UK 'closer' to adopting the euroFollow

Would that make you Euro Peons?

The Euro is similar in exchange to what it was upon release. It skyrocketed for a while, but now it is about what it was. There is about a 3-4 cent difference between what the Euro was at launch, and what it is now.

But I think for many of the member countries, their old currency was worth less than the Euro when they joined it?

If they would give us the Euro without all the social laws that go with it, I would support it. I'm a great supporter of the European Economic Community, but as it stands I am a firm believer that forcing social integration will fail over so many countries. Unfortunately the Euro does come with some social ties I could do without! When they silently dropped the middle E, I started to question the motives of those involved.

There are other aspects, I could not find the story from a lazy google search but some years back a section of the european gravy train had a vote of no confidence passed on it ... and it remained in place. There is little accountability. Add in the laughable farm subsidies, its all a little too much for me. Thank god they repealed the bendy banana laws

Is that I trust business people but not policians?

There are none. Sign here Miss.

Srsly; the primary reason UK is forecast to be harder hit than mainland europe in this recession is that we're outside the Eurozone.

The Euro is holding tighter to the greenback than the pound, but because of sentimentality over 'the pound', the establishment are consigning us to the anachronistic dustbin of "we used to be a contender".

We will adopt the Euro within 5 years or become Europe's new boondock (if we aren't already).

A classic case of "It may be better than our idea, but it wasn't our idea" mentality.

Let me explain myself a little more in detail, with the proviso that I'm quite willing to be corrected, because of my aforementioned weakness in background knowledge of economic detail.

As far as I know, investors do this sort of automatic spreading of risk thing. For example many large investment trusts will simply buy stocks in companies at the same percentage rate as their presence in the market. For example, if Arms companies represent 10% of the stock market, most large investment trusts will hold Arms companies stocks as 10% of their portfolio, reguardless of any moral considerations to the contrary. Same with Cigarette companies. If they are 5% of the stockmarket, trusts will have cigarette companies as 5% of their stock holdings.

I'm presuming that there's a similar effect with currencies, although perhaps for different reasons. Say America represents a quarter of world trade, then there's sort of a demand for the US$ that equals a quarter of the demand for all currencies. Also, investments trusts that invest in various currencies as cash holdings, want roughly a quarter of their cash to be in US$, give or take perceived risk factors of various currencies.

I've lost track of how many countries have joined the Euro. Let me pretend it's 15. Prior to the Euro, these countries' currencies might have variously had say 5%, 3%, 2%, 1%, or 0.5% of the world demand for currency on them. Some of these countries were VERY strong economically, tradewise, and/or had strong currencies. But very many of them, especially the more easterly ones, were proportionally very small and weak countries in those same areas.

The Euro is created, and now these currencies effectively in a way get added together as a proportion of the world market for currency. An economically weak former Eastern Bloc European nation suddenly finds itself with a currency that now represents (what is the Euro's proportion of the world currency market?) say 25% of the world currency market, instead of 1% of it. There's effectively 25 times the demand for it's new currency as there was for it's old currency (On Aripyanfar's crap made-up figures.) It's currency is floating as part of a trading bloc that represents maybe 25% of world trade instead of 1% of world trade.

Importantly in my hazy scenario (using the same craptastic made up figures) The US$ used to have 25% of world currency demand against a European closest rival that only had say 5% of world currency demand. The Euro is created, and now it's nearest rival in the continent of Europe is suddenly five times bigger, and is roughly as big as it is.

Most important in my hazy scenario, as international investors rebalance their currency portfolios, I'm guessing that the Euro got effectively treated as greater than the sum of it's parts if it's parts had remained separate. I bet some of the weaker countries were perceived as bad risks, but now that they are part of the Euro, they are a better risk now. That is, the Euro is a summing of better risks than each country would have remained on it's own. Whoops, said that twice.

Among all these shifting realities, what happens is a sell-off of US$ and a buy-up of Euros. My ignorant little hypothesis is that the US$ hasn't been weak overall the last few years because, or only because of things happening in and to the USA. I think it's weakened against every other currency in the world because of the creation of the Euro. Bother, I guess I could have just said that last sentence straight off and skipped the rest.

Therefor I AM saying that the US$ wouldn't have weakened, or weakened so much, against guilders or Francs recentishly, because it's specifically the EURO it's weakened against. If the Euro hadn't have been created, the world would be wanting proportionally more US$ than it's wanting now. The Euro is seen as large and stable, a good risk, and can buy a lot of stuff, it's now another choice next to the US$, which used to be far and away the best large, stable, good risk, buy-a-lot-of-stuff currency.

Ok, I just made a large mess of suppositions, and maybe only the last two paragraphs are actually worth anything. But after typing all that out I'm reluctant to delete everything else. Last disclaimer, all this is before the GFC, which has thrown everything I know about the Aussie dollar against the US$ and Euro up in the air

Gwyn

Your references to an abherrent Eurocrat does sound like the bloke in the pub who only survived a car crash because he wasn't waering a seatbelt. A satistical significance of 1 is insignificant.

Have you ever been involved in the European decision-making process? Taken the time to respond to calls for consultation? Asked your MEP very specific questions?

Very few Brits I know have, yet those of us who do find it a responsive process. Take the time to understand what is being voted on, lobby your MEPs and exercise your democratic right.

From your post, it sounds like you're recycling populist propaganda that seems endemic to our printed media (right & left both seem happy to ******* misrepresentative & disingenuous crap about Brussels and Strasbourg that are debunked the moment you look for source material).

What Red said, the EU is no more or less democratic than our own UK Parliament and regional assemblies. . .

