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Is the EU actually about to break up?

Yurt123

I know it's been long talked about and I always dismissed it as being nonesene but for those of you willing to give a balance and non sensationalist view upon the situation do ye think this is really it for the EU?

Like it or not Britain has voted to leave, I have my doubts that they actually will

If the far right candidate gets elected in France it looks like she'll want out of the EU and I'm just after reading that the Italians are sick of the single currency and the EU as a whole and apparently a lot of them want out

Is this really it for the EU or is it a storm in a tea cup?

I presume the Western European countries would draw up free trade agreements fairly lively with eachother if the EU were to break up so things might sort themselves out kinda quick at least

If France, the U.K. and Italy all left could we get on fine in a EU without them?

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nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

Is homelessness really that big a deal, how many people are homeless?

For the 6500 that are officially counted as homeless (2000+ children) I'm sure it is a big deal.

BlinkingLights

Or, more likely : the UK will half-leave having realised that Brexit is just too much work and everyone else will kind of stumble on as normal while hoping Trump eventually gets impeached.

Zubeneschamali

Wanderer78 wrote: »

its very likely some of the debts created during the last few years will never be paid back.

Nobody ever thought they would ever be "paid back" in the sense of reduced to zero debt. But the people who loaned us money will get paid - we'll borrow more to pay them.

catbear

Both Five Star and LePen have said they'd switch back to former currencies but retain a link to the Euro.

Nostalgia economics essentially. Pensioners in both nations know that to break the link with the euro would mean rapid populist devaluations and an erosion of their purchasing power.

Plus southern Italy can't blame the EU for becoming increasingly reliant on north african migrants (not to be conflated with the boat people) who are hired through agencies to look after the increasingly aging demographic.

Wanderer78

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Nobody ever thought they would ever be "paid back" in the sense of reduced to zero debt. But the people who loaned us money will get paid - we'll borrow more to pay them.

its time for us to look at the basis of why these debts were issued in the first place, some were effectively under duress. our debt based monetary systems are not working for the majority but are for the minority. we need to start addressing these issues

BlinkingLights

I think there's a huge issue here in populist movements assuming that exiting the Euro is a panacia for solving floundering economies.

You're in a situation where Italy is competing largely against China now. Back in its heyday it dominated areas like white goods and had a thriving car industry. I mean, go back to the 1990s and pretty much anything you had in your kitchen was made in Italy.

The Italian brands failed to go upmarket like Germany (Bosch, Siemens, Miele, Audi, Mercedes, etc etc) / find a niche and were wiped out at the cheaper end by cheaper non-EU brands e.g. BEKO from Turkey (look up the parent companies sometime .. they're quite amusing) and also by stiff competition from LG, Samsung and Chinese products that are replacing Italian brands and Italian manufacturing jobs.

Italian car brands also managed to lose market share, and that was largely due to going through a period of producing unattractive cars. Fiat and others lost their market share.

If you leave the Euro and devalue to a new Lira, what happens? It plummets and yes, everything gets a bit more competitive for exports, but your are still up against China, South Korea and far more efficient and higher end brands in Germany and elsewhere. So, you just end up in the same situation but with even bigger debts releative to income and everyone's much poorer.

A lot of the proposals of the populists are economics of a bygone era. Italy needs to address its economic problems and come up with strategies to make its pretty formidable industries more competitive through innovation and better branding. Fiat in particular has been doing that.

Similar arguments apply to Spain and definitely to France.
France has absolutely everything it could possibly need to be an economic powerhouse and probably a history of far more design flare than Germany ever had, yet it's floundering at the moment.

Sitting on your rear end blaming the Euro and external factors will not make your economy function. You need to produce goods and services people actually want to buy and recognise that there are other competitors out there that you need to outcompete.

The Euro may have taken the brakes off in some ways, but a lot of the problems were spawned by the global credit crunch.

The UK, for example, is not in the Eurozone yet has nationalised banks and a huge national debt and over there, Brexit has basically blamed the EU on absolutely everything without any real logic to it.

The EU has flaws, but it has become a whipping boy for all that's wrong in Europe too which is a handy excuse for passing the buck.

Ireland's economic problems were caused by Ireland's idiotic policies on house building and mad bubble-inflation economics. I think most of us realised that and moved on having given FF a serious kicking in the process.

Elsewhere in Europe, I'm just seeing everything being blamed on the EU and immigration which makes very little sense. Also, at EU level, the countries that are doing well have all been rather sneering at the countries that have had problems and have only very begrudgingly offered any solidarity. We've had absolute NEIN to Eurobonds and so on from Germany.

There's been poor leadership, lots of blaming 'the other' and very little serious cooperation.

