They both seem to do quite well even not being in EU. They probably have got best of both worlds i.e. having all advantages of as if being in EU yet not dictated by EU politicians.
But why they decided against being in EU?
Last edited by: movilogo on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 09:14
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Shouldn't this be in the Non Motoring section?
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My mistake - didn't notice I was in wrong forum! Hope mods will move it soon. Apologies.
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There will be plenty of discussion about this movilogo.Or not.>:)
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The Swiss don't do anything with a huge referendum where the people get lots of time to think the issue through in detail, and if they say no, the politicians accept that answer first time.
In other words, the Swiss are either very wise (enjoying a genuine democracy) or they suffer from inertia because of general political interference from ordinary people who think they know what they want, but may not have a clue. You decide...
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...Why Norway & Switzerland are not in EU?...
Because they have more sense than we have.
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Switzerland wouldn't get involved at any stage because of their neutrality. Norway I think negotiated entry at same time as UK but voted it down in a referendum.
Economically Norway is a very different place to the UK; fishing and agriculture may have made the Common Market a very different deal to them. Also perhaps a lack of wish to ally with Germany when the war was still a recent memory.
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Up the creek without a paddle are they?...didn't think so.
Referenda correctly counted and taken notice of, politicians listening to their electors, amazing.
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>> Economically Norway is a very different place to the UK; fishing and agriculture may have
>> made the Common Market a very different deal to them. Also perhaps a lack of
>> wish to ally with Germany when the war was still a recent memory.
>>
Economically, there's a small matter of North Sea Oils and gas: the revenues from which have been saved for the future...
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Lunchtime research suggests Switzeralnd has actually applied to join the EU but matter has not progressed, in part due to opposing referenda. Been part of Schengen since the mid noughties though. Their border with France around Gex/Geneva is certainly pretty easily crossed and re-crossed on minor roads. The major frontier by Cointrin airport still seemed occupied when we were last there. Controls much more evident than at the Franco Belgian border after Dunkerque or the Rhine borders with Germany.
Norway has actually applied twice in '72 and much more recently as well. On both occasions the required referendum was against though only by very narrow majorities.
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I was working in Switzerland when they had one of the referenda on the EU - this was the "bilateral agreements" one. In effect, a limited trade membership. It was noticeable that EU support was good in French and Italian-speaking cantons, but significantly poorer in cantons that spoke Swiss German. The EU is a hugely divisive issue which unfortunately emphasises the linguistic divide in Switzerland.
The EU is just as divisive an issue here in the UK, of course. The problem is that we are too American to fit in easily with Europe, and too European to fit in easily with America. But we can't stay "independent" - that's an illusion in the modern world.
We SHOULD be joining in fully with Europe, but we have never felt comfortable with that role. Can you blame us? Yes, the UK is lukewarm on Europe, but the EU could do a d--d sight more to make the UK feel more welcome than it does. (and surprisingly for some people the main villain of the piece is not Germany but France).
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(and surprisingly for some people the main villain of the piece is not
>> Germany but France).
>>
DeGaulle lives on, if only.
''the Dutch felt cheated regarding the Euro, prices went up and wages didn't.I can't see us getting a referendum in the UK to many people might vote agains it.Just my opinion and a gut feeling''
Spot on Dutchie.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 15:35
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Switzerland interesting country I believe the cost of living is sky high.Also neutrality helps and plenty of money stacked away by people who don't pay taxes.
Isn't Norway full of gas for export to us?The referendum was fiddled in Ireland people voted against joining.The German people might be getting fed up of paying up.First they had to pay for East Germany to bring them up to scratch took about ten years.Now problems in Greece maybe Portugal next.Spain doesn't look that healthy.So many points to discuss,the Dutch felt cheated regarding the Euro, prices went up and wages didn't.I can't see us getting a referendum in the UK to many people might vote agains it.Just my opinion and a gut feeling.
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I read an interesting column in the Guardian the other day, highly critical of the EU - it was pretty strong stuff for such a lefty paper, far more worthy of note than anything in the Mail etc. When the Guardian starts taking shots at the EU, you know it cant be good.
To answer the original question - because they decided through their own processes not to.
It seems history will mark them down as 'right decision in hindsight', I dont think they are anti-EU as such.
I think the Germans are only pro-EU because they know darned well they are steering the ship but they arent stupid and if it looks like it cant be saved, they will bail out long before the French id guess.
Just found the column if anyone is interested.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/15/europe-national-identity-debt-crisis
Last edited by: FoR on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 16:10
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I don't think it represents any fundamental change of heart Stu.