Sit back and expect to feel democratic. . . you'll feel disappointed and disempowered.
Similarly, if you do engage and expect your representative to exclusively pursue your line (at the expense of her/his other constiutuents), you may feel like a quiet, ignored voice. (I could channel Dracoid and say Democracy is the oppression of the minority)


However, if you engage with your politicians, research source material to inform your views, and engage in campaigns on issues that are important to you, you can make a difference, and avoid sounding like a numpty when debating politics!

If you're complaining about the Lisbon Treaty, it's almost never been the case that countries are consulted by referendums on new treaties. There are new treaties every 4-5 years, to make a few tweaks to the institutions, and adjustments to how they apply the subsidiarity principle.

The only reason why there was talk of a referendum was because a Constitution was put forward a couple of years ago. It got rejected by France and the Netherlands before the UK even had a chance to vote on it. But the Constitution was much broader than the Treaty: it included a new kind of Bill of Rights, and some symbolic stuff like a permanent President, a "foreign Minister" and new majority voting areas. It wasn't earth-shattering by any means, but still was more substantial than the Lisbon Treaty.

Now, if your gripe is that the UK doesn't get to vote on treaties, please think about what this would entail: that every 4 years, 27 European countries hold simultaneous referendums, and if 1 out of 27 countries says no, a country like, say, Luxembourg (pop 400,000), then the other 26 countries (pop 500,000,000) can't do anything. Add to this the fact that the EU has had a large amount of new members recently, that the current institutions were designed for 15-17 countries maximum, and you get an idea why maybe its a good time pass a bloody Treaty through Parliament to make something happen.

On top of that, a lot of people simply don't understand the EU. What that MEP said is, unfortunately, true. Especially so in England where it's practically a criminal offence to learn about EU institutions. Do you know what the Commission does? How its members are chosen? How the proportional representation works? What about the Council? What about the European Parliament, any idea what powers they have? Who your MEP is? What laws have been passed in the EU in the last year?

And, I assume, you're an educated person. Most people aren't. So, if you're going to vote on something, you should really, perhaps, maybe, learn about the bloody thing you're voting about. Does anyone ever debate EU institutions in the UK? Ever heard a TV programme were they discussed them? Neither have I, and I listen to Radio 4 everyday.



They are respected. But there are 27 members, and if we want to get anything done, wait, not even that, if we want to update the institutions so they can function with 27 members as opposed to 15, we need to find a way to pass legislation through. And passing legislation through national Parliaments, where directly elected politicians vote on the matter, like they do for every single other law passed in the country, doesn't seem like the most undemocratic mechanism to me. The treaty is there for you to read it. Every law passed in the EU is on the EU website. You can learn exactly what each institution does there too. I fail to see how any of this is undemocratic or obscure.

I realise there are plenty of faults within the EU. Plenty. The size and make-up of the farm subsidies, for one. The archaic institutions, for another. The sh*tty PR, definitely. These exist, but they are very rarely seriously debated in this country.

I know this is turning into a gbaji post, but there just another couple of points. The people who want the EU to work have realised that unanimity with 27 countries would pose a problem a long time ago. The time when one country could effectively stop everyone else going forward is, pretty much, over. Countries that want to move ahead will do so, while those that want to stay outside stay outside. It will be, and in many ways already is, a multi-tiered EU. The Euro is the best example. Had we waited for 27 countries to reach the economic targets, and then hold referendum, it would never have happened. Same for the Schengen agreement. The Erasmus programme. That is the future of the EU. It's become too big to be anything else. The next step, most likely, is going to be the military, with the creation of a proto-EU army.

These are critical issues. The future of Europe, our role in the world as European nation-states, the opportunities we leave to our kids, and our ability to influence and shape world events, all depend on issues like this one. Like what we do with the EU. And while lots of countries are having this debate, I'm sorry to say that the UK is mostly still concerned with spitting at something it doesn't want to understand.

Edit: Ding!


Edited, Dec 2nd 2008 11:33pm by RedPhoenixxx

No, it's not. Seriously, do you rely on politicians to know stuff? Is that your source? Open a book, go on a website, read the Economist and the FT, I don't know, there are plenty of ways to learn about it. How do you learn about other stuff?

The problem with politicians here is that the Euro-sceptics ones use it as a scapegoat and demonise it, and the pro-european ones keep quiet because they don't want to be seen as pro-european. It's political suicide.



Edited, Dec 2nd 2008 11:28pm by RedPhoenixxx

I tried, see the other topic and being treated like a interloper and being basicly told to GTFO and stop interfering.

All I ever get when I talk to political representitives is spin and question avoidance, from the bottom to the top, ask a question about policy and you get the party line that doesn't mean anything, dig deeper and they shut up shop and start waffling.

I have friends in Germany that have told me the rub with the conversion to the Euro was that only their wages changed. So if you were earning 2000 Marks before the change you earned 1200 Euros afterwards. But then when you went to the store, an item that cost 2 Marks the day before the change, costs 2 Euro's afterwards.

My MP responds to emails within a week, and copies me into his monthly briefing.
My MEP does the same.

I suspect your posts reflect a British disease known as passive democracy. The key is for those who wish to influence making the move - your representatives have tens of thousands of constituents and do not have the resources to mass-mail everyone, but if they're any good, they'll respond to specific enquiries and requests, and add you to their routine e-mailing lists.

If they don't respond, or fail to give you the answers you want, campaign against them, get behind an effective opponent, and get them out of office.

Although there have been cases of abuse of the conversion like this, most countries did enforce a policy that forbade any increase. That linked with the fact that all countries that implemented the Euro had a fixed rate that was set a year in advance, should have prevented a serious increase of prices with the change.

Should have, but there has been a slight increase of prices due to the change in Euro. Nothing even close to the 2 DEM becoming 2 EUR though.