Originally Posted by Damien (Post 35587009)

I think it's a good thing. We need more countries to join the UK and the Dutch in actively promoting a looser union where we combine for our common interests such as free trade, free movement, defence to an extent and so on and stay apart for the rest.

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35615008)

Yes, and there is some suggestion that the European Commission has been interfering, looking at ways of using the EU's structural fund to pay some or all of that €10 billion. The structural fund comes from the main EU budget, which the UK is a net contributor to. That means, if they do this, the UK will have directly funded a bailout of a Eurozone economy.

That is unacceptable, in my view. We gave bilateral assistance to Ireland because it was clearly in our interest to do so. It is not in our interest to prop up Greece.

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35586947)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23005499



How dare they want to keep control of anything... :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by heero_yuy (Post 35615013)

It's just typical of such a duplicitous organisation. No matter what safeguards we think that we have achieved they always manage to find some way to subvert them. The sooner we get out the better. Then we can teach the Spanish about the fate of the armada again.

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35621478)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24077728

:eeek:

Maybe that's another reason they've been upping the ante re Gibraltar...

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35621481)

Meanwhile, an insider at the ECB claims Silvio Berlusconi seriously floated the idea of Italy leaving the Euro in October and November 2011. By the end of that November, he had been toppled from office and substituted with a Eurocrat placeman.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...s-ecb-insider/

It stinks to high heaven.

---------- Post added at 20:19 ---------- Previous post was at 20:12 ----------



The whole thing is held together with a roll of sellotape and a couple of rubber bands. The German elections are on in a couple of weeks, and it could all begin to unravel very quickly afterwards.

Whoever is Chancellor is going to have to tell German taxpayers and savers that they are all on the hook for loan guarantees to Greece and elsewhere. Merkel has been doing her damnedest to avoid spelling this out prior to the election, unsurprisingly, because she agreed to it but doesn't want to suffer the likely electoral consequences.

Originally Posted by ntluser (Post 35621483)

If Germany pull out it seems likely that the Eurozone will collapse with all the consequences which that entails.

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35621481)

Meanwhile, an insider at the ECB claims Silvio Berlusconi seriously floated the idea of Italy leaving the Euro in October and November 2011. By the end of that November, he had been toppled from office and substituted with a Eurocrat placeman.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...s-ecb-insider/

It stinks to high heaven.

---------- Post added at 20:19 ---------- Previous post was at 20:12 ----------



The whole thing is held together with a roll of sellotape and a couple of rubber bands. The German elections are on in a couple of weeks, and it could all begin to unravel very quickly afterwards.

Whoever is Chancellor is going to have to tell German taxpayers and savers that they are all on the hook for loan guarantees to Greece and elsewhere. Merkel has been doing her damnedest to avoid spelling this out prior to the election, unsurprisingly, because she agreed to it but doesn't want to suffer the likely electoral consequences.