Benefits of EU membership

Mark Wadsworth Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 03:07:06 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Can anybody help Platonist who posted the following on ConservativeHome ...



"Could somebody - anybody - please please point me in the direction of an explanation of why it's good for us to be in the EU. Seriously, I just don't get why I am branded a nutter. It seems to me that everyone who wants to stay in is stark staring mad."

All comments etc much appreciated.


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Benefits of EU membership | 29 comments (29 topical)

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#1)

by swatantra on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 03:53:28 PM GMT

Lets face it Platonist, you're just a nutter for being a Conservative.


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#3)

by HOWLERMONKEY on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 05:33:55 PM GMT

True.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#4)

by snowflake5 on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 06:49:42 PM GMT

Also, while Labour people are committed Europeans, we don't see it as our job to persuade Tories like Platonian of the European cause, when we'd rather he flounced off to UKIP thereby splitting the Tory vote! ;-)


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#2)

by Glass House on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 04:47:38 PM GMT

Economically - because the EU gives us access to a huge market for our goods and services.

For those who say that we could leave the EU and that Europe would still allow us free access to the market (the old "the need us more than we need them), i would say that that market is governed by rules. Being in the EU gives us a say (an in some cases a veto) over those rules.

International Relations - It allows us to punch above our weight internationally. I sometimes wonder why those whosay that "European nations could could work together internationally just as well without the EU" don't have a problem with NATO, an international organisation that also pools soverignty.

And some other stuff.

I'm not saying that the EU isn't a basket-case half the time. I'm not saying that it doesn't make me want to tear my hair out. Im just saying that if it didn't exist we'd have to invent it.

One last thing - the downside of the EU isn't anything to do with soverignty, it's to do with democracy. That's another (and very complicated) discussion.


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#5)

by snowflake5 on Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 07:07:58 PM GMT

Also, it's not commonly understood that Norway and Switzerland pay a "fee" to the EU for access to the common market, which is roughly what they'd pay if they were full members! So you don't save any money by being outside the EU.

And they comply with EU regulations as too expensive to manufacture some goods that comply and some that don't. However because they are outside they don't get a say as to what the regs are, only those of us inside get to argue and vote (or veto) in the Council of Ministers. Hence the reason the govts of both Norway and Switzerland are keen to join, even if their populations remain shy.

Norway has already signed the accession treaty to join (they signed in 1972), they just haven't managed to ratify it yet. They've had two referendums so far (the last one in 1994 lost by 52.2% No to 47.8% yes). Switzerland seems to be joining by stealth - they've already accepted the EU's money-laundering rules, which put aside their fabled secretive banking, and have just had a successful referendum to join Schengen, the EU's borderless zone where there are no customs checks. Iceland and Norway are also part of Schengen.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#9)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 10:20:05 AM GMT

Eurofacts did an analysis of this on 22/9 and the conclusions were that the annual costs to Switzerland for 2007-2013 work out like this (Sw:Fr: million) / INDEX

=Continue bilateral agreements 557m =100
=Join EEA 737m = 132
=Join EU (NET) 3400m = 610
=Join EU (gross) 4940m =886

Source: Swiss Government


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#11)

by snowflake5 on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 01:23:34 PM GMT

Hmm, but you've missed out that the Swiss are contributing CHF1 billion on top towards the transfer monies going to eastern europe. When the next lot join, they'll be pressed again to contribute towards their Europeanisation. It's a myth that you can wash your hands off Europe if you are not in the EU - the rehabilitation of the East and the Balkans is seen as a grave duty essential if Europe is to remain stable (look at Russia, Ukraine and Georgia to see what happens when the EU doesn't get involved with pesky regulations about democracy, law and order, free press etc. The Bulgarians et al may think the Enlargement Commissioner is a stern pain-in-the neck with his pernickety demands on corruption etc, but the alternative is the wild-east style of Russia - and make no mistake, if the EU weren't around, the Bulgarians and the Balkan states would back-slide, and the problems would wash up on our shores anyway, but worse)

As for Norway, see the following from the economist:

When Norwegian voters rejected membership of the EU in 1994, Norway opted instead to join the European Economic Area. The EEA gives it access to the EU's internal market and its "four freedoms": freedom of movement for goods, services, people and capital. But this comes at a price. The Norwegians are obliged to accept every single piece of internal-market legislation, and they have no vote on these laws. Norway had to restructure its entire natural-gas industry to satisfy the EU's competition authorities. All European environmental and social legislation has also had to be adopted, including those irksome EU regulations on working-time and parental leave that drive British right-wingers to distraction. Norway even makes a sizeable contribution to the EU budget--as large as that made by a comparable-sized EU member, such as Denmark
 


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#14)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 04:35:54 PM GMT

Yup, Norway are in EFTA and EEA, that costs a pretty penny - it is tantamount to being in EU and costs a pretty penny. Switzerland on other hand is in EFTA but NOT in EEA, which is a lot cheaper.

I don't think anybody objects to sending a couple of £bn over to Eastern Europe to get them started. This is quite different to sending tens of £bn to Brussels for them to spend on French farmers, bureaucrats and other schemes for which the accounts have never been signed off.

Including a fair few £bn that they send straight back to the UK. What's the point of that then?


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#15)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 04:40:27 PM GMT

Of course we'd all be better off if the CAP didn't exist. Being anti-CAP doesn't mean you have to be anti-EU!

...and that from a farmer's son!


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#16)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 05:04:10 PM GMT

That is the point. I like Europe and Europeans (and that from somebody who is half-German); I like free trade and free movement of workers; I have nothing against helping out Eastern European countries.

But I don't like CAP; €bn's wasted and stolen in Brussels; regulations on straight cucumbers; them taking our money and then sending us a third back in subsidies. These are the things that to me epitomise the EU. Not "Europe"; the EU. Most Europeans dislike the EU as much as we do.

I am not anti-Europe or xenophobic, but having considered all the evidence (and we have decades' worth) I am anti-EU.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#17)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 05:12:24 PM GMT

I agree. I don't think anti-EU people are anti-Europe.

"But I don't like CAP; €bn's wasted and stolen in Brussels; regulations on straight cucumbers; them taking our money and then sending us a third back in subsidies"

I agree with all of this, but to leap from here to being anti-EU is, to me, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We should work to reform the basket-case stuff in the EU.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#19)

by snowflake5 on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 05:28:57 PM GMT

CAP actually got reformed in 2002. Intervention prices got cut, and the link with production got severed. The payment they receive is to maintain the land in such a state where production could be started at any time. It's for food security (because if the farmers couldn't make a profit from growing stuff, and didn't get the maintenance grant, they'd sell to developers, and once land is concreted, you can't farm it again. We faced a problem in WW2 where we couldn't import food, and had to somehow feed ourselves, and our population was lower then)

Given that Labour hasn't many rural MP's, it's easier for us to push to reform CAP further, and get rid of the intervention prices entirely. I think this is the intention when it comes up for discussion in 2008. Farmers will squeal, but who cares, they don't vote for us anyway - (the farming vote is probably one reason why no CAP reform took place under the Tories).


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#18)

by snowflake5 on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 05:19:15 PM GMT

Britain doesn't send money to France. France is a net contributor, just as we are, and indeed all of western Europe are now net contributors - they pay in more than they get out. And France pays in the same as us a net contribution of about 1% of GDP.

Also, you misunderstand the payment mechanism. We disburse EU monies ourselves - Brussels doesn't actually handle money, they just collate the accounts sent to them at the end of the year by the member states. So we pay the farmers and transfers to N.I. and the balance is then sent to eastern europe. The French do something similar. i.e. both Britain and France are paying for their own farmers, and then sending money to eastern europe, which you say you don't mind. So what's the problem?

Secondly you mention accounts. Yes, there has been fraud in Greece, where people claimed farm subsidies they shouldn't have - the fault was with the Greek government, who disburse the money there; they were slack in checking whether people were eligible. Brussels has been putting pressure on them to tighten up - but you can hardly blame the commission for things that take place locally and are controlled by local elected politicians.