The Guardian pay Simon Jenkins to write stuff they know will rile a good proportion of their readership. It's what makes the paper a good read compared to say the Mail or Telegraph which for the most part just pander to their subscriber's predjudices.
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I felt a vague unease when surrounded (metaphorically) by Germans, during our recent trip to Germany.
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>> Why?
I'm not really sure, but my wife felt the same.
Perhaps it is due to wartime memories, particularly for her, as she lost her favourite uncle in the conflict.
I have not had the same feeling in France or Spain and yet these countries have a history of enmity to England going back many years and for longer conflicts!
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>> I don't think it represents any fundamental change of heart Stu.
>>
>> The Guardian pay Simon Jenkins to write stuff they know will rile a good proportion
>> of their readership. It's what makes the paper a good read compared to say the
>> Mail or Telegraph which for the most part just pander to their subscriber's predjudices.
>>
Hmm
We had this argument about a Telgraph writer... which you appear to have forgotten.. Mary Riddell. She's a fervent Labourite.
But her inclusion would spoil your prejudices:-)
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Upsetting the reader is not generally considered good editorial policy, you want him or her to say: 'What's in my paper's spot-on', not: "It's full of garbage.'
I quibble with the use of the word 'rile'.
The art of a good polemical columnist is to spark interest and debate, without riling the reader.
Doing one or the other is easy.
Doing one but not the other is much harder.
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>> Switzerland wouldn't get involved at any stage because of their neutrality. Norway I think negotiated
>> entry at same time as UK but voted it down in a referendum.
>>
At least they got a vote. Must be a democracy they have there then. How nice!
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>> At least they got a vote. Must be a democracy they have there then. How
>> nice!
We had one too, circa 1975. Wilson and Heath were both urging us to vote Yes but neither whipped their party so you had Enoch Powell and Barbara Castle both arguing for the No camp.
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>> >> At least they got a vote. Must be a democracy they have there then.
>> How nice!
>>
>> We had one too, circa 1975. Wilson and Heath were both urging us to vote
>> Yes but neither whipped their party so you had Enoch Powell and Barbara Castle both
>> arguing for the No camp.
>>
We did NOT have a vote about joining.
We joined in Jan 1973.
We had a referendum about staying in, or coming out... that was June 1975.
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The question that was actually asked was:
DO YOU THINK THE UNITED KINGDOM SHOULD STAY IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (THE COMMON MARKET)?
The result was that 67.5 % of votes were in favour of staying in.
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I used to think that we should never have gone in. Meanwhile in the real world of increasing globalization and the emergence of China we've got no choice. There's no doubt that we should opt out of more stuff e.g. nonsense rules around motorcycling. When discussing the EU people forget about such organizations as EFTA and EEA - Switzerland and Norway are most certainly members of the former and is an almost halfway house to the EU.
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Its strange we are in the E.U. but we have our own currency not part of the Euro.But the Euro is about the same value as pound sterling.THe British governements pretend that we are different from mainland Europe,but orders come from Europe.Our interest rate is controlled by a banker so is he the real boss?When a country like Ireland makes a mess of running their country we have to bail them out.That means less hospitals healthcare for us or create employement for our youth who can't find work.But we rely on foreign companys to create work here.What do we have these politicians for? Beats me.;)
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>> in the real
>> world of increasing globalization
>>
The phrase trips off everybody's tongue, but I don't think it is true.
The world, at least as affecting Britain, has always been globalised. We have never been self-sufficient except by trading with the world, and we have always been dependent on skilled or hard-working immigrants, from Flemish weavers, Jewish bankers and traders, Hugenouts, Irish labourers, Eastern European Jews, West Indians, Ugandan Asians, Poles, etc.
Our economy used to be dependent on exporting wool to Europe. Then it was cotton goods to India. Then we suffered from the growth of a native Indian industry. We drove the industrial revolution with exports to the world. We imported vast quantities of food from Canada, Australia, South America.
Economic changes and conditions all over the world have always affected us.
We don't need to belong to any economic grouping, just trade freely with anyone. We just need to produce things that people want.
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>> We just need to produce things that people want.
>>
. . . or alternatively persuade the rest of the world that they want what we actually CAN produce.
What are the chances of convincing them that they desperately need more Chavs, I wonder?
Last edited by: Londoner on Tue 20 Sep 11 at 09:04
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14982076
An example of one of our niche products successfully exported to France.
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 20 Sep 11 at 09:55
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Until UKIP and other anti EU parties tell me what we will lose by leaving the EU - and failry honestly - I don't believe a word they say.
One sided arguments are for the naive and gullible. And leaving the EU will have some significant costs . Since these are never discussed, I have to assume they are major.
Anyone who trusts UKIP and takes what they say at face value is like anyone who believes that Tony Blair was an honest and truthful politician..
