The reason you fail to understand economics for so long causing the current crisis you (not us) are in and the still potential breakdown of your beloved euro is that you fail to realise how difficult it is to buck the markets.
It will not be easy to do as you say. Nothing short of putting up an 'iron curtain' at the Channel could even attempt to achieve that. Doing so would constrain yourselves to the dustbin of history and we'd look to the rest of the world.
It is in Asia where the real growth potential is.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Some quite good ones there
26 prawn sandwich and one BLT. Go figure.
from teh economist
seems to me as if the brits have been really really stupid about this.In the nick of time, a well-placed source (a senior official who is broadly neutral towards the British government in this fight) has given me his reading of what happened, and where it all turned sour for Mr Cameron. It rings true to me.
Mr Cameron had two problems, as my source sees it. The first was the nature of his demand, and how it was made. In essence, the British did not ask for an "emergency brake" clause or opt-out for financial regulation.
What they asked for was a protocol imposing decision-making by unanimity on a number of areas of regulation currently decided by majority voting. (If you want to be really technical, the choice is voting by unanimity or the special Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used in the EU, which is a sort of super-majority system taking into account a certain number of countries and also their populations).
As my source puts it, this amounted to a big winding-back of the clock for many EU leaders, setting a "horrendous precedent" that could unravel the single market. As they see it, common rules for the common market have been adopted (with few exceptions, such as tax) by QMV ever since the Single European Act approved by Margaret Thatcher in 1986.
The much-discussed Financial Transactions Tax issue already requires unanimity and therefore could never be imposed on the City of London without Britain's agreement. What is more, as was pointed out in Brussels with some vehemence, when it comes to financial services there have hardly ever been any cases of Britain being outvoted in the adoption of such legislation.
In simple terms, that means that Britain's request to move to unanimity was taken as a huge ask that had nothing to do with the subject at hand (saving the euro) or was a sign of bad faith (because it is driven by mistrust regarding future legislation). In my source's view, Britain also tabled its request very late in the day, simply sending a whole draft protocol to the European Council legal service the day before the meeting without talking the ideas through with key allies and national capitals.
Then, says my source, came the second crunch moment for Mr Cameron. Once the 27 EU leaders gathered in the summit room, a sense rapidly emerged that a lot of countries did not share Germany's enthusiasm for full-blown treaty change, a process which is slow and fraught with risks (the markets might not wait that long, Ireland might have to hold a referendum, Britain would have to get a vote through the House of Commons and so on).
By a certain point on Thursday night, I am told, a majority of countries were growing interested in a quick and dirty legal fix, suggested by the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. The fix was dreamed up by lawyers working for Mr Van Rompuy. They said that a legal device, known as "Protocol 12", would allow the 27 leaders of the EU to agree most of the new rules and mechanisms for fiscal union in the euro zone by a simple, unanimous decision among themselves.
Suddenly, Germany looked isolated. Mr Van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister elected by EU leaders to chair their summits, decided to see if he could sweeten the deal for the wavering EU leaders, and asked Mr Cameron if he would consider dropping some of his requests. This made sense to some leaders in the room. Mr Cameron's demands were already more than many of his colleagues would tolerate, and Britain had already said publicly it would tailor its demands to the scale of the treaty change on the table. Mr Cameron said he would not lower his ambitions, and that his demands would be the same in the event of Protocol 12 being used, or a full-blown EU treaty.
A hostile view of this is that Mr Cameron overplayed his hand. In this version of events, the British prime minister thought the mood of the room was running towards Protocol 12, and because Protocol 12 is decided by unanimity, he thought he had the whip hand.
Instead, my source tells me, the room turned on Mr Cameron. This, I am told, "was the point at which the Protocol 12 route, which requires unanimity, was effectively closed down and one country after another accepted a new treaty at 17+."
Did Mr Cameron miscalculate? Did he want to end up with a treaty being crafted at almost 26, with Britain on the outside? My source is certain that was not Mr Cameron's goal, and my source is not alone in this thinking.
It is now almost inevitable that separate structures be set up, with Britain on the outside, it seems. Talk in London of preventing the "Eurozone-plus" from using the Court of Justice is also a mistake, I am told. Article 273 of the treaty allows just this.
