Current Affairs EU In or Out

[peteblue]

Speaking today, EU boss Mr Juncker said: “Yes, in a years time European citizens would have voted in a new European Parliament.

“Nobody can second guess what shape it will take it will be different to this parliament, for some of my people that is a source of concerns.

“Let’s stand up against the rampant populism that we are seeing in European in all countries including mine, but Luxembourg people are by and large, wise.

“So it is not a large movement but it is a containable movement.”

Remember when Bruce said this guy was just a civil servant. He is presiding over the dismantling of the EU without knowing it. Apparently polls are already showing that these ‘populist’ parties in Italy look like getting a bigger share of the vote......

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Speaking today, EU boss Mr Juncker said: “Yes, in a years time European citizens would have voted in a new European Parliament.

“Nobody can second guess what shape it will take it will be different to this parliament, for some of my people that is a source of concerns.

“Let’s stand up against the rampant populism that we are seeing in European in all countries including mine, but Luxembourg people are by and large, wise.

“So it is not a large movement but it is a containable movement.”

Remember when Bruce said this guy was just a civil servant. He is presiding over the dismantling of the EU without knowing it. Apparently polls are already showing that these ‘populist’ parties in Italy look like getting a bigger share of the vote......

I'm not really sure how anyone can brand the various populist parties as anything but a stain. I get that both you and they have a common enemy in the EU, but they are an utter stain nonetheless. In Italy, as in pretty much every other country in Europe, the five star party have thrived in the poorer parts of Italy, with next to no impact in the prosperous north. What the country needs more than anything is competence rather than yet another charismatic, yet incompetent showman that lasts a short while before being bunted out again.

 

[peteblue]

I'm not really sure how anyone can brand the various populist parties as anything but a stain. I get that both you and they have a common enemy in the EU, but they are an utter stain nonetheless. In Italy, as in pretty much every other country in Europe, the five star party have thrived in the poorer parts of Italy, with next to no impact in the prosperous north. What the country needs more than anything is competence rather than yet another charismatic, yet incompetent showman that lasts a short while before being bunted out again.

I only used the word ‘populist’ because that’s what the EU call them. Their politics and policies are for their people. They do need competence, but Norman Lamont mentioned that during the Brexit referendum he heard Mario Monti, an economist who served as prime minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, despite never having been an elected politician, ask: 'Surely people prefer to be ruled by experts?'..........

 

[abelard]

I'm not really sure how anyone can brand the various populist parties as anything but a stain. I get that both you and they have a common enemy in the EU, but they are an utter stain nonetheless. In Italy, as in pretty much every other country in Europe, the five star party have thrived in the poorer parts of Italy, with next to no impact in the prosperous north. What the country needs more than anything is competence rather than yet another charismatic, yet incompetent showman that lasts a short while before being bunted out again.

Why do you think the Five Star Movement is a stain?

 

[Number_25]

Interesting questions being posed though.

When should external monetary concern be put above the wishes of the population.

Can't help but feel that the EU have played this wrong.

 

[Joey66]

Interesting questions being posed though.

When should external monetary concern be put above the wishes of the population.

Can't help but feel that the EU have played this wrong.

Italy waiting to fetch the EU down

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Why do you think the Five Star Movement is a stain?

Don't get me wrong, they're infinitely preferable to the populists denigrating the Visegrad countries at the moment, but equally, I don't believe for one minute that they have what it takes to improve the lot of Italy.

 

[Joey66]

I'm not really sure how anyone can brand the various populist parties as anything but a stain. I get that both you and they have a common enemy in the EU, but they are an utter stain nonetheless. In Italy, as in pretty much every other country in Europe, the five star party have thrived in the poorer parts of Italy, with next to no impact in the prosperous north. What the country needs more than anything is competence rather than yet another charismatic, yet incompetent showman that lasts a short while before being bunted out again.

Italy will be the death knoll of the EU eventually we need to hold back negotiations !

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Italy will be the death knoll of the EU eventually we need to hold back negotiations !

It saddens me that you wish to see Europe burn Joe.

 

[Joey66]

It saddens me that you wish to see Europe burn Joe.

Watch this weeks documentary on the EU Parliment - not needed end of!
Get rid of that and an elected smaller House of Lords and it would be a massive saving!

 

[abelard]

Don't get me wrong, they're infinitely preferable to the populists denigrating the Visegrad countries at the moment, but equally, I don't believe for one minute that they have what it takes to improve the lot of Italy.

Does anybody though?

Certainly not Mattarella or Cottarelli, and certainly not the Lega Nord, though they may well prove the main beneficiary of Cottarelli's appointment. The M5S seems at worst naive here, but not so much as Matterella. (Northern) Italian exports are booming, so there was little real threat of abandoning the Euro. Both M5S and the Lega has committed to abiding EU rules. Mattarella over-reacted, and it is playing right into Salvini's hands.

