UK - Dismissing criticism of the UK referendum in a speech in Davos, the Prime Minister insisted
that the EU had to “be frank" about its performance.
He said the bloc was being “left behind” global competitors, “leaving behind
its people” and the European economy was a “big, looming problem”
In a passionate and energetic address to the World Economic Forum, he said
Britain would use its G8 leadership to drive changes on “tax, trade and
transparency”. Anticipating criticism for “business-bashing”, he insisted he was “as
pro-business leader as you can find".
"I yield to no-one in my enthusiasm for capitalism,” he said, “This is a
vision of proper companies, proper taxes and proper rules….for the good of
people across the world.” It's a big moment, and having read the speech my first impression is that it
exceeds expectations: once again, he has shown a knack for delivering under
pressure. The focus is on the detail of his timetable for a referendum, but the
argument he sets out in depth is worth studying. He analyses the EU's problems -
the euro, weakening competitiveness, the democracy gap - and argues that the EU
must reinvent itself based on five principles: competitiveness, flexibility,
giving power back to member states, democratic accountability and fairness.
Note that a major chunk of his speech sets out the argument for staying in
the EU, and the perils of leaving: he does not linger on the fence. This speech
will mark a significant break in the pattern of politics: Mr Cameron will offer
the electorate a chance to leave the EU, a groundbreaking moment. He hopes this
will be a major vote winner, and will trump Labour. It will also have
substantial consequences for the Conservative party because it will force it to
confront and resolve once and for all the division that runs through its heart.
Polls suggest the EU is not the hot issue many say it is. But in the light of
this morning I suspect those predicting Mr Cameron's defeat in 2015 may at the
very least need to reconsider.
As a EU Citizen let me say one thing about Mr Cameron so called "Europe
Speech": he has delivered a very Italian style speech, full of void
promises.
1) Promise: "..if we win the elections.." which is after 2015 in any case when he is likely, very likely, to lose
2) Promise: ..after negotiations for a new status for Britain within the EU... which will take (I'm positive) at least another 2/3 year time after 2015
3) Promise (more a void hope and a linked void threat):... if the other EU partners says no to the request of the British, then Britain will leave...
Mr Cameron (and with him the so called eurosceptics) knows perfectly well that the other European leaders will not allow him another "cherry picking" tour that will jeopardize the entire structure of the EU.
Consequently they will very likely say simply "NO" to the requests of Mr Cameron.
This will add another year or couple of years to the negotiation time (and we end up towards 2018/2019... well after another referendum that is to take place in the UK: the Scottish Independence one (Will the UK remain a United Kingdom or just a "United Crowns!", at the best).
Then it will be to Mr Cameron (/is still in power by then) to say "We (Britain) leave the EU"
And this will kill yhe only real industry active in Britain: the City.
It will be such an easy game for the other Europeans to impose curbs/taxes/fees/obstacles to their residents to transact from a Country which is out of the EU.
Or, is there anyone in Britain that believe (in this case he/she is simply stupid) or hope (in this case she/he is shortminded) that Britan can leave the EU and keep the advantages of being part of it?
This is likely to match the "Italian promises" of Mr Cameron with the "Italian expectations" of the "out of the EU to save Britain" propaganda.
BUONAFORTUNA (Good Luck) for the...DAY AFTER!
1) Promise: "..if we win the elections.." which is after 2015 in any case when he is likely, very likely, to lose
2) Promise: ..after negotiations for a new status for Britain within the EU... which will take (I'm positive) at least another 2/3 year time after 2015
3) Promise (more a void hope and a linked void threat):... if the other EU partners says no to the request of the British, then Britain will leave...
Mr Cameron (and with him the so called eurosceptics) knows perfectly well that the other European leaders will not allow him another "cherry picking" tour that will jeopardize the entire structure of the EU.
Consequently they will very likely say simply "NO" to the requests of Mr Cameron.
This will add another year or couple of years to the negotiation time (and we end up towards 2018/2019... well after another referendum that is to take place in the UK: the Scottish Independence one (Will the UK remain a United Kingdom or just a "United Crowns!", at the best).
Then it will be to Mr Cameron (/is still in power by then) to say "We (Britain) leave the EU"
And this will kill yhe only real industry active in Britain: the City.
It will be such an easy game for the other Europeans to impose curbs/taxes/fees/obstacles to their residents to transact from a Country which is out of the EU.
Or, is there anyone in Britain that believe (in this case he/she is simply stupid) or hope (in this case she/he is shortminded) that Britan can leave the EU and keep the advantages of being part of it?
This is likely to match the "Italian promises" of Mr Cameron with the "Italian expectations" of the "out of the EU to save Britain" propaganda.
