Why doesn't the Uk join the Euro?

vaporate

Maybe we should return to the use of gold coins lol.

Example: Italy/ florins, gold coins.

moniker_2

ghostbusters wrote: »

It has never been clear to me as to why the financial services industry in this country have on the whole been negative about joining the euro. Other countries have sucessful stock markets within the eurozone don't they??

What does the City in particular gain by us being outside the Eurozone?

Money. As in spreads (for currency conversions) and fees (for transfers, as the UK banks has been strongly against implementing the EU payment services directive that, among other things, says that intra-community payments in Euro should be priced the same as domestic payments.

Some would point finger at Greece without recognising that the UK economy is in far worse shape than the Eurozone economy even if Spain and Portugal would also default.

For ordinary businesses and the ordinary man there are benefits as well as drawbacks for staying vs out. On the whole it would pretty much be neutral.

But it's the banks that has the most to gain from staying out. Mind you, a large portion of the transactions in the City are in Euro anyway.

As for infrastructure, CHAPS supports both Sterling and Euro. Faster Payments is designed to be multi-currency but so far it has only been activated for Sterling payments. The old BACS system is Sterling only, but a parallel EuroBACS system (which is Euro only) was put in place a few years ago.

The banks already have everything that's needed to switch over to the Euro and they use it today.

moniker_2

Ian_W wrote: »

Besides, I can't really see how a currency can work without a proper centralised government responsible for taxation, interest rates, government borrowing, central banking and so on along the lines of a United States of Europe.

The idea behind the ECB, as is the idea behind some other central banks such as the quite successful one in Sweden, is that the central bank should be totally independent of politics and the Government.

The Bank of England was made independent as late as 1997 and it is very debatable how independent it really is as the Chancellor still has the ability to more or less instruct the BoE to change its interest rates.

That is however still a bit better than in the old days, where the Prime Minister could simply call up the Governor of the BoE to tell him that he had changed the interest rates, but it's not independence.

leveller2911

Milarky wrote: »

Hmm, mention of 'pigs' (a nasty, disparaging little term thought up by 'the markets') brings my mind back to the UK and the 'pig-headed' attitude displayed by so many commentators to the whole European project - of which the Eurozone is only a part. Do these morons actually want the most successful experiment in international peace and cooperation the World has seen to be destroyed??

Get a brain cell! Yes, I'll admit I've always been in favour of UK membership of the Euro. But then I've also always believed in the UK playing its part in the EU - which since Thatcher it decidedly hasn't. Why should 'Europe' continue to indulge our childishness - to the club allowing us to belong whilst flouting its rules? The UK, let me remind everyone negotiated itself an 'opt-out' from the requirements of the Maastricht Treaty as a condition of allowing (how big hearted ouf us!) the Euro to be created. It's like being Stalin signing the Allied agreement to partition Germany and then trying to avoid all collective responsibilty thereafer.

The UK is a 'rogue state' in this game - a kind of Iran to the rest of the Middle East - and the sooner some of the 'dinner jacket' commentators who take their lead from the Daily Mail acknowledge that the better for the rest of us.

(Of course if you think the country is 'going to the dogs' and want to leave it then you'd have to head off to Australia or New Zealand - not follow the masses to Spain or Portugal or, God forbid, France!)

Oh perlease,
You fail to mention the facts like the "Protectionism" that France has, the recent takeover of Cadbury's would never have been able to go ahead there because they wouldn't allow it and that goes for many possible takeovers of companies in the past 10 years or so,Also France and Spain subisdise their fishing fleets which is illegal under EU rules but it doesn't stop them doing it. Can I also remind you that Greece claimed for farming subsidies for more land than covers the entire country.
The EU auditors have failed to sign off the EU's accounts as being accurate for the last 12 years and and lets not bring up the total lack of democracy eh?.

One last thing our NET contribution to you wonderful EU club is set to rise by around £2.6 billion this year, we are in the depths of a recession and they still want to bleed us dry.Bring back the rebate I say, even better pull out of it full stop.

Carrying out my job I chat with many people about life in general and quite often the EU crops up and I can honestly say 99% of people certainly don't want closer ties and thats the view of all classes and ages IMO.

The grand EU project was/is a failure , the cracks are appearing its only a matter of time.For it to have ever been successful like other have said it needed full political and economic integration which the isolated knobs in Brussells knew the peoples of Europe would never stand for so they've tried all the underhanded ploys like making nations vote until they come up with the right answer....

You talk about the UK not playing fair ."Pull me away from the fire mother,i'm burning.;)

PS how exactly do you measure success???? The fall of the iron Curtain had more impact on peace and stability in the world than the EU .

sabretoothtigger

moniker wrote: »

That is however still a bit better than in the old days, where the Prime Minister could simply call up the Governor of the BoE to tell him that he had changed the interest rates, but it's not independence.

Well RBS can print money. Imagine a totally private system with fred goodwin at the controls:eek: he would have dropped rates to 0.5% years ago