Tuesday, May 14, 2013

IS THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH (ALL OF THE 53 STATES) PART OF THE E.U .????...

IS THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH (ALL OF THE 53 STATES) PART OF THE E.U .????...Well, I believe it should ...at least Canada, New Zealand and Australia should ...what do you say ???
  The big political changes being made in the eurozone as a result of the currency crisis would warrant a renegotiation, Brussels concedes. But there are major political obstacles in the member states militating against reopening the treaty. Even before a vote on a new settlement in Britain, a revised Lisbon treaty would certainly trigger referendum calls in Ireland or Denmark. "Then you have the domino effect. What about the Netherlands, Sweden, France. [President François] Hollande's position is key. He needs a referendum like a hole in the head," said one of the officials. Opinion polls show a pattern of collapsing support for the EU in France while Hollande's ratings are at historical lows for a French president. Hollande was traumatised by France's rejection of an EU constitution in 2005 and would seek to avoid any such repetition. "There will be huge pressure for referendums," said one of the senior sources. "But politicians are unlikely to start on the road to referendums if they think they will lose them." There is also exasperation in EU capitals that Cameron has declined, as yet, to flesh out what kind of changes he wants or which policy areas he hopes to renegotiate. The puzzlement extends to British officials and business. A delegation from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was in Brussels on Monday and sounded out the European Commission about what Downing Street wanted because they have not been told. Similar puzzlement surrounds the battery of EU police, justice, and security measures that Britain needs to renegotiate, a policy recently severely criticized by a House of Lords inquiry as damaging the British national interest.
Under the Lisbon treaty, Britain has to opt out of more than 130 EU police and justice instruments en bloc and then re-negotiate the bits it wants to retain with other EU governments and with the European Commission. Senior commission sources say the home secretary, Theresa May, has not contacted Cecilia Malmstrom, one of the commissioners responsible, since last year....

Eurogroup chief and Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem wants new bail-in rules to give "pari passu" treatment to uninsured deposits and senior bank bondholders, and is reluctant to allow exemptions.   He said he was open to discussion on the matter, but wanted the new rules to take effect as soon as possible, in 2015. ere are too many finance ministers around the table to go into as much detail as I would like, but so far France, Ireland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and the European Central Bank have stated that they are in favor of a depositor preference when it comes to bail-ins.  These countries argue that uninsured depositors (people with more than €100,000 in the bank) should be lower in the hierarchy than senior bondholders when it comes to who should be bailed-in to pay for a bail-out. Surprise surprize, the EU has failed to agree on a long-delayed tax evasion directive. Algirdas Semeta, the EU commissioner responsible for taxation, said he was "disappointed" that countries could not reach agreement on the directive.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gerald Howarth, former defence minister, has said Conservative MPs must remember there can be no actual legislation on a referendum this parliament because the party is in a Coalition with a pro-EU party. He told the BBC:

Quote It’s not a referendum amendment, it’s a regret that Europe wasn’t mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Yes, we will support it and I hope we’ll support it in large numbers to reassure the British people that the Conservative party remains resolute on this issue. We recognise and they must recognise, that this is not a Conservative government and that’s the price you pay for coalition.

Anonymous said...

isnt it funny that anyone directs anger towards the EU when we should be pressing for punishment of all banking institutions and heavy control and laws to stop them making a dogs dinner of the world economy again by playing greedy investment games based on flawed mathematic formulas to overcome all normal risk indicators and ignoring the inevitable gigantic fall-out which has crippled the globe...thats what happens when there is not proper control....the EU are simply trying to solve the disaster....some are pushing for more banking inegration to reduce the possibility of this crisis happening again....it is a cyclical process...boom..big crisis..recovery...boom...etc

Anonymous said...

the EU is far from immune from neoliberalism. However, I'd stilltrust them more with workers' rights that the likes of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Francis Maude, etc.

Many people do want to leave the EU but that's hardly surprising given the relentless campaign by the right wing press over the last few decades. Xenophobia and nationalism are easy sentiments to stir up.

Many people in the rest of Europe may distrust the EU, and this is largely the result of the Euro, which at present appears to have been a half-baked idea at best, although who knows how it will look in 10 years time. However, being in the Euro is something the UK doesn't need to be concerned about. I can't see a UK government of any type going anywhere near the idea of Euro membership for many, many years, if ever.

Anonymous said...

The financial situation in Europe is indeed regrettable, but people will work together a but more it can still be resolved. As a UK citizen living in Spain for nearly 18 years I am MUCH more pissed off by these UKIP idiots in Britain, and the way Cameron is playing along with them. If the UK leaves the EU it will be bad for Britain, the UK, and for me, as my EU citizen status here would be revoked and I may be forced to return to the UK. My wife is Spanish, and no doubt she would not be granted the right to live in the UK. Far more trouble is brewing in the UK than in Europe, and it's all because of a bunch of self-interested right-wingers and the uneducated masses who are stupid enough to fall for it all.

Anonymous said...

I am getting the impression, more and more, that there is some sort of a conspiracy against the EU, that there are people who WANT it to fail. Why are people being so destructive and negative? Don't you realise that this will have devastating consequences for the rest of the world, too? And now we have Cameron with his trade agreement with the USA, which is probably where much of the anti-European sentiment originates from. If Britain leaves the EU and jumps into bed with the USA, it will probably backfire. Careful, boys and girls, the flames may dance prettily, but they still burn.