EU Fun and Games

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barkingmad
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Re: EU Fun and Games

#41 Post by barkingmad » Sat Feb 22, 2020 9:46 am

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/21/eu-budg ... udget.html

I’m desperately trying to empathise with the warring factions and failing miserably!

What happens later when their final agreement shafts their peasants definitely does move me but I fear it’s up to the ultimate peasants’ revolt, as per Brexit, before the whole corrupt top-heavy institution gets toppled or properly reformed.

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#42 Post by ian16th » Sat Feb 22, 2020 10:40 am

The last paragraph of the article:
Meanwhile, the prime minister of Luxembourg told CNBC his counterparts cannot forget that contributing to the EU budget has its benefits. “The problem is that most of us … just take out a calculator to see what it costs ... For my country, for example, it’s 1.50 euro a day, and we should not forget that it brings us freedom: freedom of movement, for companies ... the biggest democracy in the world,” Xavier Bettel said Thursday.
Made me gasp for breath.

Just what sort of idiot is this guy?

The lack of democracy was one of the biggest selling points for Brexit.
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#43 Post by barkingmad » Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:10 am

Netherlands boss said he didn’t know what to say at the bunfight so he’s going to settle down and quietly read a recently acquired biography of Chopin!

Cue restful piano music?

First sign of commonsense in this latest squabble. Thank the good fates that we’re travelling in the opposite direction, away from them once the final jousting is complete!

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#44 Post by barkingmad » Fri Mar 06, 2020 2:11 pm

These documents look good and maybe persuaded some folks that the corruption swamp would be drained;

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/b ... rective_en

Unfortunately I detect little or no change in ANY of the countries obliged to implement the measures.

Just because the UK is supposed to be leaving the EUSSR doesn’t mean we’re allowed to duck this issue, so what’s really happening out there?

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#45 Post by barkingmad » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:53 pm

Meanwhile, back in the lands of milk and honey and everyone helping everyone else;


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Re: EU Fun and Games

#46 Post by OFSO » Wed Apr 01, 2020 12:13 pm

A naive friend, English but pro EU, could not wait to tell me that having left the EU Britain will 'miss out' on the millions of euros the EU is making available to Member States to assist with virus recovery. I tried to tell her.....
Where's it coming from ? To whom is it going ? Which country is NOT going to have to contribute....

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#47 Post by barkingmad » Wed Apr 01, 2020 4:39 pm

OOOOH DEAR ! ! ! It looks like the wheel nuts are dangerously loose so how long before the wheels shoot off ahead of the noble EUSSR craft?



The PIIGS countries have for a long time been mentioned as the first casualties before it all falls apart and here we have 2/5 protesting about their treatment and the behaviour of the elite in Brussels towards them. The Cloggies don’t look very charitable in the light of these protests so this development may provide some interesting material in the near future.
And the UK had better practise the use of the word NO when the EUrocrats come begging or even insisting that we dig deep into Sterling to bail them out!

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#48 Post by Seenenough » Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:20 pm

Italy ,I would think ,will be the next country to bail out of the EU closely followed by Spain.

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#49 Post by barkingmad » Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:13 pm

There follows an audio only discussion on some aspects of Covid-19 in the EUSSR, sorry about the flag but the hole in the middle says it all. Roughly the first third of the discussion is about Italy and how their relationship with the 26 others is being affected, the next approx one third is a take on the Swedish aspect and it finishes with the UK Plod’s actions relating to the rather fuzzy guidance given to them by their management. Food for thought as we watch the economies crumbling into rubble which is where we’ll all remain for a considerable time;


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Re: EU Fun and Games

#50 Post by barkingmad » Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:07 pm

The future’s bright, the future’s, erm, yes....

https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/ar ... rus-crisis

The article is from 2 weeks ago but still relevant. Caution the author is a confirmed anti-Brexit Europhile bur has been ‘inside’ for a few years so must have a clue as to how things are shaping up?

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#51 Post by barkingmad » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:47 am

It would appear that the cracks which were already evident in the great ship’s structure, before the arrival of the plague, are ever widening when the EUSSR is subjected to the stress tests imposed by Covid-19?

Coronavirus outbreak eats into EU unity https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52135816

They are saying the UK’s exit must be delayed due to the ‘lergy whilst our lot are saying “nope, end of June and we’re leaving”.

We live in interesting times...

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#52 Post by barkingmad » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:09 pm

Ooh dear again!! The bloc is not coping very well as a "union" with the best 'eggspurts' available for all that money they're supposed to be spending;



And it gets worse but no sign of our favourite friends such as Barnier of Verhofstadt anywhere to be seen:


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Re: EU Fun and Games

#53 Post by OFSO » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:20 pm

Despite 16 hours of talks, EU finance ministers still could not agree how to tackle the economic fallout from the outbreak. Frans Timmermans, currently European Commission First Vice President, said “the EU as we know it will not survive this”.

Well, whoop de whoop !

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#54 Post by Capetonian » Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:05 pm

This time, the future of the euro really is at stake

Dutch rejection of financial plans is incomprehensible to outsiders amid fears the European project is at risk

Naomi O’Leary Europe Correspondent

It took 16 hours of video conferencing for the finance ministers of the euro zone to find out that once again, they could not agree.

As the ministers and their aides emerged blearily out into the sunlight of Wednesday morning in their respective capitals, the mood was pitch black. “I think I would summarise it by saying positions haven’t changed, but the mood has changed, and the mood has gotten worse,” an official said.

One dream of what the future of Europe might look like was already over: the idea that it could be shaped by the so-called New Hanseatic League.

Called the Hansa for short, this collection of the Netherlands, Ireland, and Baltic and Scandinavian states was brought together by the departure of Britain from the European Union. As a group, it hoped to replace the UK’s clout on economic matters and defend a trade-friendly, pro-business viewpoint.