You can choose to believe this account or not. It comes from a single source, who is well-placed but clearly viewing this from a particular perspective.
Time will tell. But what a mess.
btw Rand: yuo joined the EU. When the EEC/EC changed into the EU Britain stayed in the club rather than not taking that step. So there really no need for the semantics.
Yes we joined the EU. But not Schengen, the Euro etc
If that is true, and it does have the air of truth to it, then Cameron has just fucked up massively. Sounds like he was listening too much to the idiots, to whom it is perpetually 1938, on his own back benches. The narrative in the media makes it seem like an outright Franco-German power grab with Cameron offered a deal he couldn't accept to get Britain out the way, whereas the story told in the Economist makes it seem like Cameron was thinking too much about the Euroskeptics retarded fantasies about using the crisis to repatriate powers and ended up pissing everyone off by his refusal to compromise.
His body language coming out of the thing certainly didn't seem like a guy who was terribly pleased with how he'd done.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Hey Genius, let me tell you a secret you haven't figured out yet; The UK is not in Asia, and Asia needs the UK for exactly nothing.
Congratulations America
Which is big difference from saying that Britain didn't.
Frankly I'm not too happy about the perpetual British aloofness/hostility to the European project. It's an attitude that allows France too much leeway, after which -ironically- Brit Eurosceptics get the whine about the influence of France.
*sigh* That's how it'll be I guess.
Hey Genius, let me tell you a secret you haven't figured out yet; The UK is not in the 19th century. Geography means squat nowadays.
Its not about need, it's about want. Asia's biggest bank is headquartered in London at Canary Wharf. We need to stay competitive and efficient, not slow and sclerotic. I'd be more worried about HSBC deciding to move to Hong Kong or Shanghai than Paris or Frankfurt.
Sarkozy now is making talks about protectionism and trade barriers against Asia. I'd have no interest in being involved with a project so stupid as to do that.
I does for HFT.
I said it earlier, I don't believe in Hazir's opinion about the financial sector in London. But honestly the UK should have more to offer than the city of London. And this decision weakened UK's place as gateway to Europes markets.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Even if you don't agree with me on the European role for London I can't imagine you thinking it could ever seriously be considered a contender for the trading place of choice for Asia.
The idea that the UK could simply start all over without being totally dependent on the EU still is the hallmark pipedram of the halfwits that call themselves eurosceptics overthere.
Congratulations America
FYI; as of january 2012 there will be a monthly europlus meeting where all sorts of issues will be put on the agenda. If those concern a QMV matter, the decisions by the europlus group then merely needs to be announced to the Counil. Cameron will not be welcome at the europlus meetings. At the Council what he thinks will no longer matter.
The regulation of the financial markets is a QMV-area. Rather than defending the City, Cameron has exposed it to regulations writ in Brussels.
Congratulations America
The UK does have more to offer than the City of London, just the City is incredibly important globally. Europe only represents between about 40% and half of our international trade and is declining in importance.And who would expect to be having phone calls being answered in India? You're just showing your closed-mindedness. Services are one of the most important areas for the UK economy, or any major developed nation. The UK is one of the only major developed nations to have increased its share of global services trade between 1990-2010 (as emerging markets like India/China etc have gained a lot). We have the second-highest export of services in the world behind only the USA. Asia's market share of our exports is increasing year-on-year every year so to just brush it off shows your own faults nothing else. Over the last decade China, Russia and India have jumped up dramatically as exports for Goods let alone services. The UK has always traded with europe and always would, but the real growth potential is not looking inwards but outside to the rest of the world.
Even in QMV areas, the Eurozone+ is by no means an harmonious group. In many areas Germany agrees more with the UK than it does with France. QMV will still continue to allow the UK to be a key player.
Last edited by RandBlade; 12-10-2011 at 09:51 PM.
Ah, I totally misunderstood the plan was to undercut call centers in India and the Phillippines. Well maybe then you have a fighting chance, given that your mickey mouse money is under permanent attack from the BoE.
Also, let me explain the QMV issue to you one more time so that you may get it in your thick skull. A matter will be discussed in one of the monthly europlus meetings. No representative of the UK will be present at those meetings. The UK does not have any say in what is on the agenda. Then after debate and much wrangling the europlus group, without having consulted the EU, comes to a common position.