Europe could solve this stuff, but instead it's just in-fighting and seeing the rise of mini-Trumps. That does not bode well not only for Europe but the West generally.

Rightwing

If Italy go, that's it. Game over. Same goes for any of the countries in the Eurozone, will be like a house of cards. Sooner the better too.

Yurt123

Rightwing wrote: »

If Italy go, that's it. Game over. Same goes for any of the countries in the Eurozone, will be like a house of cards. Sooner the better too.

Italy is hardly important enough that their leaving will cause the EU to fall apart surely… I'm no expert by any means, I just like to keep myself informed but I think if Britain does leave and if France then leaves that then it will be game over

johnp001

Yurt123 wrote: »

Italy is hardly important enough that their leaving will cause the EU to fall apart surely… I'm no expert by any means, I just like to keep myself informed but I think if Britain does leave and if France then leaves that then it will be game over

When Grexit was being discussed previously there didn't seem to be any workable mechanism to allow Greece to leave the common currency. Brexit is more feasible as they are not part of the currency union. Any of the eurozone EU members would be very hard to disentangle from the union, especially without causing another run on peripheral euro bonds.

Yurt123

johnp001 wrote: »

When Grexit was being discussed previously there didn't seem to be any workable mechanism to allow Greece to leave the common currency. Brexit is more feasible as they are not part of the currency union. Any of the eurozone EU members would be very hard to disentangle from the union, especially without causing another run on peripheral euro bonds.

The euro was only introduced to benefit the Germans that time really wasn't it? I remember reading their own currency was growing so strong it was making their exports uncompetitive so with the common currency amongst us weaker economies their problem was solved basically at our expense

nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

Italy is hardly important enough that their leaving will cause the EU to fall apart surelyâ€¦ I'm no expert by any means, I just like to keep myself informed but I think if Britain does leave and if France then leaves that then it will be game over

So you think if Italy leaves it's no big deal? Are you serious? If as you say you like to keep yourself informed you'd realise your comment about Italy is sorry to say this but utter nonsense.

catbear

Rightwing wrote: »

If Italy go, that's it. Game over. Same goes for any of the countries in the Eurozone, will be like a house of cards. Sooner the better too.

But your missing the point. Italy doesn't want to go, it wants to stay linked to the Euro so even if 5Star got in essentially nothing changes.

Ironically 5Star will face the same bicameral deadlock that's created an Italian government on average 1.5 years since 1945 and that Renzi was trying to reform.

johnp001

Yurt123 wrote: »

The euro was only introduced to benefit the Germans that time really wasn't it? I remember reading their own currency was growing so strong it was making their exports uncompetitive so with the common currency amongst us weaker economies their problem was solved basically at our expense

Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro has been saying the same thing recently.

Alexander Mercouris wrote:

Donald Trump trade chief brands Germany a ‘currency manipulator’, says TTIP is ‘dead’

Peter Navarro, the head of President Trump’s new National Trade Council, is accusing Germany of ‘currency manipulation’ and is saying that TTIP is dead.

Navarro is being quoted by the Financial Times as calling the euro an “implicit Deutsche Mark” whose low valuation is giving Germany an unfair trade advantage against its competitors – including the US. On that basis he says that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (“TTIP”) currently under negotiation between the US and the EU, is unrealisable.

According to the Financial Times this is what Navarro said

Navarro on FT wrote:

A big obstacle to viewing TTIP as a bilateral deal is Germany, which continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the US with an ‘implicit Deutsche Mark’ that is grossly undervalued. The German structural imbalance in trade with the rest of the EU and the US underscores the economic heterogeneity [diversity] within the EU — ergo, this is a multilateral deal in bilateral dress

These comments will fuel even more concern in Germany at the direction the Trump administration is taking.

One of the reasons for Angela Merkel’s strong political position in Germany is that the combination of Germany’s longstanding industrial strength and the euro – which trades internationally well below where a Deutsche Mark would trade – has enabled Germany to export its way out of its economic problems. The result is that Germany has not experienced a serious recession since Merkel became Chancellor, even during the crisis period of the world financial crisis in 2008.
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Chips Lovell

Yurt123 wrote: »

The euro was only introduced to benefit the Germans that time really wasn't it? I remember reading their own currency was growing so strong it was making their exports uncompetitive so with the common currency amongst us weaker economies their problem was solved basically at our expense

The French were keener on it than the Germans. The creation of the Euro part of the bargain Mitterrand extracted in exchange for backing German reunification.

Yurt123

nhunter100 wrote: »

So you think if Italy leaves it's no big deal? Are you serious? If as you say you like to keep yourself informed you'd realise your comment about Italy is sorry to say this but utter nonsense.

