I'm not disputing the facts - I hope it's clear that I'm in agreement on that. I'm saying that there are legitimate questions about both the approach of the EU Commission and the fine being asked for in this case. Perhaps more a more concerning question is why more of this items don't appear in the news. Seriously, you should look at the link I gave earlier - it's quite eye opening. (It may be that I just didn't appreciate the scope of the EU Commission - but still...)
General / Off-Topic With friends like Brussels, who needs enemies? EU to fine Greece for saving ship builders
- Thread starter Cosmo
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I'm not disputing the facts - I hope it's clear that I'm in agreement on that. I'm saying that there are legitimate questions about both the approach of the EU Commission and the fine being asked for in this case. Perhaps more a more concerning question is why more of this items don't appear in the news. Seriously, you should look at the link I gave earlier - it's quite eye opening. (It may be that I just didn't appreciate the scope of the EU Commission - but still...)
I disagree that the Remain camps interpretations were "extreme".
Before referendum:
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...brexit-vote-second-quarter-gdp-philip-hammond
After referendum:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ng-after-brexit-vote/articleshow/53336777.cms
And article 50 hasn't even been triggered. If (and it is starting to look extraordinarily unlikely at this point) Theresa May stands on the steps of Downing St and announces that she has just triggered article 50 expect a much more serious economic impact than the one we've already felt.
What the Remain camp did not do was listen to people. They just talked. They told people what would happen, how bad things could get, why the economy is important, and why voting out was madness.
It seems that a large swathe of the population don't actually believe in the economy. To them the economy is some dim and distant concept that makes the suit wearing class of London a lot wealthier without benefiting them. And to some extent they are right. Severe under-investment in education, from school to college to university, has created a generation of people who can't easily exist in todays world. Opportunities for the middle and upper middle classes with masters degrees have never been better, but if you are someone who is a factory worker, or general jobber, or unemployed then at best you're suffering from wage stagnation and at worst you can't find work at all and are called a scrounger.
But it gets worse. We are a high-skill and high-tech economy. Most of our manufacturing is based on producing high quality goods that are complex and difficult to manufacture. We also have that monstrous financial sector. Also bear in mind the nations biggest employer is the NHS, which is visible to everyone and requires extremely skilled and educated people to run it. With the under-investment in British people how to manage this? Import people - immigration.
So for years now Britain has been a land of milk and honey for foreigners looking for a better life. If you're educated, skilled, and speak English (which is taught in most schools around the world) then the UK has been a pretty good destination, and the UK governments have obliged - happy to take in immigrants which pay more taxes and help serve an aging population. Something like 10% of our doctors are immigrants, and I think the number of surgeons and consultants who are immigrants are even higher. Anyone who has had contacts with the upper echelons of universities, business, or engineering will tell you just how difficult it is to avoid the fact there are loads of em'.
So the old working class of Britain watch, in a nation that really gives them nothing, in a country where they feel abandoned, as "bloody foreigners" manage to land here and make their fortunes.
Leave listened to this - "Take your country back!" Leave just lied about the consequences, and made promises it knew to be bogus (if these immigrants are removed the consequences would be devastating - we'd be a third world country). But they did listen. That resonated with the nationalists on the right and the working class on the left.
Without wanting to give offense, I don't think you did appreciate the scope of the EU commission's task. This isn't your fault, the EU commission has been badly misrepresented in the press.
The uk press portray the EU commission as just the 28 commissioners and as some sort of ruling party. The commission is really the civil service and the commissioners the heads of the departments. Investigating and fining governments for breaking state ad rules is exactly the job of the commission.
Think about it logically, a group of countries get together and agree rules banning state aid (or anything else). Who is going to police such an agreement? The countries can't do it themselves, after all if they break the rules they won't punish themselves for it and if they are investigated by another country that would be a recipe for arguments. So an impartial body is needed to run the system, do the day to day work and hand out fines for breaking the rules. That's the commission's job.
The countries might agree together on a common objective (say reduce VAT avoidance across the EU), they don't get involved in the nitty gritty of the exact mechanism to do that. The commission makes a proposal on how to achieve the EU governments aim. This bets kicked back and forth between the council, parliament and the commission until they all agree on it, then it gets approved by the council and parliament and then it becomes law.
A good analogy would be a PA or butler to a rich person. The boas/rich person says to thru butler/PA "I fancy getting into race horse ownership". The butler then looks at the options, decides buying a stud farm is the best option, then goes back and says "I've gt a proposal, it's buying this farm, what do you think?". The boss might then make a few suggestions, the OA ges away makes changes and presents the new plan to the boss who signs off on it.
In that relationship who is in charge? It's clearly the boss, even though the PA is telling the boss what to do the boss has the final say.
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Sorry I meant that, often, when an analysis was produced saying "GDP loss between 1% and 8%, but probably 3% depending on blah blah", more often than not Remain picked the "extreme" end of the prediction and said "GDP loss of 8%" or "GDP loss of up to 8%" rather than "most likely GDP loss of 3%" or similar.
No offense taken - you are clearly right. I understand what the Commission is, I just didn't appreciate the length of it's reach into what I'd previously considered to be the remit of the member states.
You might find this interesting in the context of this thread, and the larger EU one.
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
Just thought I'd add to this that state aid is also prohibited under WTO rules. See the Boeing/Airbus case for example.
It's also a lever to hurt tax evasion; Google in the UK is under investigation for paying low taxes after cutting a deal with HMRC. A deal so low the Commission wants to look at it as a form of state aid. In that case it would be the Big G that gets the fine, not the UK. Or would have been. Ho-hum.
It's also a lever to hurt tax evasion; Google in the UK is under investigation for paying low taxes after cutting a deal with HMRC. A deal so low the Commission wants to look at it as a form of state aid. In that case it would be the Big G that gets the fine, not the UK. Or would have been. Ho-hum.
Greece seems to be the outlier case. Let's not mince words, the people of Greece have suffered for their politicians mismanagement. Greece shouldn't have entered the Euro, the EU shouldn't have let them join and the current situation is not helping Greece.
However, everyone else seems to be doing better. Even Greece looked at leaving and backed away (article 50) is available to the Greeks).
I'm not sure you really understand the EU, your mention "the EU charter" needs revision when there is no such thing (unless you mean the charter of fundamental rights, which would make no sense). The EU is a series of treaties between the countries. They did try to swap the treaties for a constitution but that was rejected so we still have layer upon layer of treaties.
As for it's aims, it has several
- To bring together the peoples of Europe
- To raise living standards and improve working conditions
- To promote growth and boost world trade
- To help the poorer regions of Europe and the rest of the world
- To help maintain peace and freedom
If you think those aims are not the ones we signed up for when we joined "a regional trading block", you are dead wrong. Those aims are a direct quote from the government's 1975 leaflet prior to the referendum.