If the matter then comes up at the following Council, you have two positions. One the europlus position, which represents all the votes needed to pass the measure. The other would be the UK position which doesn't really matter as a carrying majority has already been established. In the most extreme case the UK can ask for an actual vote, in which it will be outvoted 26-1.
You know, you europhobes consistently told us you would prefer a Swiss-like arrangement between you and the rest of the EU. And guess what? Here you have it; like with the Swiss we set the rules and they execute them.
And don't take my word for that; your own PM had preventing a caucus like that from coming about as one of his main goals when he got on the train to Brussels last thursday.
Congratulations America
Ha, ha, ha - no the intention is not to undercut call centres.
On the latter you're making two mistakes:
1: That the Eurozone+ would have any desire or interest to be unanimous and present a "common front". If say Sweden opposes something at the Eurozone+ meeting, then if we call for a vote you really think they'll now back it?
2: That decisions are only made at Council and not primarily in advance.
If something controversial is being discussed, there is no reason why a common position can not be agreed in advance before the Eurozone+ meeting which we don't need to attend. Just as Merkozy made is abundantly clear this time that they decided their opinions in advance of Council.
Keep on dreaming the old dream of divide and rule.
Remember the last time you lot you thought you were leading the 'outs'? (that would be last thursday) Of course if you set your goal low enough (like leading yourself by the nose) you're always a relevant party.
Congratulations America
I never said we were leading any outs, just that on individual matters different nations have different priorities (as has always been the case). You still haven't said what alternative you think the UK should have done.
You're not leading anyone sure as hell. You can also bet the countries in the eurogroup will have a priority when they come to the council with something that has been decided upon already in the europlus council; and it won't be re-negotiating so that you Brits can get a foot between the door. Being seen to side with the UK has become so toxic that even countries that don't want the euro rather be part of a europlus group than be seen as an outspoken 'out'.
What you should have done? You should never have become member of the EU.
Congratulations America
So, just to clarify here, restricting the fiscal budget to 3% of something something would not have been applicable to the UK if they had accepted the deal?
If the procedure would have been according to Merkel's plan, then no.
If they at some point sign up to the deal that happened, I suppose that would take this government to be brought down and the new government eating big portions of humble pie, then yes.
Congratulations America
Gee, somewhere between Hazir and Rand is the more functional future of Europe? It won't be about the euro as a shared currency, if nations keep their own, or the eurozone as a bunch of political misfits trying to look like economic partners, if they keep their own political processes.
IMF and ECB can't use monetary policy to unite fiscal or political disparities among nations, even if their leaders signed contracts and accords, can they?
If it was Germany bowing out for their own national interests (instead of the UK), pulling their nationalist card to protect "their own" instead of propping up "others", would that be the end of it? Or would it lead to so much social and economic unrest, the kind of thing that spawns Wars, that they don't dare?
The difference between Germans and Brits is that Germans actually are willing to act for the common good, the Brits are just arrogant and aloof only when it comes to application of rules. They consistently demand very vocally they should be allowed to shape rules for everytbody, for which they then demand an opt out for themselves.Gee, somewhere between Hazir and Rand is the more functional future of Europe? It won't be about the euro as a shared currency, if nations keep their own, or the eurozone as a bunch of political misfits trying to look like economic partners, if they keep their own political processes.
IMF and ECB can't use monetary policy to unite fiscal or political disparities among nations, even if their leaders signed contracts and accords, can they?
If it was Germany bowing out for their own national interests (instead of the UK), pulling their nationalist card to protect "their own" instead of propping up "others", would that be the end of it? Or would it lead to so much social and economic unrest, the kind of thing that spawns Wars, that they don't dare?
This time they went too far, and everybody said 'screw you'. Not just the Germans or the French, everybody who possibly could have been harbouring doubts against the German-French proposal made it very clear they wanted nothing of the British plan. Even presumed 'out' Orban (PM of Hungary) went to great lengths telling everybody and his mother-in-law that they were not against the agreement and Orban didn't even want to be seen close to Cameron.
Congratulations America
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