Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

vivatifosi

I'm not anti EU but it could do much more to benefit poorer coffee and cocoa producing nations.

I don't think this is the same with oranges as there are native growers in countries such as Spain. I can see why the EU would want to protect those farmers.

In the case of coffee or cocoa though, can anyone here name any European country where there is a growing community that needs protecting? Once we get past this point, we can see that those being protected are large multinationals, some of whom aren't even from the EU.

Consequently you have huge wealthy players, the likes of Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Nestle and Starbucks being protected against New processors from the developing world. This has led to a bonkers situation where the largest producer of coffee in Europe is that famous coffee producing nation... Germany.

I am having trouble posting links to the device I'm using, but for supporting evidence, please Google EU coffee tariff escalation, I think the report was from the International Coffee Organisation; coffee processing in the EU and German coffee exports.

ETA: those aforementioned global players have a 70% share of the European market:
https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/coffee/competition/

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

cogito wrote: »

Full marks to the EU for this initiative. They support it so enthusiatically that they imported goods to the value of 36 million euros in 2016 from LDCs. 36 million euros!

You just can't help yourself can you? Another blatantly false statement.... All presumably to support an irrational hatred of the EU.

And on that topic... I do wonder why the Brexiteers don't realise that if the organisation they detest were as bad as they think it is, it wouldn't be necessary to make up so many easily disprovable lies about it?

Ah well.

The facts, once again, from the 2016 WTO report....

The EU was the largest export market for LDC's for agricultural products at $5.6 BILLION, and for goods at $29.3 BILLION.

Total LDC exports to the EU were $48 BILLION.

Which is a huge sum for the World's poorest countries.

Source - WTO https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/WT/COMTD/LDCW64.pdf

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

cogito wrote: »

Not for the first time, you're missing the point. Hamish and gfp were making a big thing about the EU's benevolence in not applying tariffs to LDCs when all they are doing is virtue signalling because the numbers are so small as to be meaningless. It's like a billionaire giving a quid to a Big Issue seller.

I'll not ask you to do the decent thing and apologise for all the false statements about the EU you've made in this thread - as I suspect it'd be pointless.

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

Considering that Spain export 1.2 billion euros worth of oranges each year then that is a rather trifling amount. I can't find out in my limited time how many of those oranges go to the eu, but it really does show how much more the eu could do to help the poorer nations.

A drop in the ocean does not describe it.

Except of course the figure quoted by cogito was complete tosh (less than 1% of the actual numbers) and risibly misrepresented the real level of trade.

And the real numbers, see above post, are massive...

With the EU being the biggest export market for both agriculture and goods for the LDC's.

mayonnaise

I don't get why the Leave Ultras need to continue with their non-stop disinformation and fake news.
They 'won' the referendum based on lies and demagoguery, what's the point in continuing?

Thanks for the facts, Hamish.

Filo25

It maybe says something about the Brexit process that the Tory party seems to be drifting closer to civil war arguing over which of 2 proposals to push forward with, ignoring the fact that both have basically already been rejected by the EU.

This is more than halfway through the Article 50 process

kabayiri

mayonnaise wrote: »

I don't get why the Leave Ultras need to continue with their non-stop disinformation and fake news.
They 'won' the referendum based on lies and demagoguery, what's the point in continuing?

Thanks for the facts, Hamish.

It's the politics of division isn't it.

Don't expect Hamish to provide the healing bridge though. He is just as singular minded as any Brexiteer.

StevieJ

I love the way the Brexiteers are the 'champions' of the very poor nations of our world.

kabayiri

StevieJ wrote: »

I love the way the Brexiteers are the 'champions' of the very poor nations of our world.

Why do I have to champion the poor nations in somewhere like Africa?

If they get to sell me more product, they make more money, and can provide better lifestyle for their family.

I think that's ultimately cheaper than 100m+ of them deciding Africa is a busted flush and trying to mass migrate to Europe.

I am championing my own self interest here, not theirs.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

mayonnaise wrote: »

I don't get why the Leave Ultras need to continue with their non-stop disinformation and fake news.
.

Because without it they don't have a leg to stand on and never did.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

kabayiri wrote: »

mass migrate to Europe..

Why are you so obsessed with immigration?

We haven't bred at the replacement rate for 5 decades, not even for a single year, and we don't import enough people even to replace the ones we failed to breed.

We need more immigration - not less - and before you say 'robots' that's nice and all but unemployment is already at 40 year lows and the UK is starved of workers already.

When and if the robots come along at some distant point in the future we can look again at migration then. Until that happens we need more real live human workers today.