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Is it just me or do all UKIP politicians seem a little odd ? I have Goldsmith's famous video in my video box - he came across as very strange, very odd staring eyes, maybe I've been hypnotized.
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I think you will find many people in politics a bit weird, on all sides. It does seem to in the main attract the 'uglies', although there are some pretty people here and there.
I dont trust any party these days, none of the main parties seem to have any core values anymore and UKIP, well, I think they will do well off the crisis with the Euro, but they need some legit big Tory right-wing names to jump across to give them some legitimacy as at the moment, I dont feel inspired by them.
Id vote for whoever David Davis wants to lead thats for sure.
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>> I dont trust any party these days, none of the main parties seem to have
>> any core values anymore
Nor any individuality, a three headed serpent, i haven't voted for either of the three for more years than i can remember, their dishonour and dishonesty makes it likely i shall never do so again.
I think UKIP is basically a home for Conservative voters who no longer have a party to vote for, if it should get close to power then the old school Tory's will jump ship without the slightest hesitation.
UK out of EU?, doubt the UKIP gravy boat crew would really want that, kerching.
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...doubt the UKIP gravy boat crew would really want that, kerching...
UKIP published policy is: "Withdraw from the political EU Superstate, and maintain a trade-based relationship with our European neighbours using a Swiss-style free trade agreement as the EU’s largest single trading partner. This is the deal the British people signed up to in the 1970s. We do not want or need to become a province in a European Superstate but instead want friendly and mutually beneficial trade and cultural cooperation with our EU neighbours."
Makes sense to me.
www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies/1536-foreign-affairs-and-international-trade-ukip-policy
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>>
>> Makes sense to me.
>>
Well of course it makes sense if you are German or French and wish to remove the British domination of the European financial system.. (including trading of the Euro!)..
Since teh UK financial sector contributes some 15- 20% of all UK tax revenues, a move outside the EU would be a disaster for the UK and a tremendous boost for the French and German financial services sector..
Funny how UKIP don't mention that. (Farage should know all about it given his background as a trader)..
I am being perfectly serious when I say that the short term impact would likely be a recution of UK GDP by some 4-8% in the first 5 years...
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This discussion is getting very technical.I often wonder when I look at the television and Economist talk about the financial systems how few people do understand what is going on.Myself included.
No matter where you live in the world we all want a roof over our head,food to live decent healtcare and a stable society.Farage reminds me of Wilders except Farage doesn't play the race card.The Germans could go it alone, they have done it before.Better not.
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>> Well of course it makes sense if you are German or French and wish to
>> remove the British domination of the European financial system.. (including trading of the Euro!)..
Which is something that the French and Germans are seeking to do anyway, using EU rules as leverage.
e.g. The Guardian(Hardly a bastion of euroscepticism), Wednesday 14 September 2011
"UK takes ECB to court to save City's euro trading
Action to counter plan by ECB to force clearing houses to move into eurozone"
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What ive read many times is how the EU is some kind of project to stop another european war. Really?
I dont see how, given that previous european wars have involved landgrabs, giving more powers to a foreign ruler, who then can exercise control over a foreign land, isnt pretty much what Hitler was aiming for, just by a different method.
I bet if you told all those brave people who fought in WW1/2 that by 2015, we would have voluntarily given away power over our own affairs, powers that they fought to defend, well I shouldnt think they would be all that elated. Its just surrender by another name.
I also somewhat doubt that even if every country was separate, anyone would be waging war on anyone, I dont think european countries have much appetite for fighting eachother these days.
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>> What ive read many times is how the EU is some kind of project to
>> stop another european war. Really?
I'm absolutely certain that a desire to avoid a third world war was a major factor in public support for the common market.
Whatever the catalysts, had it stopped there it might have been OK.
Unfortunately we now have the eurozone. The reality is that you can't have monetary union without political union, and the attendant loss of countries' rights to self determination. The US has made this work, with a federal structure that facilitates the transfer of wealth from the more productive states to the less productive ones.
The European version of this is that for the eurozone to survive, it must ultimately become a federation of states like the US, with Germany, larger and much more productive economically, subsidising the rest (and as a corollary to that, calling the shots).
Delors was cool on expanding Europe until it became clear that the CEE countries were lining up after the wall came down, whereupon he was much warmer towards Norway and Switzerland joining, to share the burden of supporting their comparatively feeble economies.
We are well out of the Euro. Unfortunately that means we are neither in nor out of the club, and I am in absolutely no doubt that we would be better out. The EU is decadent, corrupt, excessively bureaucratic and horribly inefficient.
