Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Norway's foreign minister has urged the UK to assess the advantages of staying in the European Union, rather than consider leaving.
Norway is not in the EU but has access to the single market. UK Eurosceptics use it as a model for how the UK could relate to the EU from outside. But Foreign Minister Espen Eide said Oslo had "limited scope for influence".
"We are not at the table when decisions are made," he told Radio 4's The World This Weekend.  Mr Eide is pro-EU, though Norwegian voters have twice rejected the chance to join the EU in referendums in 1972 and 1994. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, a former UK ambassador to the US and to the European Union, said: "The issue is - do you want to be part of the single market? All the economic indicators are that the UK needs to be.
"But [the Norwegians] have no role in negotiations... they have no impact, no influence and there's no accountability. So this is regulation without representation. "It's the first thing the UK needs to decide, whether it wants to be associated with the single market, from the inside or the outside.
"If on the outside, both the Swiss and the Norwegian models give you no actual impact on the substance of what's agreed."
Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan said he was "not aware of any British Eurosceptics who are arguing that we should precisely replicate the Norwegian model".  He added: "What we're after is something a bit more like what the Swiss have, but actually I think we could get better terms than either Norway or Switzerland."
Prime Minister David Cameron has consistently said he supports Britain's continued membership.
 
In other news: Germany's DIHK say's German exports could grow by 4% in 2013. If you are educated and looking for a decent paid job, good healthcare, 25 day's vacation, maternity leave, a decently maintained road network, public transport that runs on time, airports that don't close when there is 1/10 inch of snow go, speak English then look for a job in the fatherland. They are still making things that people want.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Britain moved up to sixth in the global economic league table during 2012, overtaking Brazil despite a year of flatlining activity.

A survey from the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) found that the value of the UK's national output surpassed that of Latin America's biggest economy following a fall in the value of its currency, the real.

The CEBR said it would take until 2014 for Brazil to once again supplant the UK in its World Economic League Table (WELT), and that by 2017 Britain would also have fallen behind a fast-rising India.

Douglas McWilliams, CEBR chief executive, said: "The Indians have lost to us at cricket this winter but they are on track to beat us at economics. By 2017 we predict that the Indian economy will be the largest economy in the Commonwealth, overtaking the UK economy.

"We are beating some other countries, though. We are poised to overtake France either in 2013 or 2014 as the economic effects of President Hollande's 75% tax policy and the difficulties of the euro drag France down.

"We have been neck and neck with Brazil for some time. Last year they overtook us; this year we have overtaken them again. From 2014 onwards, however, their more dynamic economy is likely to pull them decisively beyond us."

Although the first official estimate of UK growth will not be published until late January 2013, the Bank of England and the Treasury believe that there will be a small fall in output in the final three months of the year, leaving GDP virtually unchanged between 2011 and 2012.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile back in the real world uk citizens see their standards of living in free fall, uneducated without a brass razoo migrant imports are on the way up, while educated seen the light at the end of the tunnel are one of the uk best performing exports, is this the export driven recovery!!

Anonymous said...

By 2017 UK Plc house prices will be averaging £1m+ at least. I wouldn't expect a bedsit to go for less than that.

That will add at least another £9bn to GDP, taking the combined value of housing to at least £14bn.

Bet those stupid foreigners can't match that, we don't even need any raw inputs to make money we just sit on what we've already built and just wait.

Although my prediction may be slightly off, at some point in the next 2 years they will announce the Last House Ever Built in UK Plc.

After that I really have no idea what speculation is going to do to prices, but let's be honest - it can only be good and the only way is up

Anonymous said...

........saw an interesting documentary on house-price inflation in Indian cities and the very same thing is happening there as happens here....except you would not believe the absolute shit-holes that ordinary people are buying in Indian cities to live in. I know that sounds tough and even mean (please don't be offended if you're Indian....a shit-hole is a shit-hole whichever country it's in) but some of these 'covered areas' (I can't call them houses) were simply awful. The new owners seemed pretty pleased to have them though because many of them were getting turfed out by speculators because they had no title deeds.
Anyone else see this..was it on France 24 or RT?