Europe-Am I missing something?

Radiantsoul

ILW wrote: »

We are not at war with America, Russia or China either.

No, but a major impetus for European intergration was to avoid the wars that many of those who created the idea of a European community had actually fought in.

Radiantsoul

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Did we think we would be, so hardly a benefit :rotfl:

You can hardly say it was unimaginable. I am sure that the possibility of German tanks rolling over the French boarder would have informed at least French political opinion until the mid 60s if not longer.

Radiantsoul

ILW wrote: »

In that case maybe we shoud let Iraq and Afghanistan in as well.

Those are wars we choose to have. If we had wanted peace we probably ought not to have invaded in the first place.

lewisa

Radiantsoul wrote: »

Is this an EU thing or local Belgium laws?

Its local Belguim, however, its wrong to describe it as that, because I run a company in England & Wales, not Belguim, yet the long arm of their law seems to extend to cover the universe.

It's akin to me importing chocolate and then the UK government taxing the Belgian company who shipped them to the UK, rather than me paying the tax to the UK Gov.

But of course there should be no cross border taxation in the free market, hell I spend enough time farting about with the accounts to cope with VAT free orders shipped to EU business.

Protectionism in the free market, you couldnt make it up, but then this is the EU.

Generali

lewisa wrote: »

Thats the first time in a year of reading your posts Ive ever seen you make a nonsensical statement. Im actually shocked :eek:

You should look harder then!:D

lewisa wrote: »

There is only 'free trade' in Europe when it suits. I speak as someone threatened with court in Flanders for exporting a certain type of goods to Belguim and not covering the buyers tax bill up front.

Its the only time in my life ive ever heard of import taxes being the liablilty of the exporter.

EU free trade can swivel, and I'll have my tax back thanks!

Anything originating in Belguim can swivel as well. And I used to enjoy Stella so its a shame.

There shouldn't be any import taxes if you export from the UK to Belgium under the rules of the Single Market. There may well be local taxes that apply to local producers and exporters but there should not be any import duties.

ILW

So it is beginning to appear they most of the pro opinion is about avoiding wars, nothing to do with trade and economics. If that is the case, what has dictating what type of lightbulbs we use, or how many hours we work got to do with anything?

lewisa

I thought there shouldnt either. Now I just dont ship goods to Belgium.

I'll try and find the docs and scan and post them, its important that normally financially astute people are aware of the full facts so they dont get pulled in by the public message the inner party put out to the media.

We just stopped trding with Belgium about 4 years ago and forgot about it, the amount of business wasnt that great, but it worked out that for about £4K of goods shipped o Belguim would make us liable for about 40K euro in their local unilateral taxes.

There has been two succesful prosecutions of companies who tried to fight it and carried on shipping goods. I couldnt afford the risk.

zappahey

lewisa wrote: »

I thought there shouldnt either. Now I just dont ship goods to Belgium.

I'll try and find the docs and scan and post them, its important that normally financially astute people are aware of the full facts so they dont get pulled in by the public message the inner party put out to the media.

We just stopped trding with Belgium about 4 years ago and forgot about it, the amount of business wasnt that great, but it worked out that for about £4K of goods shipped o Belguim would make us liable for about 40K euro in their local unilateral taxes.

There has been two succesful prosecutions of companies who tried to fight it and carried on shipping goods. I couldnt afford the risk.

I'd be really interested in knowing about this, too.

I actually have a spark of a business idea but I think it will be extinguished by the difficulty of dipping a toe in Belgian business waters.

A._Badger

ILW wrote: »

So it is beginning to appear they most of the pro opinion is about avoiding wars, nothing to do with trade and economics. If that is the case, what has dictating what type of lightbulbs we use, or how many hours we work got to do with anything?

Pressures of 'having a life' meant I didn't get to read the comments on this thread after about lunchtime yesterday. But what a sorry bunch of nonsense the 'pro' lobby has come up with!

Yes,the European Iron and Steel Community (which is how the EU scam started life) was primarily formed by the French and Germans trying to avoid another war.

One can only assume the acronym NATO had somehow passed them by, as it has the Europhiles here, whose grasp of post-war history is so shaky as to be, to all intents and purposes, non-existent.

The chance of a war between France and Germany is nil. It was nil before the plan to share a single government (because that is what underpins the EU) and it will be nil once the EU collapses, which it will, sooner or later, because monetary union is economic nonsense across such diverse group of nations. It was never going to work and it is unravelling before our eyes.

Moreover, when a war actually did arrive on our doorstep (in the former Yugoslavia) the EU's response was to run around flapping like so many wet hens.

As for the 'free trade' excuse, I can only assume that there must be a generation of lazy businessmen out there who have never traded with India, China, the USA, the former Comecon bloc etc et flppin' cetera!

If they are so feeble as to believe trade only takes place between countries without tariff barriers then we, as a trading nation, really are domed.

Business goes on where there is a will for it to be done. In my time, (and it wasn't so long ago) British engineering products were being traded for jars of jam with Eastern European countries who didn't have the hard currency to pay for them.

To say that subverting our entire political, social and legal system for the sake of few less trade restrictions on businessmen too feeble to cope with normal international trade is worse than pathetic. It's downright meretricious.

Radiantsoul

A._Badger wrote: »

The chance of a war between France and Germany is nil. It was nil before the plan to share a single government (because that is what underpins the EU) and it will be nil once the EU collapses, which it will, sooner or later, because monetary union is economic nonsense across such diverse group of nations. It was never going to work and it is unravelling before our eyes.

Moreover, when a war actually did arrive on our doorstep (in the former Yugoslavia) the EU's response was to run around flapping like so many wet hens.

The Treaty of Rome was signed just 12 years after the last war between France and Germany. I doubt the possibility of war was close to zero at that time, of course war between Russia and the USA appeared more likely. But that scarcely put the chance of war at zero. The chance of war is far less likely now because ideological differences between the two nations have reduced.

I think the war in Yugoslavia was at least contained.