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 20 Sep 11 at 21:17
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>> What ive read many times is how the EU is some kind of project to
>> stop another european war. Really?
>>
>>
>>
>>
Bit of luck then that we never went to war with the USSR, considering they weren't in the EU.
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Spot the changes:
Wars every 20 years or so 19th century
1803–1815 Napoleonic Wars
1828-1829 Russo-Turkish War
1854–1856 Crimean War
1866 Austro-Prussian War
1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War
1877–1878 Russo–Turkish War
1897 Greco–Turkish War
Wars every 20 years or so first half 20th century
1911-1912 Italo-Turkish War
1914-18 WW1
1918 Polish-Czech war for Teschen Silesia
1918–1919 Polish-Ukrainian War
1919-1922 Greco-Turkish War
1919–1920 Czechoslovakia-Hungary War
1919–1921 Polish-Soviet War
1919–1921 Anglo-Irish War
1920 Polish-Lithuanian War
1939 Slovak-Hungarian War
1939–1945 World War II
1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
Big gap...
(Excludes all civil war)
Last edited by: madf on Wed 21 Sep 11 at 09:42
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>> 1939–1945 World War II
>>
>> 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
>>
>> Big gap...
>>
>> (Excludes all civil war)
>>
Haven't you forgotten;
1960's The Vietnam War
1982 Falklands War
1990 1st Gulf war
I'm sure there's others.....
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He's talking European wars
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>> He's talking European wars
>>
Like the Russian invasion of East Germany, or Hungary, or Poland, or those --stan ending countries whose names I get muddled up.
It all depends how you define Europe. In practice we have defined Europe as the bits that haven't been to war recently. ie those eligible to join the EU.
That's exactly how we defined Europe between the wars. In 1919 we were keen to welcome Bohemia into the European family of nations. Then in 1938 it suddenly became a distant country of which we knew little, how absurd to be digging trenches and trying on gas masks over.
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>> He's talking European wars
>>
Some in that list are pushing European boundary's a bit then.....
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>> >> He's talking European wars
>> >>
>> Some in that list are pushing European boundary's a bit then.....
>>
?
Name them...Strangely enough geographically they are all part of Europe.
(I blame the education system)
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>> >> >> He's talking European wars
>> >> >> Some in that list are pushing European boundary's a bit then.....
>> ?
>> Name them...Strangely enough geographically they are all part of Europe.
>>
>> (I blame the education system)
>>
Since when was Russia in Europe?
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>> Since when was Russia in Europe?
>>
Well, I suppose you could say since time began, or certainly since Europe 'began'.
Russia is part in Europe and part in Asia.
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Boundary between European and Asian Russia is now normally considered to be the crest of the Caucasus mountains
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I agree there appears to be a correlation between EU membership and not going to war.
But aren't two of the criteria for membership that there should be a stable government and peaceful conditions? So if Greece and Turkey had been at war, neither would have been admitted to the EU.
Or if Poland and Czech rep were still quarelling, they wouldn't have been admitted.
So isn't it a circular self-fulfilling argument?
Of course you can never prove that it was the EU that has prevented Germany from launching an attack on France to recover Alsace-Lorraine. It might have been the Coal Federation that stopped them. Or mutual fear of communism. Or some other reason.
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>> Of course you can never prove that it was the EU that has prevented Germany
>> from launching an attack on France to recover Alsace-Lorraine. It might have been the Coal
>> Federation that stopped them. Or mutual fear of communism. Or some other reason.
Of course.
But the argument was whether the EU was created to prevent more European wars.. On the basis of its members' recent history it has achieved that objective..
(I suspect after two World Wars exhaustion has set in. )
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Sorry madf, I don't accept your implication that the EU prevented any wars in Europe.
"EU formed, therefore no wars" is a case of the classic "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.
From my studies, I think it far more likely that the desire to avoid wars came first, which then expresed itself in the formation of ECSC/EEC/EU.
I say this as someone who is quite relaxed about a united Europe, BTW, provided that the EU is dramtically reformed.
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>>
>> From my studies, I think it far more likely that the desire to avoid wars
>> came first, which then expresed itself in the formation of ECSC/EEC/EU.
>>
Exactly. "Europe" is a flexible concept, expanded or contracted over history as required to include precisely those nations who, at the time, aren't going to go to war.
After the Napoleonic wars, the unity of Europe included virtually everyone, especially the Russians. Then it shrank, expanded again in the new euphoria about self-determination after 1918, hastily contracted in 1938 in the interests of appeasement, and now is busy expanding eastwards again.
It's probably going to contract again, and then there will be more wars. But not within any remaining EU bit, because by definition there aren't any. :)
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Why Norway & Switzerland are not in EU? - Dutchie