BUONAFORTUNA (Good Luck) for the...DAY AFTER!
11 comments:
Angela Merkel created a small breathing space for David Cameron on Wednesday when she gave a guarded response to his landmark speech on Europe, paving the way for the prime minister to campaign in favour of an in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU at the next election.
As most European leaders rejected Cameron's demands for a radical overhaul of the terms of Britain's EU membership, the German chancellor indicated she was open to negotiating a "fair compromise".
The intervention by Merkel, hours after the prime minister called for Britain to be exempted from the EU's founding objective to create "an ever-closer union", delighted Downing Street which had worked hard to brief on Cameron's speech.
He outlined the scale of his ambition to transform the terms of Britain's membership of the EU in his long-awaited speech when he cast himself as a modern-day heretic ready to challenge the defining declaration of the 1957 treaty of Rome which founded the EEC.
"We understand and respect the right of others to maintain their commitment to this goal," he said of the commitment to forge an ever-closer union. "But for Britain – and perhaps for others – it is not the objective. And we would be much more comfortable if the treaty specifically said so, freeing those who want to go further, faster, to do so, without being held back by the others."
He's calling a referendum that I don't want, in which I'm forced to choose between two of his opinions. How's that listening to the electorate?
He's a coward pretending to be brave on behalf of no one other than the shrillest members of his own party. And he won't even say how he'll vote if he doesn't even get his petulant little way on needless renegotiations. I hope they tell him and his selfish, economically-suicidal agenda to get stuffed.
This is the kind of crap that inflicts men and women of wisdom with depression.
Do you not understand that this is absolute horseshit? Taking Britain out of the EU would be utterly catastrophic - Cameron knows this. This is a ploy to get idiots to vote for him, to vote for the abolition of social security, Magna Carta, the NHS and everything else because "I don't like foreigners telling me what to do!"
Guess what - you're always going to have people telling you what to do. Whether it's the police, the Tories, Labour, whoever. Always. The real you should ask is what they are telling you to do, not who is telling you to do it.
EU has a system of protection for the sick, protection from slavery, justice that is external to government, and rights for workers. That's why the free market wants it gone - it can have a corporate free for all and treat the human part of society like dirt while having a massive cash grab, rather like the USA.
This is like Bernard Matthews asking turkeys to vote for him as opposed to the RSPCA because some of the RSPCA come from abroad. It's mind-meltingly ridiculous, and it's dreadful to think that people are falling for it
Doctors don't get the option to sign the waiver. Firstly the working week is officially 48 so already 10-11 hours more than a typical worker. For safety reasons it's probably good it isn't higher. However the fundamental point for us is that if doctors are found to be working more than 48 hours a week then the hospital trust gets fined. This happens more than you realise and lots of doctors esp surgeon work well n excess of the 48 hours. Obviously we are not paid for it because that would mean the hospital trust sanctioning it and they would therefore fined. All the hours we work over the EWTD are unpaid.
If TEH EWTD
What exactly is the current government's problem with EU membership? I'm not trolling -- that's an honest question from a non-Brit who hasn't been able to find an answer from newspaper articles. I could certainly understand opposition to joining the Eurozone; the common currency has been an unmitigated disaster for most of the countries that use it (and in fairness Tory Eurosceptics are owed a measure of gratitude for their opposition -- it's saved the UK a lot of grief). But the UK still uses sterling, and there seems (thankfully) no prospect whatsoever of reversal on that score. So again, what's the problem with simply remaining in the EU?
Almost 200,000 people lost jobs between October and December to send the jobless figure to nearly 6m, Spain's National Statistics Institute reported on Thursday.
Spain's youth unemployment - the number aged 16 to 24 without a job - hit a new quarterly high of 55pc, but showed tentative signs of retreating after falling from a peak of 56.5pc in November. Similarly, overall unemployment hit a high in November of 26.6pc and slid in December.
Meanwhile, the number of households in which every member is out of work climbed to 1.8m, more than one tenth of all Spanish families.
The report also suggests the long-term unemployed face a tougher struggle in returning to work, with the number of people remaining unemployed more than a year after losing their jobs rising by 213,800 during 2012.
The bleak figures - which make Spain home to a third of the eurozone's total unemployed - will cast a dark shadow over the one-year-old premiership of Mariano Rajoy, who has faced mounting criticism and a wave of general strikes over his administration's handling of the economy.
Well there is one comment that comes to mind.....
They think its all over..... It is now..
Now we know why last week we had all the talking heads out telling us how great everything is
Spanish unemployment at record high
Unemployment in austerity-gripped Spain has edged higher to 26.2pc, continuing a rise towards levels not seen since the end of the Franco dictatorship in the mid 1970s.