It's telling that the tipping point was the appointment of a Finance Minster who, like every other Finance Minister in Europe, has a plan for Italy leaving the Euro, and NOT the appointment of the Immigration Minster who wants to forcibly deport 500,000 refugees, Trump-style.

The EU has already (predictably) botched the response, another gift to Salvini. M5S is responsibly trying to restore the government, but Salvini thinks he can just run the country himself after another election. He might be right.

Italy runs a primary surplus, and is in much stronger fiscal shape than Spain - save the longstanding debt built up decades earlier. The country, especially the South, needs investment beyond what the EU's idiotic fiscal rules allow - even the financial press recognises this (the same is true of Northern England). But the EU (or more precisely, Germany) is willing to pull the entire temple down rather than countenence any hint of deviance from its fiscal orthodoxy. The Chinese are laughing all the bank over the West's addiction to austerity, while Germany continues to pull Europe and itself apart in a pointless quest to hoard away even more savings.

PS - Tory Brexiters: EU austerity is in large part responsible for the current crisis, and you don't get to use this as a retroactive pretect for Brexit when you've spent the past decade imposing on Britain even more cretinous and devasting austerity that what EU regulations demand.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Watch this weeks documentary on the EU Parliment - not needed end of!
Get rid of that and an elected smaller House of Lords and it would be a massive saving!

You'll get no argument from me that the EU is wasteful in various ways. Most governments are. That is outweighed tenfold however by the benefits we reap from a continent that attempts to work together on things rather than fighting one another as we have for 99% of the continent's history. It's much better, imo, to work on the flaws rather than throw that very nice baby out with the bath water because that blabbering idiot Johnson will get us into all sorts of hot water without getting so much as his own big toe wet.

 

[roydo]

You'll get no argument from me that the EU is wasteful in various ways. Most governments are. That is outweighed tenfold however by the benefits we reap from a continent that attempts to work together on things rather than fighting one another as we have for 99% of the continent's history. It's much better, imo, to work on the flaws rather than throw that very nice baby out with the bath water because that blabbering idiot Johnson will get us into all sorts of hot water without getting so much as his own big toe wet.

You lost. Get over it. 17.4 million. Remoaner.

Probably missed a few mind.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Does anybody though?

Certainly not Mattarella or Cottarelli, and certainly not the Lega Nord, though they may well prove the main beneficiary of Cottarelli's appointment. The M5S seems at worst naive here, but not so much as Matterella. (Northern) Italian exports are booming, so there was little real threat of abandoning the Euro. Both M5S and the Lega has committed to abiding EU rules. Mattarella over-reacted, and it is playing right into Salvini's hands.

It's telling that the tipping point was the appointment of a Finance Minster who, like every other Finance Minister in Europe, has a plan for Italy leaving the Euro, and NOT the appointment of the Immigration Minster who wants to forcibly deport 500,000 refugees, Trump-style.

The EU has already (predictably) botched the response, another gift to Salvini. M5S is responsibly trying to restore the government, but Salvini thinks he can just run the country himself after another election. He might be right.

Italy runs a primary surplus, and is in much stronger fiscal shape than Spain - save the longstanding debt built up decades earlier. The country, especially the South, needs investment beyond what the EU's idiotic fiscal rules allow - even the financial press recognises this (the same is true of Northern England). But the EU (or more precisely, Germany) is willing to pull the entire temple down rather than countenence any hint of deviance from its fiscal orthodoxy. The Chinese are laughing all the bank over the West's addiction to austerity, while Germany continues to pull Europe and itself apart in a pointless quest to hoard away even more savings.

PS - Tory Brexiters: EU austerity is in large part responsible for the current crisis, and you don't get to use this as a retroactive pretect for Brexit when you've spent the past decade imposing on Britain even more cretinous and devasting austerity that what EU regulations demand.

It's interesting that for all of the talk (in the UK at least) of the EU impinging on life to an excessive extent, that they have been shown to be really quite toothless recently. They haven't had any impact in the sad turn of events in the Visegrad, and are not responding well to events in southern Europe either (and Italy is nothing if not polarised on north/south lines). I mean earlier this year there was a Stanford/Swiss study into migration and the best way to integrate people, and perhaps unsurprisingly one of the worst strategies was to randomly assign migrants to various places. The way the continent has managed migration does (or should at least) cause a large degree of doubt over the efficacy of any kind of 'managed migration' as it's much easier to talk about than do.

 

[Methuselah]

Interesting questions being posed though.

When should external monetary concern be put above the wishes of the population.

Can't help but feel that the EU have played this wrong.

The euro has been a disaster for most countries. For Germany, it is so undervalued (compared to what the Mark would be) it is like them winning the lottery every week. One of the few things we can thank Gordon Brown for is that he kept us out of the euro when Blair was desperate for us to join. (Plonkers like Ken Clarke still want us to join). The ideal solution to the euro problem is for Germany to leave, but that will never happen.
The euro was introduced in haste as an example of 'unification' but without the checks and balances required. The euro is now the EU's Achilles heel. If the euro doesn't survive it is unlikely that the EU will survive.