Ireland left it by joining the call of nine states including, Italy, Spain and France, for joint debt issuance in the form of eurobonds or coronabonds.

The northern gang was never a perfect fit for Ireland anyway. But the attitude of the Netherlands in the past few days of negotiations has made the departure final.
Disaster

Ireland, in tune with southern states, has been appalled by The Hague’s staunch blocking of proposals to dig European economies out of disaster and debt spiral caused by the pandemic.

In the Netherlands, jointly-backed debt is commonly likened to taking over your neighbour’s mortgage, an unfair characterisation that draws on an old misapprehension that the euro zone bailouts were gifts from Dutch and German taxpayers, rather than loans repaid with interest. Naturally, the Irish view is more nuanced.

But it’s not just joint debt. Dutch finance minister Wopke Hoekstra was also the last man blocking a proposal to allow states to borrow from the bailout fund without the condition that they must balance the books.

Germany was once the champion of this view that indebted countries can’t be given easy money because they won’t learn their lesson. But Berlin sees the pandemic as different to crises of the past, and objects to joint debt more on the grounds that rushing into such a commitment, like a Las Vegas marriage, might end badly.

It was the vote of a party with 19 seats in the Dutch parliament, the europhile D66 party, that confirmed to international observers that a different reality held within the borders of the lowland state. By joining much of the opposition to back Mark Rutte’s government’s rejection of joint debt, the party sank international hopes the prime minister might come under domestic pressure to cave.

Some officials believe the Dutch will come in time to see that the stakes are high for them too. But not until it has become clear that the euro itself is under threat, great economic damage has been wreaked, and seeds of bitterness between EU countries have been sown deep.

The great fear is that by then it will be too late to turn back a tide of disgust in Italy towards the entire EU project.

The Italian economy has hardly grown since it joined the euro in 1999. You can take your pick of domestic problems to blame: onerous laws that people ignore, a musical-chairs succession of weak governments, an aging population.

But the fact is that the country has not seen the benefits of the euro. It has people old enough to vote who have known only economic stagnation. That’s despite the country’s continued strengths in manufacturing, science, and culture, and it being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
Radicalised public opinion

Over the course of two decades of using the euro Italy has turned from one of Europe’s most europhile nations to one of its most eurosceptic. The political results of this were already apparent with the country’s election of euro-critical parties into power.

But the coronavirus pandemic appears to have radicalised public opinion.

Since EU countries failed to respond to an appeal from Rome for emergency supplies, Italian media has been a maelstrom slights and wounds from fellow EU countries. Some are real, some spurious, but all are deeply felt as they were accompanied by gruesome death tolls of close to 1,000 a day.

The blunt Dutch rejections seem to come from another universe, never mind from the same currency area.

In the past, joint debt has been proposed as a solution to a structural flaw in the euro, which is a single currency, used by very different economies, that do not agree enough or share enough power to fix the deep imbalances this creates.

In the past, those imbalances were addressed only when they came close to bringing the whole project crashing down.

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#55 Post by barkingmad » Thu Apr 09, 2020 4:43 pm

Is this scientist our very own EU Captain Crozier, given the boot publicly for bypassing the chain-of-command in sheer frustration? Apologies for the source of the item...;

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... rus-crisis

If so it appears to be another sticky situation very badly handled by the EUSSR scientific division! [-X

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#56 Post by barkingmad » Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:15 am

Meanwhile, as the attention of the captain and stokers of the EU SS Titanic is totally focussed on the fires in the coal bunkers, the ship sails on at high speed towards the iceberg;



And of course MSM has only one news story, about which we the peasants can do very little apart from obeying the lockdown and watching the economy implode.

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#57 Post by barkingmad » Thu Apr 16, 2020 5:28 pm

Well, imagine my surprise! The Reichsfuerher Usula Von Der Leyen has finally woken up to appreciate that one of the founding members of the EUSSR is feeling very sore at being shafted financially and realised they might be considering jumping ship.
So let’s bash out a quick apology before the cracks widen and the news spreads further;

https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/16/eu- ... y-to-italy

But will that be enough to get them all cuddling up together again or has irreparable damage been inflicted by the loan which Italy cannot possibly afford to pay back?

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#58 Post by OFSO » Thu Apr 16, 2020 9:37 pm

Her apology was not for something the EU may or may not have done. Not a word about the lack of leadership from Brussels, because she wouldn't dare.

Her apology was on behalf of individual, but unnamed Member States having not supported other Member States in their time of need.

What gives her the right to do this ?

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Re: EU Fun and Games

#59 Post by barkingmad » Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:13 am

Giuseppe; “Hey, I’ve just been bitten by a poisonous snake!”

Ursula; “That’s OK. We have a EU Subcommittee meeting scheduled for early next week”.

That’s one of the many apt comments on this latest J T address. For how long will the Italians tolerate this shambles before they revolt big time and start agitating for ‘Italexit’?


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Re: EU Fun and Games

#60 Post by Seenenough » Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:08 pm

"That’s one of the many apt comments on this latest J T address. For how long will the Italians tolerate this shambles before they revolt big time and start agitating for ‘Italexit’?"

My view is that the EU likely cannot save itself.Italy and Spain have run out of money and the EU cannot/will not come up with any funds to help.Both countries were in deep financial trouble before the Virus hit.

Italy and Spain will have no choice but to look for help elsewhere.Options are China,UK,Japan and the USA.Russia cannot help at the moment as they are likely low on funds because of the price of oil that will take a while to recover.Once again I think the US and the UK to a lesser degree will be the preferred partners to come up with the boatloads of money that are urgently needed.

This situation is ,as I see it ,the EU's Rubicon moment.

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