Youth unemployment in Spain could be on a downward trajectory after peaking in November. Photo: AFP
By Denise Roland
11:55AM GMT 24 Jan 2013
2 Comments
Almost 200,000 people lost jobs between October and December to send the jobless figure to nearly 6m, Spain's National Statistics Institute reported on Thursday.
Spain's youth unemployment - the number aged 16 to 24 without a job - hit a new quarterly high of 55pc, but showed tentative signs of retreating after falling from a peak of 56.5pc in November. Similarly, overall unemployment hit a high in November of 26.6pc and slid in December.
Meanwhile, the number of households in which every member is out of work climbed to 1.8m, more than one tenth of all Spanish families.
The report also suggests the long-term unemployed face a tougher struggle in returning to work, with the number of people remaining unemployed more than a year after losing their jobs rising by 213,800 during 2012.
The bleak figures - which make Spain home to a third of the eurozone's total unemployed - will cast a dark shadow over the one-year-old premiership of Mariano Rajoy, who has faced mounting criticism and a wave of general strikes over his administration's handling of the economy.
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Mr Rajoy has so far seen little fruit from his relentless application of austerity measures, with the Bank of Spain expecting the recession to have worsened in the fourth quarter and the International Monetary Fund cutting its growth forecast for Spanish GDP to a 1.5pc contraction from an earlier prediction of a 1.4pc decline.
Although the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts Spanish unemployment to climb to almost 27pc in 2013, Mr Rajoy has insisted the economy has turned a corner and that the nation will see economic growth as soon as 2014..
"Recent job losses have taken place in the real estate sector, in the financial sector and in the public sector,” he told the FT earlier this month.
“But in other sectors of the economy jobs have not been lost. So the labour reform has started to bear fruit."
Hopeful signals came from elsewhere in the eurozone, where private business activity rose to a 10-month high, according to a leading growth indicator.
The Purchasing Managers' Index published by London-based Markit researchers, a survey of thousands of eurozone companies, logged 48.2 points in compared to 47.2 points the previous month.
January marked a third rise running for the index, even though it remains below the 50-point line indicating economic growth or contraction - a 16th reading of less than 50 in 17 months.
Manufacturing production fell for the 11th month in a row, with both the manufacturing and services sectors each registering their smallest retreat in 10 months.
Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said forward-looking indicators "suggest that the rate of decline will continue to slow in the coming months, and a return to growth looks to be on the cards during the first half of 2013."
However, he underlined that "worrying signs of weakness persist, however, with companies cutting staff at a faster rate, reflecting the need to keep costs as low as possible in the face of ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook."
Dismissing criticism of the UK referendum in a speech in Davos, the Prime Minister insisted that the EU had to “be frank" about its performance.
He said the bloc was being “left behind” global competitors, “leaving behind its people” and the European economy was a “big, looming problem”
In a passionate and energetic address to the World Economic Forum, he said Britain would use its G8 leadership to drive changes on “tax, trade and transparency”.
Anticipating criticism for “business-bashing”, he insisted he was “as pro-business leader as you can find".
"I yield to no-one in my enthusiasm for capitalism,” he said, “This is a vision of proper companies, proper taxes and proper rules….for the good of people across the world.”
Dismissing criticism of the UK referendum in a speech in Davos, the Prime Minister insisted that the EU had to “be frank" about its performance.
He said the bloc was being “left behind” global competitors, “leaving behind its people” and the European economy was a “big, looming problem”
In a passionate and energetic address to the World Economic Forum, he said Britain would use its G8 leadership to drive changes on “tax, trade and transparency”.
Anticipating criticism for “business-bashing”, he insisted he was “as pro-business leader as you can find".
"I yield to no-one in my enthusiasm for capitalism,” he said, “This is a vision of proper companies, proper taxes and proper rules….for the good of people across the world.”
Declaring that “aggressive tax avoidance” was a problem for “all countries, not just for Britain, he said the G8 needed to work together to stop the “traveling band wagon” of lawyers and consultants from moving on once tax loopholes are closed.
In a thinly disguised dig at international conglomerates such as Starbuck and Google that avoid corporation tax in the UK, Mr Cameron said: “Companies that don’t pay their taxes must wake up and smell the coffee, customers won’t put up with it.”
On trade, he said he would push for a full free trade agreement between America and Europe that he said would add €50bn to EU GDP.
He added that he would tackle “trade bureaucracy” at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Bali this year, saying it would boost global trade by £70bn.
Mr Cameron also promised to put a “turbo boost” under the drive for transparency in business and politics around the world to curb corruption and drive trade.
After angering his EU partners on Wednesday by announcing plans for a referendum on membership, the Prime Minister said of his push for change: "This is not about turning our backs on Europe. Quite the opposite.
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