In an ideal world Europe should do one of two things. Either move toward full political union and effectively ditch the nation state, with a main central EU wide government based in Brussels, major pan european parties that seek a mandate there and from which the ELECTED leaders of the EU are drawn. Just writing it down shows how impossible that is going to be. Alternatively, Ditch the EU and retain the nation state and national parliaments and abolish the euro. This is enormously difficult and would cause immense short term damage and disruption but has a good chance in the middle term of reaching a situation with autonomous freely trading economies and currencies and one could rely on market mechanisms to restabilise the EU economy. EU states could continue to function as a political semi- entity (shared econ development, shared foreign policy, shared defense) if they wished with the commission coordinating this effort. Hopefully eventually the EU could get back to the dynamic entity that it was prior to the euro. This view, it seems to me is only somewhat further along the road that the Cameroons want to progress. But the UK will be a be bystander because the tories have been such willful and inconstant EU players. And I don't know why we bother to send anyone from UK. The reality is that we are going to get some awful Kludge which won't address the underlying issues and will try further to ride roughshod over democracy and inflict yet more austerity onto the unwilling , a road which will lead sooner or later to EU breakup... It’s funny how history repeats itself. The inconclusive general election in 2010 took place when the economy appeared to be on the mend and against the backdrop of a crisis in the eurozone prompted by Greece. As things stand, we could be in for a repeat performance in May 2015. Be in no doubt, what’s happening in Europe matters to Britain. The eurozone is perhaps one crisis and one deep recession away from splintering. The more TV pictures of rioting on the streets of Athens or general strikes in Italy between now and the election, the better support for Nigel Farage’s UK Independence party will hold up. Stronger support for Ukip will encourage the Conservatives to adopt a more Eurosceptic approach, hardening their stance on the concessions required for them to continue supporting Britain’s membership of the EU. Meanwhile, a permanently weak eurozone economy will push Britain’s trade balance into the red. The economic debate in the current parliament has been about sorting out the budget deficit; the debate in the next parliament will also be about sorting out the current account deficit. Let’s start with Greece, which was where the eurozone crisis began all those years ago. The French statesman Talleyrand once said of the Bourbons that they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The same applies to the bunch of incompetents in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt responsible for pushing Greece towards economic and political meltdown.
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