Finally the "bureaucracy" - the Commission employs just 22,000 people, who look after the interests of all 450 million Europeans. You can see straight away that they don't deal with disbursements etc (not enough people), but instead handle such things as negotiations at Doha and police the treaties, eg clamping down on monopolies, taking people to court if they do anti-competitive practices eg when cars in the UK were unfairly priced more than on the continent. They actually employ fewer people than most British city councils, and if you compare to the US federal government, which employs tens of million to look after the 300 million Americans, doing similar tasks, Brussels looks pretty damn efficient!


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#20)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 06:40:12 PM GMT

Cost of EU regulations is E 600 billion per annum, per EU enterprise commissioner G Verheugen in today's FT. Which does not include compliance costs (whatever that means). As EU has a population of 400 million, that is serious money we are talking about.

And don't blame the lack of accounts on Greece. The accounts haven't been signed off for a decade.

EU budget is around 112 bn Euros. If the mistakes were down to a couple of million here or there, I am sure that they'd do accounts. The cumulative total fraud an error is probably on a staggering scale, if it were only small they'd finalsie the accounts and admit that a few Euros went missing in Greece.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#23)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:32:31 PM GMT

"E 600 billion per annum"

What is that as a percentage of total EU GDP?

And how much of that regulation is "doubling up" of domestic regulation that would exist regardless of involvement in the EU?


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#24)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:45:59 PM GMT

That £1,000 per annum for each man woman and child. That's about 5% of our per capita GDP, but no doubt about 25% of per capita GDP in Slovakia or something.

I guess about 10% of EU GDP overall.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#26)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:47:26 PM GMT

...and the other question?


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#27)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 09:25:45 PM GMT

I say a teeny tiny fraction, you make up your own figure, shall we split the difference and call it half?

In other words, EU-regs, by their Commissioner's own admission cost 5% of EU-GDP.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#6)

by Anonymous on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 08:55:14 AM GMT

it costs us billions and the decisions made are made by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.
it destroys our competitiveness and will end up costing us jobs.
nothing wrong with having trade agreements, and clearly anything which makes another major (or minor) war in europe unlikely is a good thing. problem is, i think the eu makes it more likely. not today, or tomorrow. but one day.


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#7)

by swatantra on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 09:28:18 AM GMT

Well Anon No 5, if the new Constituition had been accepted by the French and the Danes we would have had more accounability, QMC, common policies like Foreign and maybe Defence, all adding to greater harmony and an avoidance of war. So you could say the fickle elecorate shot themselves in the foot; and anyway they were actually voting against unpopular domestic policies not really having a clue about Europe.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#8)

by swatantra on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 09:29:29 AM GMT

That should have been QMV Qualified Majority Voting.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#10)

by platonist on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 10:21:39 AM GMT

Thanks for feedback - avenues I shall read up on more thoroughly.

And it's 'she' by the way.


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#12)

by radical1 on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 01:53:38 PM GMT

How's about, 'Cos' it p****s off some right wing loonie Tories really rotten'


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#13)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 03:06:38 PM GMT

Oh yeah. Forgot that one. :)


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#21)

by HOWLERMONKEY on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:01:32 PM GMT

Remember, it was a right wing nutter. that proposed it in the first place... Winston Churchill's Zurich speech on Sep 19th 1946 ...
"Something that will astonish you"


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#22)

by Glass House on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:29:57 PM GMT

Yeah, but to be fair, he didn't want Britain to be a part of it. He thought it would be just a continental thing.


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#25)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 07:47:02 PM GMT

Winston Churchill was not a right wing nutter. He was, for example in favour of Land Value Tax (see other thread!)


[ Parent ]

Re: Benefits of EU membership (#28)

by smiley on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 11:11:43 PM GMT

What about the euro?


Re: Benefits of EU membership (#29)

by Mark Wadsworth on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 11:19:26 PM GMT

Been there, done that. It didn't work twenty - fifteen years ago, why on earth would it work today?

More to the point, if we agree that the arguments are finely balanced, and from an acadamic-ivory tower point of view I can see the point of a single currency, why not give THE PEOPLE the casting vote? And we know that on the whole THE PEOPLE are against, rightly or wrongly, secondly, an iron law of politics must be, if in doubt, do nothin.


[ Parent ]

Benefits of EU membership | 29 comments (29 topical)