The EU debate

Bantex_2

CLAPTON wrote: »

maybe
but it's what a 'common' market with level playing fields for all members equally, means

Common market to me means free trade, not centrally controlled trade.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Bantex wrote: »

Common market to me means free trade, not centrally controlled trade.

Do you understand how free trade areas work?

You can't have a free trade area with 27 different borders into it, each with completely different customs tariffs, rates of duty, permitted goods, import authorisations, etc.

That would be completely impossible to maintain, and result in massive additional costs for businesses around the world.

Conrad

In addition to the EFTA agreement and the free trade agreement with the European Union, Switzerland currently has a network of 28 free trade agreements with 38 partners outside the EU, and new agreements are continually being negotiated.




http://www.s-ge.com/switzerland/export/en/content/static/Free-Trade-Agreements






Do not believe the fearful doom mongers, as a lean mean fleet of foot independent trading nation governing ourselves we would easily negotiate many FTA's, indeed we would likely club together as a European non EU bloc with Switzerland et al.


Europe represents only 15% of world trade.


Many nations such as S Korea trade perfectly well with the EU. Membership is not required and costs us net billions per annum.


Thanks to new found autonomy and dynamism we would create, not loose jobs as the quaking doomers tell us.


Use your brain, stop falling for myths and chicken licken nonsense.

Conrad

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Do you understand how free trade areas work?

You can't have a free trade area with 27 different borders into it, each with completely different customs tariffs, rates of duty, permitted goods, import authorisations, etc.

That would be completely impossible to maintain, and result in massive additional costs for businesses around the world.

Many non European nations manage free trade agreements with other nations, no biggie, no sky falling in.


Japan sells huge amounts to Europe, how ever is that possible in the minds of the scare mongers that inhabit shake like a leaf land?

N1AK

Conrad wrote: »

Thanks to new found autonomy and dynamism we would create, not loose jobs as the quaking doomers tell us.

You sound about as realistic as Alex 'once we have independence pigs will fly' Salmond.

The population of the UK won't magically become more dynamic, nor will firms. We'll still be producing products to European specs because so much of it will get sold there, but we won't have a say in setting those specs because we threw our toys out the pram and sulked off.

As our government likes to point out our economy is growing very nicely now and we're in the EU and unemployment is falling and we're in the EU. The IMF says were the fastest growing G7 economy, so the idea that the EU is some gigantic anchor holding us back is a fiction.

mayonnaise

We are often told to look at Norway and Switzerland as shining examples of countries outside the EU and flourishing as a result of that.

Let's have a look then.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nigel-farage-eu-debate_b_5081860.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Norway has had to implement 75% of its laws - 6,000 pieces of legislation. "We have been more compliant than many EU member countries," the premier Erna Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party, has confessed. (In the 1990s, Norway
was known as the "fax democracy", with Brussels simply faxing new directives for the Norwegians to follow.)

It's not a cheap deal, either. Norway's total financial contribution to the EU each year is about €340m - which, per capita, works out to be slightly higher
than the UK's.

In 2009, the Swiss government acknowledged: "The existing [EU] barriers to market access place Switzerland at an economic disadvantage." It added: "Switzerland loses out in terms of jobs, value creation and tax receipts."

Second, whatever happened to no taxation without representation? Although it is outside the EU and outside the EEA, too, Switzerland contributes about €450m
a year to the EU budget.

Third, Swiss sovereignty is overrated. The country relies on roughly 120 separate bilateral agreements with the EU and it is expected to adopt every single EU regulation in each of those areas - again, without any say on their shape, structure or content.

Norway is doing well because of its oil wealth, Switzerland is doing well because of its financial sector. One might argue they are being held back somewhat by not being in the EU.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Ouch.

Norway paying more per capita than the UK, having to implement EU rules anyway, but having no say on what they are.

Well that sounds lovely.....

andrewf75

Ah a dose of reality for Conrad. I've gone through the same argument with him several times. He'll still come out with the same stuff next time though....

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Do you understand how free trade areas work?

You can't have a free trade area with 27 different borders into it, each with completely different customs tariffs, rates of duty, permitted goods, import authorisations, etc.

That would be completely impossible to maintain, and result in massive additional costs for businesses around the world.

Let's take a couple of examples.

The pint/pound/food system might be lovely and charming. I once read a letter in the Daily Telegraph about how cakes cook better in imperial measures.

However these things can, and are, used to prevent competition. What better way to stop a super-efficient French butter maker from selling delicious yet cheap butter in the UK than to force him to make a second production line making half pounds of butter rather than 250g blocks?

The French used to force cars to be made with yellow headlamps. So what would a British company making a small number of cars do? Employ a little man with a paintbrush to colour a few hundred headlamps a year or just not bother? The latter would be pretty handy if you were a French car maker.

The trick I guess is to standardise whilst allowing for innovation: standardise what is necessary, leave free what isn't. I think they get the balance about right when it comes to the single market in goods. There needs to be another free market in services set up properly.

Generali

Bantex wrote: »

It does appear the more questions one asks, the less attractive the whole thing sounds.

Still can't get any logical answer as to why the whole adminstration spend millions every month shifting the whole thing from Brussels to Strasbourg. I am truly baffled on this one.

It's rent seeking from the French Government for the people of Strasbourg.

That is the logical answer. The French Government can prevent it from changing so they do. Taxpayers of 27 countries pay so the French pay 1/27th of the cost (yeah whatever) and get 27/27ths of the benefit.