Why do you take offence to everything and keep using the phrase "utter nonsense", what's the big deal if we don't share the exact same opinion? Chill out

I never said I know everything, just sharing my opinion like everyone else and happy to talk about it if you'd stop being condescending

nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

Chill out I never said I know everything, just sharing my opinion

I got that when you described homelessness as no big deal. Unfortunately if you post an opinion in on a public forum it maybe challenged.

srsly78

catbear wrote: »

But your missing the point. Italy doesn't want to go, it wants to stay linked to the Euro so even if 5Star got in essentially nothing changes.

Ironically 5Star will face the same bicameral deadlock that's created an Italian government on average 1.5 years since 1945 and that Renzi was trying to reform.

5star doesn't even want to leave the eu so I don't know what ye are on about. Some posters can't seem to differentiate between the eu and the euro.

suziki832

I wonder what will happen with Northern Ireland when the UK does leave? Because there are people there who consider themselves Irish and hold Irish passports... how will that work if the UK makes any changes to movement EU citizens since Irish citizens are part of the EU.

nhunter100

suziki832 wrote:

I wonder what will happen with Northern Ireland when the UK does leave? Because there are people there who consider themselves Irish and hold Irish passports... how will that work if the UK makes any changes to movement EU citizens since Irish citizens are part of the EU.

People in the north are entitled to dual citizenship under the terms of the good Friday agreement. Can't see an issue tbh.

BlinkingLights

In all likelihood the UK Ireland agreements on free movement will remain fully intact for people as the existing agreement is bilateral and nothing to do with the EU.

The issue is goods and services. Ireland and the UK never had a totally open boarder for trade until 1993 and that's basically where the relationship will be going back to. Those are EU derived rights.

So while traveling or relocating to the UK or to Ireland is likely to be very straight forward, you'll be subject to customs checks and tarrifs on things you bring through if the UK steps outside the single market and the customs union.

Yurt123

nhunter100 wrote: »

I got that when you described homelessness as no big deal. Unfortunately if you post an opinion in on a public forum it maybe challenged.

I started a thread about the future of the EU, why do you keep going on about homelessness? Stick to the point. I've no problem with anyone disagreeing with me but it's rude to tell someone repeatedly that their opinion is "utter nonsense"

nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

I started a thread about the future of the EU, why do you keep going on about homelessness? Stick to the point. I've no problem with anyone disagreeing with me but it's rude to tell someone repeatedly that their opinion is "utter nonsense"

You brought homelessness into the thread not I or have you forgotten?

nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

Is homelessness really that big a deal, how many people are homeless?

First mention of homelessness...and it was by you.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Yurt123

nhunter100 wrote: »

First mention of homelessness...and it was by you.

I said that in reply to someone who blamed our paying back of EU debt to our inability to tackle the homeless problem, read back properly and you'll see it

BlinkingLights

jacksie66 wrote: »

The EU feels like that old car that you keep throwing money at to keep it going for another few months until it passes its nct..
I think the EU is going to fail its next nct..

Meanwhile the UK feels like some Auld Fella in the pub who has decided to put on his 1950s Teddy Boy outfit, slick back the hair with brill creme and try and restart his classic MG so that he can go look up his old girlfriends in the colonies and hopes they'll still be interested and might have some leads for setting up a new company.... All while hypocritically giving out about foreigners and ranting about how they're wrecked the country.

nhunter100

Yurt123 wrote:

I said that in reply to someone who blamed our paying back of EU debt to our inability to tackle the homeless problem, read back properly and you'll see it

No I'm good cheers.

KingBrian2

Too much debt in the system. Those who suffered from the debt were terrible mistreated. Creditors have a role to play in reducing harm that causes economic systems to crash.

nhunter100

BlinkingLights wrote:

Meanwhile the UK feels like some Auld Fella in the pub who has decided to put on his 1950s Teddy Boy outfit, slick back the hair with brill creme and try and restart his classic MG so that he can go look up his old girlfriends in the colonies and hopes they'll still be interested and might have some leads for setting up a new company.... All while hypocritically giving out about foreigners and ranting about how they're wrecked the country.

The British got alot of stick for refusing to switch to the Euro, if the last few years have taught me anything it's a good idea to control your own currency. As for Brexit only time will tell. I however don't think Britain will suffer as much as the rest of the EU seem to want them too.

KingBrian2

nhunter100 wrote: »

The British got alot of stick for refusing to switch to the Euro, if the last few years have taught me anything it's a good idea to control your own currency. As for Brexit only time will tell. I however don't think Britain will suffer as much as the rest of the EU seem to want them too.

The EU is not the same as the €. Britain had a big imput in the formation of the EU and the subsequent polices that were used on the likes of Greece, Italy and ourselves. That being Britain can do well out of leaving the EU except a trade war with Europe would be disastrous for them.